FL Department Training Burn Invesigation

[Guest alsfirefighter]

This is another example of taking undue risks with trainee's. This incident has sparked some very good and serious debate on the firehouse.com forums. Post your thoughts, keep it cleans and I'm sure we'll/hope we'll have some good debate as I've seen on FH.com. I'll save some of my comments for later. but most of you probably know where I stand on this already. Just interested to see what some others think/feel.

Photo Spurs Investigation into Florida Department's Training Burns

CHRISTA DESRETS

Courtesy of The High Springs Herald

HIGH SPRINGS -- Concerns over the safety of a recent controlled burn conducted by the High Springs Fire Department has launched a Florida State Fire Marshal's Office investigation into the matter.

The controlled burn and smoke training, performed in the morning and afternoon of Jan. 21, was meant as a way to train firefighters, both rookies and veterans, in varying aspects of firefighting and fire rescue.

But an article and pictures that explained the exercises in the Jan. 25 edition of The High Springs Herald came under scrutiny by an online message board for firefighters, many of whom said the fire department did not follow safety guidelines.

The matter then was brought to the attention of the State Fire Marshal's Office, which then launched an investigation.

When previously interviewed, High Springs Fire Chief Terry Jewell, Firefighter and Emergency Medical Technician Dwayne King and Lt. Bruce Gillingham all said that safety was one of the main concerns when preparing for and conducting a controlled burn.

The National Fire Protection Association sets standards that firefighters across the county follow when conducting live fire training.

But Dave Casey, bureau chief of Fire Standards and Training with the State Fire Marshal's Office, said that some of those standards may not have been followed.

The greatest concern he had, he said, was the use of a flammable liquid to light the fire. A picture that accompanied the Herald article showed a firefighter holding a glass of flammable liquid in a burning room.

"That's very clearly not allowed," Casey said. "It (the book of guidelines) apparently was not followed in this case."

Jewell said that the liquid inside the glass was diesel fuel. And the flammable liquid was only used in parts of the burn, he said, and not during training drills in which inexperienced firefighters were inside the structure.

The firefighters have nothing to hide regarding their training practices, Jewell said, and that is the reason Herald photographers were allowed at the burn in the first place.

Casey said that his department's job is to make sure that no one is hurt, that firefighters have proper training and that all are well informed of safety guidelines.

And while his main objective is not to punish fire departments for safety violations, Casey said, investigations that find violations could result in repercussions for the department.

For example, the accidental death of a firefighter who was engaged in physical training exercises in Jacksonville in 2005 resulted in a Fire Marshal investigation.

As a result, the Fire Marshal issued a summary of findings to reduce risks of similar incidents along with a remediation plan directing the Jacksonville Fire Rescue Department and other departments statewide to comply with new rules.

Additionally, a recent change to live fire requirements states that a live fire training instructor certification shall be revoked if full compliance with the NFPA guidelines is not met.

Casey said that High Springs firefighters already had been interviewed by the Fire Marshal's office for the investigation.

But the results of the investigation are not yet public record, he said.

"It's a current investigation," he said. "We're very limited in what we can talk about."

On the firefighter's forum in which the article and photos were scrutinized, one of the issues that people discussed was the use of "live victims" during training.

That forum is found at Firehouse.com The NFPA guidelines on live fire training state that, "No person(s) shall play the role of a victim inside the building."

But Jewell said, both in the previous story and after the investigation began, that the live victim portion of the training was not when the structure was on fire, but when the firefighters were doing smoke training.

"We did not have live victims during the fire; we never have and we never will," he said. "That was during smoke training. It gets my firemen comfortable that they can get their brothers out when they need to."

And those who portray victims are wearing air tanks the entire time, he added.

"Everybody involved had a positive experience, and nobody was hurt," he said. "There was nobody ever in danger."

People who posted on the firefighters' forum also took issue with the "rookie roast," in which inexperienced firefighters are paired with a more experienced firefighter and asked to endure the heat of a burning structure for as long as they safely can.

"It gives the individual an idea of the conditions that can occur when you go in to fight a fire," Jewell said.

Also, he added, some people were upset with the term "rookie roast," but that is slang that has been around at least since 19 years ago when Jewell was in fire college.

The term gives the experience a bad name, he said, but the training is vital for firefighters who need to know how much heat they can take so they can be safe when they have to respond to a call of a fire that is not under their control.

The "rookie roast" portion of the training is not even performed in a burning room, Jewell added, but in a different portion of the home than the area that is lit.

That way, the firefighters get the full experience of the smoke and the heat without as much danger.

"There's no intention of hurting anybody," Jewell said. "We just make them a little uncomfortable." Jewell said he is confident that the investigation will find that the fire department did nothing wrong.

