Chief officers making calls from the road.

[Guest]

I agree with most of the responses, however, we do not take the word of the PD on scene.  We have had issues with the PD saying the fire is out but when we arrived, there had been extension.  There always should be FD personnel on scene making the call.  Even if it is an alarm that is constantly coming in and the PD advises false alarm, we still continue to the box until FD confirms.  I have heard of departments cancelling responses on PD investigation.

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My comment on getting input from PD was to determine whether or not to escalate a response, not decrease it. We roll with the original box assignment until an officer arrives on scene and determines otherwise.

[ajsbear 11]

Original Question: "Does it concern anyone that Chief officers make calls from the road WITH NO ONE ON THE SCEENE or a 2nd source call, or a report from a reliable firefighter, because they see a column of smoke and request a 2nd alarm right away. To me it seems to be a little careless for the public and department personel.

Then when that person arrives on sceen he or she realizes that it's not what they thought . Construction debris, controled burn, 20x 20 shed, and all that 2nd alarm assignment is returned. Opps! I know some of you will say you can always return the equipment . Some say air on the side of caution. But I don't think that is the right answer. I say get to the sceene and see what you have , Size up ?walk around ? Then make your call. Thoughts or comments???"

Enroute to the scene I do a size up of the things I see, the things I smell, and the things I hear. No update from dispatch, no additional calls? Continue in and see what the source of the concern is.

Daytime Example: Heavy black smoke coming from the roof of a OMD, during heating season, we send a  full assignment + a truck...heavy smoke visible from the distance...arriving size up - could be a roof on fire or a boiler malfunction - smells like oil. No further calls and no reports of fire in the building. Had the dispatcher listen up and keep me updated when we went out the door. Happy ending. Boiler malfunction - shut down, call service. Tag out since we don't trust the super to leave it off.

Night time: When we go out the door I tell the dispatcher to call the mutual aide companies and get them out of bed - everyone listen up.

In a volunteer system - I would at least get them to their respective stations for response if I am wrong.

My 2 cents

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Gatta agree with you. Calling a second alarm before you arrive on the scene puts everyone at risk. What if it turns out to be nothing and there is a legit job in the second alarm companys area? Wake up the career guys, put the vollunteers on standby works. The worst that happens is a few guys loose sleep. The rigs are manned and ready if it is a job and able to quickly resond IF needed. If not, back to bed or work or whatever but at least everyone was ready. You never know what you have until you're on the scene. I remember a young a**'t chief who called out the troops, mutual aid, tankers all to the scene. Turned out to be a minor detached chimney. Put out with the can. In the days of pull boxes, the box get pulled 2, 3 or 4 times, do you fill out the assignment, go with the original resonse? You show up a tthe box and no one is there.

Now we have 4 cents

[biglew 3]

As with most valid issues, where there can be a legitmate difference of opinion, it is important to see the other side, not because you should sway your opinion, but because there may be something you hadn't thought of.

Here is my opinion on the subject. This "chief's ego" concept has got to be rectified. The best information comes from your eyes and ears and the scene. In many instances here in Westchester and the Hudson Valley, the chief will get to the scene before any first due companies. This has no real downside, other than the fact he's got to wait for water.

He can do the size up and call for the resources he needs.

If first arriving companies precede the arrival of the chief, and they have a worker, then in my humble opinion, the chief should concur with the company officer's request for additonal units until he arrives himself and makes his own determination. He can then downgrade the assignment if he feels the incident can be handled with the manpower on scene already.

As far as calling in during a chiefs response to a scene, I FEEL HE SHOULD NEVER, reduce an assignment or hold off on a request by an officer on scene. The training, expertise ,and ability to size up what he has should not be questioned during a chiefs response. There is no positive reason for this.

Dispatchers should have the latitude, like they do in the FDNY, to augment standard responses due to multiple calls. We should always err on the side of caution. Its the same reason we have a 10-14 engine respond in the FDNY, to supplement reduced manning on the first due companies, we don't wait to see if its a job or not.

In this career, where time is always the enemy and rarely on our side, we should appreciate proactive company officers, who get to the scene and call for what they think they need. If they were afraid of showing up the chief, they shouldn't be in a decision making position.

Having buffed 25 years in New York City, I have heard many a 10-75 by first due companies based on the smoke they see in the distance. Who cares if on occasion, they make a premature call and they use 1+1 and find out it was outside rubbish.

