WHEN THE 42-INCH-LONG PET IGUANA OF A COUPLE in Plymouth, England, decided to relocate his sunbathing site, the Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service ended up in the sunlight with it.

Taz, as Terry and Karen Burton’s pet is known, usually takes his daily sun soak on the window sill.  But when they came into the room on Monday, Taz couldn’t be found.

 Desparately, they searched the house looking for him, but couldn’t find him.  Later, while searching through the garden Mrs. Burton spotted his tail sticking out of the chimney where he had become stuck.  Unfortunately, a mob of seagulls had spotted him, too, and they began gathering for a group buffet.

The Burtons called the RSPCA who in turn called the fire brigade for help.  When the fire service arrived they got more than they bargained for when the iguana put its extra-long tail to use.  Iguana’s tails, which can make up half their body length, are a dangerous weapon, normally used in their native habitat in Central and South America.

“He whipped the firemen twice with his tail. It was quite embarrassing,” said Mr Burton.  But the fire lads got him out of the chimney without incident or injury and Taz is back in his glass cage where he’ll be staying from now on.

The incident involved two fire crews, eight people, two engines and one long ladder. Firefighters wore gloves and face protection after taking advice from the RSPCA. 

The Plymouth Herald has the full STORY.
 

FossilMedic reports on the latest….

DEVELOPING 21st-CENTURY TIME ON TASK AND OUTCOMES DATA

There is a multiple organization effort starting next month to identify the current “time-on-task” for fire suppression and ems activities from 400 fire departments. In addition, there will be 50 fire and 30 ems experiments to identify the time required to obtain measurable outcomes. The results of this effort may have the same effect on staffing, deployment and evaluation as the Ontario Pre-hospital Advanced Life Support (OPALS) project had on paramedics in 2005. http://www.chsrf.ca/final_research/ogc/stiell_e.php

LAST CENTURY’S RESEARCH

When California voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978, local government revenues were significantly reduced due to restrictions on the property tax rate. This required immediate and serious reductions in local government staffing and services. The Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) was faced with the possibility of a reduction in staffing of their single-unit engine companies. At that time about half of the 103 LAFD fire stations operated a single-unit engine company.

The LAFD developed a task analysis of typical initial fireground scenarios that included a list of required on-scene performance objectives for an engine company. They broke each objective into fundamental and discreet tasks and performed extensive time and motion studies using different staffing levels to accomplish the tasks. The Measure of Effectiveness System (MES) identified the tasks performed by each fire fighter in chronological order. The analysis was performed with variations in crew size from three to six members and documented significant increases in the time that was required to accomplish the standard fireground objectives as the size of the crews decreased. The results justified retaining five fire fighters on single-unit engine companies.

There were three subsequent studies that followed the LAFD success. They formed the core of fire suppression staffing and deployment research in the 1980s. Seattle, Houston and Phoenix used research to support the maintenance or expansion of fire company staffing and deployment.

There is a problem with the 1980s research. While the results were valuable for decision makers in Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston and Phoenix, the process cannot establish a validated set of best practices for use by others. They did not use the structure and academic vigor needed for professional-grade research. To be fair, none of the studies were constructed with that goal, but for two decades we have tried to extrapolate their results to make the connection.

THE START OF 21st-CENTURY RESEARCH

During the 2003 IAFF EMS conference, 17 focus group meeting were held to identify indicators of EMS system quality. The IAFF EMS committee was charged with generating an agreed-upon set of performance indicators. http://www.iaff.org/tech/ops/performance.htm

The resulting IAFF/IAFC EMS System Performance Measurement instrument consists of 15 EMS quality indicators, their definitions and performance measures. The instrument also provides background information relating the indicator to quality in an EMS system, explains any existing standards, notes the absence of standards, proposes a system goal and provides for data collection of information related to each main measure. The indicators include: call processing time, turnout time, defibrillation time to first shock, employee turnover, patient outcome, protocol compliance, deployment of mobile resources, staffing and employee illness and injury. The measurement instrument will provide system leaders the best way to collect relevant data and to report on that data in the future.

This project is the latest example of labor-management initiatives that benefit the fire service. Part of this effort includes the 2007 Fire-Based EMS white paper and DVD that was profiled in my July 24th column.
http://firegeezer.com/2007/07/24/walking-the-fire-based-ems-talk/

FIREFIGHTER SAFETY AND DEPLOYMENT STUDY

Building upon the work started by the IAFF/IAFC EMS Systems Performance Measurement program, a Department of Homeland Security funded research effort is starting to gather data and conduct time-on-task experiments to develop a prospective deployment model. http://www.firereporting.org/

Joining the IAFF and IAFC in this effort, are three national groups and one technical sponsor: the Center for Public Safety Excellence http://www.publicsafetyexcellence.org/ , the Worcester Polytechnic Institute Department of Fire Protection Engineering http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Depts/Fire/What/index.html , National Institute of Standards and Testing http://www.fire.nist.gov/ , and Firehouse Software http://www.firehousesoftware.com/ .

From May through the end of 2008 FireReporting.org will be obtaining data from 400 fire departments, including the 53 largest fire departments. The letters of invitation will be going out next month. The data obtained will be used to document experience with time-on-task skills and outcomes.

