LightRock addresses the diesel fuel budget:

In the current economic environment and with diesel fuel prices in the $5.00/gal range (a 67% increase in 12 months), can fire and rescue departments continue to afford to do business as usual?

According to a June 18th article in the Wall Street Journal Online HERE, it appears that the answer is “No”.  Here are a few questions worth pondering:

• In fire departments that have embraced the “paramedic engine” concept, might we see a move away from sending full size fire engines with large block diesel engines to a more fuel efficient response platform like an SUV, pickup truck or light duty rescue vehicle? Coincidentally, such vehicles would likely be faster and more maneuverable, especially in more urban areas. Some trial programs using this concept are already being tried in a few departments.
• Are other response protocols going to be looked at with a view towards taming them down somewhat? I know…we “need” the massive first alarm response that many departments send on reported “structure fires” but, at the same time, I think it is fair to say that in many areas the definition of a reported structure fire has become pretty broad. What would just a little dose of better call screening do to reduce some responses, saving fuel as well as limiting liability and enhancing unit availability for other calls? 
• At the scene, we idle a lot. When an apparatus isn’t pumping, might there be better and more fuel efficient ways to “run the lights” than with the same big diesel engine that propels the truck and the pump? The analogy that comes to mind is that of the airliner. While sitting at a gate or on a tarmac, the air conditioning, lights and other basics needed on the ground are powered by an APU (auxiliary power unit) and not the jet engines. I can tell you from recent personal experience that this is already a question that is being asked. 

This video report from KVBC in Las Vegas last month covers the impact on the Clark County and Las Vegas fire departments:

Professor FossilMedic prepares an important lesson:  

THE IMPACT OF PERSONAL LIABILITY ON FIREFIGHTER SAFETY: 55 MILLION REASONS TO PROMOTE FIREFIGHTER SAFETY

As we approach Safety Week, I want to share a story on why personnel accountability systems were quickly implemented by many city fire departments in the late 1990s. I am using these examples not to belittle the fire department or bring pain to the survivors, but explain the circumstances that lead to a landmark judicial decision that may be repeated in your community.

A PATTERN OF UNACCOUNTABILITY

Seattle lost six firefighters from 1987 through 1995. The resulting fines from the Washington Department of Labor and Industries were to motivation Seattle to implement a firefighter accountability system. The issue was that excessive time elapsed before the incident commander was aware that there was a firefighter in trouble.

Firefighter Robert Earhart, Engine 10, was operating in the abandoned Crest Hotel on July 12, 1987. Transients squat in the Crest. Heavy fire on the lower floors and smoke filled the hotel. Earhart was found unconscious. He had gone to the top floor to open walls and check for extension. Cause of death was smoke inhalation.

Another arson killed Engine 20 Lieutenant Matt Johnson. A shed was torched adjoining the main building of the Blackstock Lumber Company. The first alarm was sounded at 9:21 pm on September 9, 1989. An accelerant quickly spread the fire into the main building, resulting in a fourth-alarm. Lieutenant Johnson and Firefighter Bill Meredith are caught in a flashover while operating an attack line in the main building. The flashover disabled the portable radio. Meredith stumbled outside of the building. Critically injured, he was unable to explain the inside conditions or location of Lieutenant Johnson. Lieutenant Johnson would not be found until hours after the fire was placed under control.

The Washington State Department of Labor and Industry found the Seattle Fire Department negligent in SCBA training and tracking of fire crews at large scale operations. As part of the corrective action, the fire department purchased PASS devices, adopted an incident command system as well as a passport-style accountability system. Lieutenant Johnson’s family sued the city for negligence.

A HEAVY-HANDED CITY ATTEMPT TO LIMIT LIABILITY

While the Johnson lawsuit was progressing through the system, city attorney Mark Sidran successfully attaches a rider to an unrelated bill that strips firefighters and police officers hired after 1977 of their right to sue for negligence. That rider became a state law in 1993. A Court of Appeals ruling in 1999 overturned the law. Before the law was overturned, another judge would make a ruling in the third line-of-duty death fire.

Seattle handled two major fires on September 17, 1994. In the first, SFD found construction materials and debris burning on the top of a seven-story building. That fire was handled by a first alarm along with two additional engines, two additional ladder companies and the fireboat. One half hour later, units responded to a third floor apartment fire. It took a fourth alarm assignment to control the apartment fire. The state Labor and Industry received an anonymous complaint that the firefighter tracking system was not activated at the apartment fire until three hours into the event.