Its why we have a FAST truck at every job, to be there if needed. Thankfully, I can say 95% of the time the FAST Truck is not put to work, but they are there and ready. Its the same premise as we are discussing in this post. Call off the Cavalry once you get there, not before. Upgrade the assignment prior to your arrival if information presented to you deems that, whether it is PD on scene, information from dispatch, etc.

But this ego premise really disturbs me. A first due company officer is not usurping the authority of any chief by calling for what he needs after he gets there. His A**, fighting the fire, is probably more at risk than the chief.

My final opinion on the matter is this. Any chief who feels the need to question an on scene size up and REDUCE the request for additonal resources BEFORE his own arrival at the job, should not the have confidence of his men, which should be reflected in the next company officers election.

Luckily in my experience, it rarely happens, or doesnt happenmuch from what I have seen. Being a chief is not the result of winning a popularity contest, it is the result of people placing their trust in your decision making and abitlity to lead in times of crisis.

[danb 10]

Up here in the sticks, I personaly have seen both side ( calling from road and waiting till on scene) of a officer calling it from the road.

We had a fire about 2 years ago where we were at drill and we got called to a possible job. Now note that we do not have hydrants in our district AT ALL and the town has no plans to so our water supply is comming from tankers. Anyway this fire chief was on the road, and half way there dispatch advised of multiple calls so he tapped the 2nd alarm right away.

In 2002 we had a fire when the chief was 2 miles away and the fire was fueld by LPG tanks and he could see FIRE from about 2 miles away and right then he hit a 2nd alarm and held all 3rd alarm companies to standby in quarters ( ended up getting moved to the scene). This move proved critical because of the need for a water supply.

I've also seen it where a neighboring company has a automatic response for any structure calls in a certant area of their district and the automatic response has gotten canceled only for when the chief to get on scene to a working fire then have them paged out to respond!

Thankfully we have a neighboring company ( our first m/a to the scene with their tanker(s) that is very close to our district and this has proven to be valuable many times because I can atest to the fact, that middle of the day on first due engine with your 2nd engine waiting to get out and your mutual aid comming thankfully from a realitvly close distance getting you more water when you need it inside is a big relief.

Ive also seen senior officers call a full 2nd alarm assigment becuase he was responding and a junior officer on scene advised him nothing showing, and that its a furnace kickback and the senior officer disregards the junior officer and calls 2 tankers and a engine/tanker to the scene only to realize the junior officer was right!

My theory and based on my personal experence is that in certant areas with a water supply issue is that its OK for a officer to make calls from the road. Then again I've also herd a company's first due apparatus ask premission to respond to a reported structure fire from their chief on the air so...

Edited November 30, 2006 by danb

[Remember585 815]

I have some thoughts on this - tell me what you think.

1. A lot of issues in respect to water supply, limited access, etc. should already be addressed via a pre-plan and/or automatic dispatch policy. For example, if you live in East Cow Poop and you have no static water supply, by all means have tankers coming on any possible structure fire. Another thought, if you have a high-occupancy building, say, a nursing home with 190 residents, perhaps adding an additional Truck for any fire or smoke condition is warranted. If it's nothing, at least that Mutual Aid / 2nd due aerial gets to see the place and maybe even set up.

2. Correcting / controlling a Chief, or even an Officer's ego is about as easy as solving the JFK theories. A lot of us, and I am guilty too, run a plan in our heads of how things should go, and hopefully will go while enroute. When someone else says something you don't like to hear, it is only human nature to react. The bigger problem lies within, if you can't tame the beast inside then perhaps leadership isn't for you. I know one FD that if someone arrives on scene and transmits a size-up they get mad because they have the "ME CHIEF - YOU NOT" syndrome. Gimme a break. The first unit should give a size-up!!!

3. NEVER TAKE THE WORD OF NON-FD PERSONS!!!! I won't even go into detail, but many, MANY times either at my own FD or listening to another a Chief or Officer takes info from dispatch that someone is on scene and all is well. Continue in, even if non-emergency mode, and VERIFY IT!

4. NIMS. ICS. Whatever you want to call it. The first person on scene should always be the one calling the shots, assuming they are trained and qualified to do so. If an Explorer arrives on scene and says "nothing showing" how do we know they are at the right address? If someone who knows their ca-ca is on location and gives you a good update, run with it. While responding you technically are not the IC, and you still aren't until you face to face with the one that is.

5. TRAIN! If you teach your members what to look for, how to perform size-up and familiarize them with your PREPLANS then you shouldn't have to control things from your car!