"We do live fire training the way it's done all over the world," he said. "I know I have not done anything wrong."

Courtesy the High Springs Herald

[John Meeker Jr 0]

The article sounds good and I hope they find everything OK. I think that it is good training to have exposure to the heat and intensity in a controled environment, as close to reality as possible with out the stress of response to an unknown fire. It has to be done safely with good backup and plenty of water. There are guidelines for the safeties needed and we should probably post a link to those guides. anyone have a link.

[Guest]

This is another example of taking undue risks with trainee's.  This incident has sparked some very good and serious debate on the firehouse.com forums.  Post your thoughts, keep it cleans and I'm sure we'll/hope we'll have some good debate as I've seen on FH.com.  I'll save some of my comments for later. but most of you probably know where I stand on this already.  Just interested to see what some others think/feel.

←

really...debate...on this site?...as for the matter at hand, first i think its important to note that this investigation only started as a result of pictures on a message board...let that be a lesson to us all. As for the burn, we all have seen or read about what poorly run burns can do, but not having seen the pictures it doesn't sound like this was all that bad. Firemen do need to feel some heat and get at least some exposure to a fire before they do their job for real. All too often "graduates" of classes or academies make it to their first job having never experienced anything like that, and in some cases won't for years...it may be the only fire some guys will ever see thats not blowing out four windows...of a car

[Guest]

knew it...no debate/discussion

[Guest alsfirefighter]

blkcloud....I tried brother...I tried.

I don't think that there is an instructor you could find that would say live fire training is an integral part of any firefighters initial training and that regular live fire training is also a very solid part of any comprehensive training program.

The problem is getting some to do it right all the time. This particular incident in the article from what it seems in the article and as well as additional discussion on FH.com forums had several violations of NFPA 1403. "See who buckles first." And thats how you would want to test how your people will react? Not in my courses...not at anything I'm at. What if they all tolerate the temperature extremes that can be generated and then on the street they begin experiencing the same and see no other indicators of flashover? Do they stay because they could take the heat in training? Is the success of live fire indicitive of how hot the burns were? Meanwhile, it took an obscene amount of time to get the first line stretched and flowing water on the fire. Or the primary search was a cluster. But how many of us have heard "man that drill was great..those fires were nice and hot."

Instructors and department/company training officers have a responsibility to ensure the utmost safety when conducting any training and the grip needs to be tightened during live fire. We can control most things, medical problems aside. They don't shoot at police officers to train them in the experience of deadly force encounters...in the Marine Corps I did have live fire training with the most stringent of safeties in regard. And most deaths involving those are dumb asses whom don't listen and stay withing the safeties on their own. Most people don't throw their kids in 15' of water to teach them to swim. So why do we still lose firefighters in training burns and still read about the same problems as Boulder, Colorada, Mesa, Arizona, Pasippany, NJ?

[Guest]

I know you did...should have put the word siren in your response!

Anyway...for discussion sake let me ask...I have never been a part of a live burn, but the theory makes sense to me. I was "lucky" enough to be trained by a dept that did smoke, heat and flame in three different buildings and tried to culminate them in the flashover simulator...but even that was not even close to real life...not that the heat, visability, flame was in and of itself innaccurate, but never like the real thing, so my drawn out question is how do you train in real life conditions w/out real life conditions, or do you need to?

No matter what, the learning curve in this line of work is steep, and for me what I learned in the academy only translated in theory...it takes time and fires to learn about heat and smoke...so what do you do...put Probie's in harms way at their first OV job, or in a training scenario?

[Guest partyrock]

The biggest problem with this dept (or maybe it’s the article) is the caviler attitude of those interviewed. Referring to any part of the burn as a “rookie roast†is only going to get you in trouble. The idea of bringing the rookies into an adjoining room to get an idea of the conditions you will face is an excellent idea. I have seen it used successfully to help acclimate the new guys to the conditions they will face. After experiencing the adjoining room they go in as door man, and then on to the knob.

Live fire is not suppose to simulate extreme conditions of no visibility and helmet melting heat right down to the floor. It is suppose to get you CLOSER to the conditions you would experience in a typical fire. Propane and fake smoke just don’t do it, and it is not so much the heat. It’s the way the smoke and fire interact with the water.

I think comparing live burns to deadly force training for PD is inaccurate. A police officer’s job is to avoid a deadly force encounter while a firefighter seeks out fire. The average firefighter is going to see a lot more fire than an officer would see deadly force. That being said, police departments all over have always sought more realistic training for deadly force encounters resulting in various simulators ranging from paint to computer and video based.