THE MARY PANG TRAGEDY

The worst was the Mary Pang Food Products fire that started January 5, 1995 at 7:03 pm. This block long frozen food plant and warehouse was another arson fire. After heavy streams darkened down the first floor, fire crews entered the structure. The basement was continuing to burn and destroyed a floor support beam. Lieutenants Walter Kilgore and Greg Shoemaker; Firefighters James Brown and Randall Terlicker fell into the basement when the floor collapsed. It took a fifth alarm assignment ten hours to place the fire under control. Firefighter Terlicker was the last firefighter removed shortly before seven pm, two days after he responded to the alarm.

Another investigation by Labor and Industry resulted in another hefty fine. The widows and estates of the Mary Pang firefighters wanted to sue the city for negligence. You need to get permission from the court to sue the city or individual city employees. In general, fire officers are protected from such individual lawsuits due to the concept of sovereign immunity.

The judge looked at three factors:

1) This was the third fire in eight years where a firefighter died.

2) The multiple citations and fines assessed by the Washington State Department of Labor and Industry

3) The creation of an administrative law prohibiting police officers and firefighters from suing the city for negligence. While later overturned, this law was still in effect at the time of the sovereign immunity hearing.

JUDGE REMOVES SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY AND ALLOWS SFD OFFICERS TO BE SUED

Not only did the judge allow the city to be sued for negligence, the way was cleared to allow the individual fire department officers and administrators to be personally sued. Seattle Training Deputy Chief Stewart Rose said that fire officers were served with a total of $55 million in negligence lawsuits. As this information was spread, many metro-sized fire departments made establishing a firefighter accountability program a high priority.

WHY TALK ABOUT IT NOW?

Last week a Texas appeals court made a similar ruling that affects former administrators from Texas A&M University in the aftermath of a collapse of a 59 foot tall stack of logs that were to be used at the College Station campus as part of a long-standing homecoming bonfire ritual. Twelve students were killed and 27 were injured in the November 1999 incident.

There appears to be a trend of the courts removing sovereign immunity to those who have a supervisory role in activities that are clearly hazardous to subordinates. A quote in the Chronicles of Higher Education article got my attention: “Darrell Keith, a Fort Worth lawyer who represents some of the plaintiffs in the Texas A&M case, said the defendant administrators were acting in their personal capacities when they loosely oversaw the bonfire construction.” Maybe it is time for company officers to stop the response of a rig until everyone is seated and belted.

FossilMedic explains how:

MAYBE IT IS ROCKET SCIENCE

Last week both the uniformed and civilian head of the Air Force were fired. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated:

During the course of the investigation, other issues indicating a decline in the Air Force’s nuclear mission focus and performance became apparent. Rather than an isolated occurrence, the shipment of the four forward-section assemblies to Taiwan was a symptom of a degradation of the authority, standards of excellence and technical competence within the nation’s ICBM force. Similar to the bomber-specific August 2007 Minot-Barksdale nuclear weapons transfer incident, this incident took place within the larger environment of declining Air Force nuclear mission focus and performance…Years ago the career path for Air Force personnel in the nuclear field was well established and prestigious. However, the overall mission focus of the Air Force has shifted away from this nuclear mission, making it difficult to retain sufficient expertise.  

Noah Shachtman, writing “Bosses Nuked, Some Air Force Missileers Cheer” for Wired magazine describes the battle over the nuclear mission when the Strategic Air Command was disbanded in 1992. http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/06/defense-secreta.html 

From his article:

ICBM specialists used to spend their entire careers doing nuclear work.  But under Space Command, officers had to start branching out — operating satellites, rather than prepping for an atomic strike. They had to take classes on space warfare, instead of nuclear maintenance. “For the past 15 years or so, the Air Force has not been growing nuclear experts… We’ve lost an entire generation of officers.”In 2005, Space Command chief General Lance Lord “punctuated all that nonsense by getting rid of the ICBM badge.” Everyone under his command was supposed to wear Star Trek-esque “Space Wings” instead. [rip badge] That may seem like a minor deal to civilians. For missileers, it was a huge blow to their pride; they took it as a sign that they were now second-class citizens — their heritage gone, their unique training, ignored. “Ever since Space Command took over nukes, they’ve watered down the natural progression of a nuclear officer with Space nonsense.”

If you replace ICBM with firefighting, this conversation is going on in many firehouse kitchens. One of the most contentious items in the Washington DC EMS Task Force items was to eliminate the DCFD title from the fire apparatus, buildings and uniforms in order to show that the fire department is involved in emergency medical services. DCFEMS does not have the same impact.

