By KATHY OGDEN
Special to the Courant, The Hartford Courant

Fire Lt. Todd Ghent credits instinct with saving his life as a propane cloud he unintentionally walked into erupted in flames.

As the orange fireball enveloped him last January, without thinking he held his breath. This kept the burning gas, which ignites in the air at nearly 1,000 degrees, out of his lungs.

“They said it would have cooked my lungs,” Ghent recalled in an interview last week in his dining room, which was still decorated for Christmas.

The flames left him with second- and third-degree burns on his head, face and neck, though.

Ghent said it would take a whole day and night to convey all the thoughts that ran through his mind in the moments he was engulfed. He thought particularly about his wife, Renee, and teenage daughter, Amanda, a sophomore at Portland High School, he said.

“I remember it all,” he said.

Ghent had been among the firefighters who responded to the scene of a leaking underground propane tank last Jan. 29. A 30-year volunteer with the Portland Fire Department, he was supposed to be in Vermont that weekend, skiing with his wife and daughter but 20 inches of snow had fallen in Connecticut so he decided to stay home and work clearing roofs and plowing snow.

He was with fellow town firefighter Tom Revicki when they heard the call for a gas leak at a duplex on Summer Street. They were the first on the scene and could smell gas. Putting on protective gear, they began to evacuate people from the area. As other firefighters arrived, Ghent and firefighter Tim Goff started moving down the snow-lined driveway with a gas detection meter that measures how much of the invisible gas is in the air. Suddenly, the meter reading spiked and they turned to leave, but it was too late.

Click here to read the full story.

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By David Dalrymple
For FireRescue1.com

Let’s look at the way we displace the side(s) of vehicles today. First off, be it a car, SUV or even a pick-up truck, most vehicles today have four doors (two on each side) more often than not.

When we “pop” doors today, the door materials often shred, tear and rip apart, leaving us to attack it another way or try to cut the door off.
Why does this happen? Well, think of doors of having “hard” points and “soft” points.

The lightweight door materials are coupled with high-strength latches and hinges by the door crash beam, and the whole ensemble is tied tighter together than before due to vehicle construction and design and its inherent ability to move crash energy throughout the vehicle structure.

So we know door “pops” have issues. But today’s cutters can make short work of cutting hinges and latches. Why not just cut them in the first place?

Cutting hinges and latches to remove the door creates much less stress and strain on the vehicle, which eases stress on the patient and the tool operator.

Read the full article on FireRescue1.com.

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By Alan M. Petrillo
for Fire Apparatus Magazine

When firefighters are using their personal protective equipment (PPE) on the fireground, the gear should be responsive and comfortable—not tight, restricting, or difficult to wear. Accordingly, ergonomics and a more tailored fit are buzzwords being used by PPE manufacturers that have spent a great deal of time debriefing firefighters on their use of gear and have crafted PPE styles that allow generous mobility in areas that flex and bend the most—knees, elbows, back, and seat.

Proactive Development

Karen Lehtonen, director of products for Lion, says that because PPE isn’t developed in a vacuum, Lion went out into the field and interviewed firefighters about how their gear fit and where it worked against them while performing tasks. “We also looked at other areas where clothing is trying to do the same thing—protect the wearer yet not be restrictive,” she says. “The military and athletics are such areas, and we were able to take some ideas from them on styling, patterning, and material combinations that improve movement and help reduce stress on the firefighter, because the gear is not fighting him while he’s wearing it.”

Hayley Fudge, Lion’s director of marketing, says the bending areas of a person’s body are where the stress points are located. “We have to think about how a firefighter is moving; what the garment is being asked to do; and where it might need more flex, like in the elbows and the knees,” she says.

As a result, Lion’s Janesville V-Force gear incorporates a flexible elbow area that allows the arm to bend freely and comfortably while still keeping the wrists protected. Fudge says it’s designed similarly to the bellows underarm construction, where a football-shaped insert is set behind the elbow that expands to eliminate tugging at the sleeve or shoulder when a firefighter flexes his arm.

Accommodating Reach

Lehtonen points out the most troublesome areas in bunker gear are those that are involved in reaching forward and upward and stepping up or down. Lion’s bunker pants have a gusset that the knee can fall into when a firefighter is climbing, crawling, bending, or kneeling. Lion also uses its Lite-N-Dri cushioning to give supplemental thermal insulation at the knee and in other high-compression areas such as shoulders, elbows, and the yoke. In addition, Lion eliminated crotch seams in its bunker pants to reduce tension on the gear and provide added wearing comfort.

Lion manages moisture in its gear though its Isodri technology, a combination of materials that blocks outside sourced water, wicks perspiration off the body, and resists storing water inside the protective envelope. Lehtonen points out that Lion shortly will offer a new collar on its bunker coat that has less of an abrasion factor and interfaces better with a fire helmet and a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) face piece.

