Fire Incidences and the Safety Guidelines

Safety and Health Considerations in Fire Incident Response

The issue of safety during emergency response by the fire fighters has been discussed and severally emphasized. In as much as the responders are out to save lives and property, they too need to be safe so that they do not add to the count of the victims, if any be, as well as avoid injuries in the process of saving others. There are manuals that have been developed in various states and even counties all with the aim of streamlining response to emergencies and reducing the number of deaths of both the victims and the responders. Hundreds of fire fighters die in the line of duty each year with most of the death being from the exposure to rapid fire, getting trapped by objects and collapsed buildings. It can be said that there are sufficient safety regulations and guidelines concerning the operations procedures at the scene of fire. The challenge comes in implementing these guidelines to the effective end.

In the case study provided, there are a number of errors that facilitated the fatality and the near fatality of the fire fighters that were involved. The glaring mistake that can be seen from the investigations was that the 25-year-old volunteer ignored the checking of the SCBA when it was handed to him to know how much time he has with the oxygen in the equipment. It is from determining the quantity that the volunteers could have been able to tell the distance they could cover in the building and the time they had in their hands before they were required to vacate the building. The SCBA seems to have run out on the volunteer who then suffocated to his death.

The other issue that stands out is the glaring mistake of ignoring to have personal alert safety system (PASS) device on the captain and at the same time not sure whether his compatriots had one on himself. This is one critical safety tool especially for one going into fire and the fire fighters need to verify that each of them has one on himself. There is a possibility that with the PASS device on the captain, the response and the results could have been different as these would direct the rescue team to find them faster. Apart from lacking this basic safety tool, the 25-year-old volunteer did not have any communication device with him but relied on the one captain had. It is hard to know whether he could have come back to his senses and was unable to call for help hence his final death.

The 25-year-old volunteer who claimed to have the knowledge of the plan of the house apparently did not have the requisite knowledge of the plan of the building that would be useful for the tracing of the fire source. The other critical mistake was that the captain did not study any plan of the massive building and trusted in the words of the volunteer. This made him vulnerable and dependent on the volunteer for his safety while within the building. This was seen at the time that the heat increased and they picnicked, none of the two were able to guide the other out and they gave in to fate and called for aid.

The duo also made serious mistakes as they entered the building. First they detected that visibility was obscured despite them having headlights and lights attached to their hats. This was a sign enough that the fire was already too serious to proceed and that oxygen was getting very low as the dark fumes were from burnt objects within the building. They however decided to crawl under the smoke. They allowed the lack of high temperatures distract and derail them that it was safe and yet they were unable to see their course of direction.

Recommendations for future safety

As the safety and health program manager, I recommend that in every fire response incident, there needs to be an incident commander who will be responsible for the inspection of the responders going into the fire, inspection of the conditions they are going into and also make decision on what needs to be done and all the other functions that are recommended by the United States Department of Labor, (2015). He will also be in charge of ensuring that each fire fighter is sufficiently equipped before going into the fire. There will be need to have fire-proof suits for the department so that the individuals going into the fire are well protected and have a longer survival time incase they get disoriented.