Many firefighters complain that the impact of EMS, customer service, technical rescue and other non-firefighting tasks erode the ability to develop, prepare and deliver righteous firefighting. Former Fire Engineering editor Bill Manning took a lot of heat for his February 1997 opinion “The More Things Change” when pointing out:

Is there a fire department out there that hasn`t jumped through the EMS hoops for city managers? When they said, “Diversify!” the fire service said, “Thanks for asking–we can`t wait to do something other than fire prevention and protection!” You know there were some old-timers out there chuckling over fire departments falling over themselves in the great rush to be “progressive” and “responsive to the community.” I have nothing against emergency medical services–really, I think every community should have them–but some fire departments may have been better off placing a few more firefighters in the field and on the rigs to prevent and extinguish fires before purchasing ambulances. I hope I`m wrong, but it nags at me that a plunge toward diversification is silent approbation of our yearly fire loss statistics, which, may I remind you, are as yet nothing to brag to the world about.

Eleven years later, as we look at the impact of an economic recession on fire department budgets, it is hard to see how to keep focused on the fire suppression mission. The Air Force Chief of Staff officially approved the reinstatement of the missile badge as one of his last official acts.

LightRock takes a look at the latest report:

In Saturday’s Ocala Star-Banner, an article by Rick Cundiff  (HERE)  provides details of the fire apparatus manufacturer’s current financial health. Previous to parent company Federal Signal’s most recent SEC filings, E-One’s financials had not been reported on a “stand alone” basis, instead being buried within the results of Federal’s Fire Rescue Group, which also includes Bronto Skylift.

In the most recent filing, Federal considers E-One to be a “discontinued operation” which means that E-One’s performance will no longer be included in reports of the parent company’s financial results. As a part of restating  their results for the last year — and showing E-One’s performance absent the “cover” provided by Bronto —  Federal Signal reported that E-One lost nearly $25 million on sales of less than $218 million.

Many fire apparatus industry observers were taken aback by both the size of the loss (especially on a percentage basis) and by how low the overall sales numbers of E-One have become. Federal Signal has had E-One on the block for sale for some time. However, despite talk about an imminent sale, nothing has materialized thus far.At this juncture, it is worth noting that in the past there been other distressed fire apparatus manufacturers – Grumman is one example – that simply closed their doors after a buyer couldn’t be found. With the kind of results that have now been publicly reported, it is worth considering that a similar fate could befall E-One.

Besides the bad news on the financial front, E-One has lost many of their top dealers to competitors. Being considered a “discontinued operation” by your current owners can’t be confidence inspiring for the remaining dealers or E-One’s employees. Any potential buyer would have to dig the company out of a pretty deep hole. Keep in mind that on $218 million in sales, to get from where they are now to let’s say 5% profitability, is an over $35 million swing. Not easy given the current state of the overall economy and the competitive landscape in the fire apparatus industry.

AUTHOR KURT KAMM’s LATEST BOOK One Foot in the Black is the story about a 19-yr.-old son of a firefighter who goes west to become a seasonal forestry firefighter while conflicted with family problems.

It’s not a murder mystery, but a social drama wrapped into an inside look at wildfirefighting.

While doing research for his next novel, Red Flag Warning, he is taking his extensive research from both books and presenting periodic postings on the technical work and psychological motives of both the firefighters and the arsonists.

I found them interesting and I thought you would like to give Kurt’s blog a look.  You can find it HERE and from that page you can click on the menu bar items for some other related topics.

FossilMedic tells us about:

 THE SEATTLE SECRET

Two years ago the National Institutes of Health joined other agencies to fund a $50 million Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC) that established ten research centers. The goal of the two-to-three year study is to oversee innovational clinical trials to determine the effectiveness of selected life-saving interventions. http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/utsw/cda/dept37389/files/303192.html

ROC planned to enroll 15,000 cardiac arrest and 5,000 major trauma patients. At last week’s Society for Academic Emergency Medicine [ http://www.saem.org ] annual meeting some of the findings were shared in the presentation Bringing Back the Dead: From Down-Time to Doctor, What We Think We Know About Resuscitation, and What We Don’t Know That’s Killing Our Patients.

HEY, THEY ARE DOING BETTER THAN US

Some of the clinical interventions used equipment that measured the real-time activities during a cardiac arrest scenario, showing when ventilations, chest compressions and defibrillation occurred. One of the principal investigators (PI) noted that Seattle had some of the best spontaneous return of circulation rates within the study.