Read the full article here.

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From FEMA

The Assistance to Firefighters Grants (AFG) program’s Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) application period will be opening soon.

The Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Grants (SAFER) was created to provide funding directly to fire departments and volunteer firefighter interest organizations in order to help them increase the number of trained, “front line” firefighters available in their communities. The goal of SAFER is to enhance the local fire departments’ abilities to comply with staffing, response and operational  standards established by the NFPA and OSHA (NFPA 1710and/or NFPA 1720 and OSHA 1910.134).

Basic Information – Start Preparing Now!

Call the Help Desk at 866-274-0960 or e-mail firegrants@dhs.gov for answers to your questions, or contact your Fire Program Specialist. Locate your e-Grants system user name and password established from previous grant years. Use the same user name and password on your new application.

Decide on a main point of contact.

Financial Information

What is your department’s operating budget (including personnel costs) for your current fiscal year? What was your budget for the last three fiscal years?

Percentages of where the annual operating budget is derived from (i.e. taxes, grants, donations, fund drives, fee for service, etc.). Be sure these amounts total 100%

OR

Percentage of funding income (i.e. taxes, grants, donations, fund drives, fee for service, etc.). Be sure these amounts total 100%.

Department Information

What is the square mileage of your first-due response area?

What is the permanent resident population of your primary/first-due response area or jurisdiction served?

Department call volume for the last three (do not include mutual/automatic aid calls).

Click here for FEMA’s complete SAFER 2011 Get Ready Guide.

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LION and DuPont Protection Technologies have a longstanding partnership. Our companies share a simple passion: keeping firefighters and other first responders safe. This passion, along with close collaboration with each other and the fire service, have led to many new innovations that decrease the physiological burden on first responders and keep them safer while in the line of duty.

These innovations and advancements in protection don’t happen without the close collaboration with firefighters – the ones tasked with actually testing the technology, wearing the gear and providing feedback on the research and development efforts of our companies.

Check out this short collaborative video with LION, DuPont and the Philadelphia Fire Department on how these close collaborations leads to innovation.

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As posted on FireEngineering.com

The 2012 CareerCast.com Job Stress Report, an annual survey of 200 different professions that measures work environment, job competitiveness and risk, has listed firefighting as the second most stressful job.

The five most stressful jobs all involve peril and significant hazards. They include firefighters, who take on dangerous and complex fires, often coming in contact with poisonous gases or other hazardous materials; Airline Pilots, who face potential terrorist attacks and midair collisions; Military Generals, who are responsible for the lives of many others and often work in hazardous, stressful environments; and Police Officers, who enforce laws and are tasked with catching criminals.

If a more relaxed work environment is your goal, the five least stressful professions of 2012 are Medical Records Technicians, Jewelers, Hair Stylists, Dressmakers/Tailors and Medical Laboratory Technicians.

The criteria used by CareerCast.com researchers to determine the most and least stressful jobs includes 11 different factors that invoke stress.  Each factor was assigned a range of points, and a high score was given if it was a major part of the job, while fewer points were given if it wasn’t normally required. Jobs that are in dangerous settings, have demanding deadlines or involve repetitive detailed work can increase stress levels, but stress is not limited to any particular job, industry, salary or education level.

Click here to read the full article.

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By Samantha Gross
The Associated Press, from FireRescue1.com

NEW YORK — The city’s 911 operators are now able to give callers details about emergency events, reversing what the Sept. 11 Commission determined were flaws in a system that a decade ago denied people inside the burning World Trade Center potentially lifesaving information, officials said Thursday.

“Call takers now are given specific information dealing with a particular emergency so that they can transfer that information to callers much more quickly,” police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said at the formal launch of a new $680 million 911 call center.

The new technology at the Brooklyn center will put more information into the hands of the 911 call takers, allowing officials to feed them information about an emergency and automatically showing them a map of the location of each caller. It also will prevent the system from getting overloaded in the event of a catastrophe, city officials said.

In 2004, the federal commission, which was created to study the terror attacks and make recommendations designed to prevent future attacks, concluded that on Sept. 11, 2001, the phone system’s operators and dispatchers were unaware that fire chiefs were evacuating the doomed twin towers because the city had no way of relaying that information.

As panicked people called 911 seeking guidance on how to escape the burning 110-story buildings, the operators answering the phones were able to offer little help, and some told workers not to evacuate. More than 2,750 people were killed in the attack on the twin towers.

You can read the full article on FireRescue1.com.