While the data is obtained, crews from Montgomery County, Maryland, and Fairfax County, Virginia, will be participating in experiments to determine time-on-task requirements and comparing different staffing schemes with outcomes. There are 50 fire suppression and 30 ems time-on-task experiments. We are coming a full circle, as these experiments are similar to the LAFD fireground task studies using three to six firefighter engine companies in 1979.

May even address the issue of two paramedic versus one paramedic and one emt ambulance staffing. This will end thousands of hours of passionate but statistically devoid firehouse kitchen debates.

DEMONSTRATING THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO be as large as the Los Angeles FD before you set up a public information website, the Smithtown Fire Department in New York has done just that.

The Long Island department’s public information officer Jeff Bressler has established a site that is informative to the public by posting the monthly alarm totals, having a weekly safety tip and fire prevention lessons, and passing along to the citizens what the department is doing, both emergency calls and administrative functions.

Most emergency calls that are of consequence are described and explained.  A good example is THIS AUTO FIRE (scroll down) that was posted yesterday.  The engine company went to the scene of an auto crash around 4 am and found the car had brought down an electric line which set the car on fire.  The car was still charged with current when they arrived.

After knocking down the fire sufficiently to determine that any rescue of the driver would be futile, they were forced to back off and let it burn until the electric company arrived and shut down the power.

Thanks to Jeff for sending along these pictures that he also took himself.  We also notice that the SFD sponsors an Explorer Scout Post, too.  Good going, Guys!

Smithtown FD Public Information WEBSITE.
Smithtown Fire Department WEBSITE.

THE SENECA (SOUTH CAROLINA) FIRE DEPARTMENT WILL BE CONDUCTING a novel public education campaign next week.  It’s being promoted as part of the annual daylight-saving time reminder to set clocks forward one hour March 9 and replace the batteries in all smoke detectors.

Teaming up with the Seneca Domino’s Pizza shop, they will be delivering pizza orders on a random basis from 5 pm to 7 pm on Monday thru Friday all next week.

If the customer gets a fire truck delivery, then the FF’s will check their smoke detectors on the spot.  And if they are all working, the pizza will be free.  If any of them aren’t operating, the FF’s will either replace the batteries or leave a new detector to replace the faulty one.

Domino’s has always had a good reputation for response times.  Now it’s up to the Seneca Fire Dept. to maintain it.

Read about the promotion in the Anderson Independent Mail HERE.

A WEBSITE CALLED HurricaneInsurance.com  has published a list of “34 DIY Tips, Tools and Techniques to Fireproof Your Home.”

 If you’re ever called to talk to a citizens’ or homeowners’ association, this would be a handy checklist to make an outline for your talk.  There are lots of good ideas and practical applications that you can draw from.

Many of them you probably know about already, but they’re nicely compiled for reference.  But I have to admit that I didn’t know how to make fireproof paper before.

Read all about it HERE.

FIREFIGHTER MICHAEL COLEMAN WAS HONORED LAST WEEK at #10 Downing St. when he and nine other “unsung heroes” met with Prime Minister Gordon Brown at a special reception.

FF Michael Coleman at the UK’s most famous address
Guardian photo

FF Coleman, a member of green watch at Tooting fire station, rescued a man from a serious house fire in Streatham last November and he was awarded the Vodafone Life Saver Award.

The Guardian has the full STORY.

BEING THE RADIO JUNKIE that I am, I stumbled upon a pleasant surprise over at BlogTalkRadio.com. The Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Services (Maryland) Life Safety Section has begun ‘broadcasting’ a new radio show over the Internet. The show titled ‘MCFRS Fire Side Chat’ hosted by Bill Delaney, is described as “A new and innovative communication tool that will be used by Montgomery County Fire and Rescue to disseminate educational and informational programming to the citizens we serve as well as our own membership.”

Montgomery County selected BlogTalkRadio, a social radio network that allows users to connect quickly and directly with their audience. Using an ordinary telephone and computer hosts can create free, live, call-in talk shows with unlimited participants that are automatically archived and made available as podcasts. No software download is required. Listeners can subscribe to shows via RSS into iTunes and other feed readers. - Craig Luecke, Firegeezer.com

MCFRS Radio Station Page: http://blogtalkradio.com/Profile.aspx?userurl=mcfrs
MCFRS Blogspot Page: http://mcfrs.blogspot.com/
Blog Talk Radio: http://blogtalkradio.com

AUSTIN, TEXAS TV STATION KXAN reports today:

Firefighters rappelled down the IMAX Theatre in Downtown Austin for the opening of a movie about wildfires.

It’s something you don’t see every day, but firefighters actually use this technique more than you think.

“The most frequent use of the rappelling team with special operations is in the Barton Creek Greenbelt and in the area greenbelts around Austin in the Wildland,” said Austin Fire Department Battalion Chief Harry Evans, “is where we typically use when we have a patient that’s fallen down a cliff face, and we try to access that patient with rescuers.”

Smokey the Bear was also on hand to kick off the movie called “Wildfires, Feel the Heat.” It’s the newest film to hit the IMAX inside the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.

Austin Fire Dept. WEBSITE.