Looking at the data recorded during the resuscitation indicated that certain tasks were done in a different order in Seattle than in the PI’s hometown urban ems service. To get a better perspective, the PI rode with the paramedics in Seattle.

TEN MINUTES OF UNINTERRUPTED CHEST COMPRESSIONS

When the two Seattle Medic 1 paramedics arrive, the first medic immediately starts chest compressions at the rate of 120 compressions per minute. The second medic sets up the bag-valve-mask, defibrillator and starts the IV line. Intubation is not even considered until after ten minutes of compression are delivered.

The PI compared that procedure to his hometown urban paramedics, who traditionally place intubation as an initial clinical task. The recordings showed that while the paramedics were ventilating the patient with a bag-valve-mask while setting up the tube, no chest compressions were going on.

The cardiac arrest patient would have no chest compressions performed until six to ten minutes after the arrival of the paramedics. This was demonstrated in thousands of patients enrolled in the ROC study. The patients that received immediate chest compressions had a higher survival rate than those who were intubated first.

The PI, who has a day job as a medical director for an urban EMS agency, implemented the Seattle procedure based on his research. He has already documented an improvement in cardiac arrest patients in his hometown.

HUMAN SUBJECT RESEARCH WILL CHANGE CPR, ACLS

Prior to 2005, all of the peer-reviewed research on resuscitation were based on animal research or retrospective (looking back) data. The ROC study is the start of the next generation of resuscitation research that looks at the human response to techniques, treatments and protocols. The 2005 American Heart Association CPR and ACLS protocols were the first to benefit from human clinical outcomes … such as the push fast and deep for chest compressions.

By the time researchers have processed all of the information generated by the ROC consortium, we may be using significantly different protocols that emphasize uninterrupted chest compressions – even WHILE defibrillating the patient. Basic life support will see a higher emphasis in the 2010 AHA standards.

FossilMedic talks textbooks: 

FIRE SCIENCE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME, AND IT IS ED KAPLAN’S FAULT: FESHE @ 10

Ninety years ago the American and United Kingdom fire services took a different path in professional development. The UK took the university engineering path, through the Institute of Fire Engineers (IFE) http://www.ife-usa.org/ . We took the vocational training path.

Chief Engineer Ralph J. Scott of the Los Angeles Fire Department is considered one of the fathers of fire fighter certification training, creating a fire college in 1925. He had the LAFD training staff research and document every task that a fire fighter might be required to perform. The list of almost 2000 entries evolved into a document that became known as The Trade Analysis of Fire Fighting. While functioning as president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs in 1928, Scott convinced the U.S. Department of Vocational Education to accept this list as an official definition of fire fighter tasks.

The First Wingspread Conference on Fire Service Administration, Education and Research was held in 1966. This group of fire service leaders agreed that fire officers needed a broad knowledge base. They proposed an educational program that became the blueprint for the development of community college fire science and fire administration programs. This education process built on Chief Scott’s work by progressing from training into education.

Like many initiatives, this one stumbled along. For example, the bachelor fire administration Degree at a Distance program suffered from inconsistent and puny support and, like the National Fire Academy, had brushes with governmental extinction in the 1980s and 1990s. Ed Kaplan, an Education Specialist at the National Fire Academy, kept the program going through creative funding and bureaucratic creativity. Kaplan is an advocate for fire service higher education.

A 1997 snapshot would show that most of the chief officers from the United Kingdom with graduate degrees in engineering and hard sciences. Few of the United States chief officers had graduate degrees, the majority were somewhere between an associate degree and a bachelor degree.

FIRE EMERGENCY SERVICE HIGHER EDUCATION SUMMIT

Ten years ago the community college fire science programs were shrinking, in part because of paltry educational resources. This created another challenge for the bachelor Degrees at a Distance program, which was celebrating its 20th birthday. The bachelor degree completion program is built to serve community college fire science graduates.

Kaplan organized the first Fire and Emergency Services Higher Education Summit. He invited interested faculty from fire-based associate and bachelor degree programs to work with fire service stakeholders in order to update the fire-based curricula that was established at the 1966 Wingspread Conference.

Working as a conduit, NFA provides an annual meeting at the Emmitsburg, Maryland, campus where interested academic and fire service members donated their time and talent to develop a model fire-based associate and bachelor curricula. The attendees develop course descriptions and teaching outlines that are appropriate for easy adoption by academic institutions.