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This year, more than 25 of the industry’s most prominent research firms, trade associations, business and finance specialists, systems integrators, manufacturers, consultants, and alarm companies rendered a deep and sweeping portrait of the impending security landscape. The participants addressed the most significant changes, challenges and opportunities they anticipate taking place during the next 12 months in seven critical areas. They are: security technology; security markets; security industry; business and operations; politics and legislation; risks and threats; and ongoing challenges. With the boundaries of print being too constrained to present all of the fascinating and valuable assessments, each of the respondents’ complete, edited interviews are being offered exclusively online. Happy New Year!

Robert Solomon, PE
Division Manager for Building and Life Safety Codes

Fire/Life-Safety Technology

Robert Solomon: All of the built-in safety systems to communicate with one another — integration of fire alarm system components with security systems components, interface of these systems with brand new concepts like elevator evacuation systems for the building occupants in high-rise buildings. These are long discussed “theories” that are now becoming mainstream and NFPA codes must be adaptable to these issues.

Fire/Life-Safety Markets

Solomon: There is an active push to get state and local jurisdictions to adopt the residential sprinkler requirements that are now mandated in all of the national codes in the U.S. Some jurisdictions have opted out of that provision yet the home is where our fatal fire problem continues to be focused on. The societal push to include green and sustainable design technologies into materials, construction components and building configurations must be carefully weighed against the need to provide safe buildings. Broader use of solar photovoltaic panels, something that is regulated by the NEC [National Electrical Code] is great example of this. In all cases, however, we must be vigilant to ensure that sustainability never trumps the safety part of the fire, life-safety and building code equation.

Read the full article here.

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By Ron Kanterman
For FireEngineering.com

Put yourself to the test. Ask yourself the following questions (there are only 38) and see what kind of answers you get. Better yet, sit down with your staff (Asst. Chiefs, Deputies, Battalions, Officers, etc.) and review them together. It may be time to re-adjust and remember to re-adjust you, before you try to re-adjust them!

• Have we made firefighter safety and health a primary value of our organization?
• Does every member understand the organizational emphasis on health and safety?
• Does every manager and supervisor understand their personal responsibility to implement safety policies and procedures?
• Are we holding people accountable for compliance with health and safety policies?
• Have I as the Fire Chief accepted the responsibility for health and safety policies and programs?
• Do I as the Fire Chief “walk the walk” and “talk the talk”?
• Do I know if the health and safety policies are being followed?
• Is there a gap between what I think is going on and what is really going on?
• Does every firefighter have the training (knowledge, skills and abilities) to perform all expected duties?
• Is every firefighter physically fit?
• Do we have a good physical fitness program?
• Do we perform fitness evaluations?
• Is every firefighter healthy?
• Regular medical examinations performed by a qualified physician?
• Do we have SOG’s/SOP’s?
• Do we really follow them?
• Are we using the procedures or just using the terminology?
• Can we really account for the position, function and status of every firefighter on the incident scene?
• Is every firefighter connected to the plan for the incident?
• Does the Incident Commander know what is really going on?
• Do we have all of the “proper” equipment we need to do the job?
• Is our equipment properly maintained and inspected?
• Do we keep maintenance and inspection records?
• Is our equipment used according to their design parameters?

Read the full article on FireEngineering.com.

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An NFPA feature

On September 6, 2010, the situation in Fourmile Canyon, Colorado, was ripe for a wildland fire. Humidity was a low 7 percent, the winds were from the west-southwest at 12 to 15 mph (19 to 24 kph), and only 1.3 inches (3.3 centimeters) of rain had fallen in more than a month. It was a red flag day, meaning that critical fire weather conditions were present, or shortly would be.

The call came into the fire department at about 10 a.m. Winds had reignited a fire set in a fire pit several days prior, and embers blowing out of the pit ignited what was to become a $217 million wildfire, the largest wildfire in terms of dollar loss in Colorado’s history.

Driven by the wind, the fire’s surface flames grew 20 to 50 feet (6 to 15 meters) high and started a running crown fire, burning the Ponderosa pine and native shrubs covering the south-facing slopes of the canyon and the Douglas fir on the north-facing slopes. Aspen, grasses, mountain mahogany, cottonwood, mountain maple, river birch, and common riparian vegetation also grew in the canyon.

Fifty firefighters responded within two hours of the initial call, and 34 fire agencies responded during the next 48 hours. Over the next week, they fought the blaze with retardant-dropping aircraft, helicopters, bulldozers, fire engines, and water tenders as the fire burned through steep, heavily forested canyons, destroying outbuildings and homes. By the end of the week, more than 1,100 firefighters had responded to the scene.

The fire was finally contained on September 13, after burning 6,179 acres (2,501 hectares) and destroying 172 structures. Of those structures, 166 were homes. Another 26 homes were damaged, and suppression costs totaled almost $10 million. Fortunately, there were no fatalities and only seven minor injuries to firefighters.

Read the full summary report on NFPA.org.

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