During the 2002 conference, Kaplan arranged a roundtable with the fire science textbook publishers. By Academic Year 2007 - 2008 all of the model fire science courses have two or more textbooks that meet the FESHE curricula. This is a significant achievement and exceeds the results from the 1966 conference and the related development of college-level fire science textbooks published in the early 1970s.

HERDING SMART CATS

Kaplan’s skill in matching people with interests - with encouragement and some nudging - resulted in committee work products and professional relationships that have significantly moved the fire science academic world forward. The members donate their time and the process is transparent.

ACADEMIC CREDIT FOR VOCATIONAL TRAINING

One of the most significant results is the work with the American Council on Education to obtain academic credit for technical and vocational training. http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=CCRS

Most courses run by the National Fire Academy have achieved ACE recommendations for academic credit. So does training from a dozen other institutions. Virginia was the first state to make a seamless firefighter through fire officer career development program that combined the vocational training of the Department of Fire Programs and the Virginia Community College System fire science courses.

Frederick Community College (Maryland) provides a method to obtain academic credit for online self-study EMI and NFA courses. http://www.emergencymanagementstudy.com/content/default.asp

This coming weekend marks the tenth Fire and Emergency Services Higher Education conference. https://www.usfa.dhs.gov/nfa/higher_ed/feshe/feshe_conf.shtm

Ed Kaplan will not be in charge of the conference. He was promoted to be the Section Chief of Education, Training and Partnerships at the US Fire Administration/National Fire Academy. Talk about matching people with interests!

FossilMedic reviews a new textbook:

THE SEATTLE GUYS ARE SHARING THE LESSONS

Last week I lamented the lack of changes in the NFPA 1021 standard. I asked “Have we learned nothing since 1997?” I can point to four dedicated brothers that have learned a lot and have spent the time to share it with us.

Mike Gagliano, Casey Phillips, Phillip Jose and Steve Bernocco have been teaching the “Rule of Air Management” at fire training sessions for almost a decade, starting in response to two fellow Seattle firefighters running out of air while operating in burning buildings. Using best practices from underwater divers, analyzing NIOSH reports and engaging subject matter experts, the Seattle Guys developed ROAM – Rule of Air Management and the concept of the Point of NO Return. They set up a website: http://www.manageyourair.com/ to share their results, and promote a training business.

For the last couple of years they have been teaching ROAM at national conferences and been involved with the NFPA 1404 Standard for Fire Service Respiratory Protection Training committee on the 2006 version of the standard.

This year their considerable work became a book: Air Management for the Fire Service. Fire Engineering (2008) ISBN 987-1-59370-129-1 (retail about $70). http://www.pennwellbooks.com/airmaforfise.html

After reading the book this weekend, I have to agree with Editor-in-Chief Bobby Halton, this is a landmark book. This praise is due to the quality of information and the way the book is structured.

This book made same impact on me as Chief Dunn’s Collapse of Burning Buildings did when I was a company officer. http://firegeezer.com/2008/04/29/inside-a-burning-structure/ This may be the first fire fighting text for the 21st Century.

FossilMedic prods us again:  

FAILING TO LEARN DISRESPECTS THEIR SACRIFICE

Phase II of the “Routley” report was issued in Charleston last week. If you want to honor the sacrifice of the nine that died at that commercial fire, it will take more than buying a t-shirt, putting a sticker on your helmet or posting a snarky remark on a discussion board.

WE need to accelerate the rate of change in the institutions that codify our work and develop the reference and teaching materials.

MAKE SURE NFPA STANDARD 1021 REFLECT THE LESSONS LEARNED FROM OUR LOSSES

In 1971 the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) expanded their consensus code process from buildings, materials and industrial processes and into the firefighting occupation. Prior to this, firefighter training did not have a national standard set of knowledge, skills and abilities.

Oklahoma State University has been publishing the “Red Books” since 1931, generally aimed at rural and small city departments. Large departments like New York and Los Angeles wrote their own manuals. Warren Kimball used the Boston Fire Department drill manual when he wrote Fire Attack 1 in 1966.

The updated NFPA 1021 Standard for Fire Officer Professional Qualifications is up for adoption at the July World Conference. While there was a struggle over the fire inspection section of the standard, there are no substantial changes to the Job Performance Requirements (JPR) or areas of knowledge within the 2008 version of the standard.

I wrote a textbook covering the 2003 version of Fire Officer I and II. There are few changes in the 2008 version. That means much less work for me in writing the second edition. The original manuscript came from the fire officer I and II courses I taught at the community college, using the 1997 version of the standard. While there was a shuffling of some tasks between fire officer I, II and III, there is no significant change in the 1021 standard since the 1997 standard was revised into the Job Performance Requirements format.

HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING SINCE 1997?

It is troubling that, from a standards perspective, no new knowledge has been developed in fireground operations or the lessons learned from the investigations after 400-some brothers and sisters who have died in burning buildings.

Let’s consider four structural fire events with a single LODD that generated reports in addition to NIOSH:

Firefighter Brett Tarver, Phoenix, 2001 (Carbon monoxide poisoning in supermarket)

http://phoenix.gov/FIRE/report.pdf 

 *  *  *

Captain Jay Jahnke, Houston, 2001 (Carbon monoxide poisoning in residential high-rise)

http://www.houstontx.gov/fire/reports/fltr.pdf

 *  *  *

Firefighter Oscar Armstrong III, Cincinnati, 2003 (flashover in residence)

http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/cityfire/downloads/cityfire_pdf8213.pdf

 *  *  *

Technician I Kyle Wilson, Prince William County, 2007 (structural collapse in residence)

http://www.pwcgov.com/default.aspx?topic=020016001470004566 You should read these reports after you have finished the Charleston Phase II report.

After reading these reports consider what should be added or changed for the 2013 version of NFPA 1021 Standard for Fire Officer Professional Qualifications. If we promised to “never forget” we need to institutionalize the changes that these reports recommend.

Horry County, South Carolina, laid out $90,000 to one of those consulting groups that issue reports about how to improve fire and rescue services.  During this decade of the early-2000’s, the fashion favored by most of these consultants is to preach volunteerism.  One of them up in Michigan even took money from Detroit to tell them that they’d be wise to convert the city’s entire FD to a largely volunteer force, keeping paid drivers and administrators.

But somewhere along the way nobody has clued in the consultants that the volunteer departments are having a recruiting problem, too.  Even in areas with a strong VFD tradition, such as Pennsylvania, some departments are simply unable to replace their older members as they leave the active service.

Horry County is a large part of the northeast portion of South Carolina that includes the Myrtle Beach area.  The county provides fire protection to the unincorporated areas and EMS coverage for the entire county and cities.  They operate 38 fire stations, but only 11 of them are staffed with paid firefighters.  The rest are wholly dependant on volunteer FF’s for coverage, mostly in rural areas.

Horry County Station 41

One of these, Station 41, has only one volunteer member and scrubs on 94% of its calls.  The all-volunteer station with the best response record is Station 19 which has 13 volunteers, yet still misses 39% of its dispatches.

One of the 70-some recommendations to improve service calls for the career stations to operate with a minimum of 3 FF’s in the suburban stations and 4 in the rural stations.  In addition, they call on the county to initiate “an aggressive recruitment program to increase the number of active volunteers.”  Easy for them to say.  The report does not make recommendations on how to achieve this.

They also propose doubling the number of battalions from two to four and utilizing the paid B.C.’s on weekdays and relying on volunteer Batt. Chiefs on nights and weekends.  The County is 1,100 sq. miles in area and the consultants feel that too much is left uncovered whenever there is a working incident.

The entire report is 196 pages long and you can read the document in .pdf form HERE.

Today’s edition of the Myrtle Beach Sun News carries an article about the challenges that the county is facing in getting volunteers qualified for duty.  The HCFR requires them to pass a background check, an initial agility test and a physical before actual training can begin. 

Then they have to take the standard firefighting training along with courses in CPR, haz-mat, infectious diseases and a final agility test.  A department spokesman says that the entire process can be completed in three months.

But the paper’s interviews with prospective volunteer members exposes the problems that many other VFD’s are coming up against.  And that is a growing culture of non-committment and me-first attitudes that clash with the spirit of volunteerism.

The article quotes a bunch of people whining because the requirements don’t mesh with the applicants’ personal needs.  One of them complains that the Infectious Diseases class is being held in June and July.  And that’s when a lot of people prefer to go a vacation, don’t you know?

Some of them complain about the time it takes to do the paperwork necessary to apply.  Many others flat out refuse to take the necessary classes.  About 85% of people who express an interest in joining fail to complete the required procedures.  Some of them even complained that they didn’t get enough “encouragement” from whoever they expected to get it from.

Firegeezer brings all this up because it illustrates once again the growing cultural phenomenon of people who want to feel good about themselves by being able to hang the certificate on the wall and telling their friends that they are a Volunteer.  But they don’t want to actually do any volunteering, let alone working to achieve the level of ability demanded of it.

Read the Journal Sun article HERE.
Horry County Fire Rescue department WEBSITE.