ECN Forum Forums Safety Discussion and News Occupational Safety Discussion Re:Firefighters Thread

the problem here is there is no state or local oversight of fire dept's.

conversley, ems has federal, state, district oversight

fire dept's have the nfpa, easily ignored as they simply don't come to town

as such, a number of rural fire dept's, in the 'changing of the guard' here , have has thier new chiefs simply throw up thier hands at a generation of denial, and decide to shut stations down

local goverment, the real culprit who's level funding of nothing more than bucket brigades allowed for this scenario, will simply farm out to mutual aid

i b**ch about beuracracy more than most,as it echo's the passing of the ways of old, yet i realize the double edged sword here, one needs to at least aspire to certain standards to survive...

btw~ in an extrodinary act of diplomacy, our new dep. chief had his FF's sit for heartsaver cpr , i honestly thought the earth would fly into the sun first....



[This message has been edited by sparky (edited 09-30-2003).]

SOP/SOG can stand for a variety of things these days...

Standard Operating Procedures
Suggested Operating Procedures
Standard Orerations Protocol
Standard Operating Guidelines
Suggested Operating Guidelines
Etc. etc... Once the lawyers get involved, they try to think of ways to avoid making them "mandatory"...Duh.

Your story reminds me of the first SCBA's I used on my VFD. Steel cylinders, thickwall frame, canvas & leather straps. Weighed about 35 lbs.

New ones weigh something like 18 or 20 lbs tops.

The commo we have betwwen the Pump Operator ("Engineer" here) and the Branch Man ("Nozzle" "tip" or "pipe" man) is just a hand held FM radio in either the VHF (140-160Mhz) or UHF (400-460Mhz) range. Some Depts. use 800Mhz repeaters and some still use low band (38-52Mhz), but most paid shops have hand helds for each team. Some rural shops without the $$ still have limited radios & such.

Trumpy,
I should have been a little more specific.
I have seen combination smoke and CO detectors sold in one integral unit. They have CSA and UL approval on the box, but I haven't read any instructions on where to mount them.
It seems to me that smoke detectors are mounted on the ceiling and CO close to the floor. Are the approvals just for the smoke detector?

Guy's,
I've never really worked in a City Brigade, although I have worked as part of a Paid Brigade, which is the same thing.
BUT, One thing I do see happening over here, is that MOST of the money of the New Zealand Fire service goes into "touchy-feely" Fire safety plans, not into actual fire-fighting equipment!.
Which is all very well, if people know how to "stop, drop and roll", but who on earth is going to extinguish your burning house and what are they going to do it with?.
Check the site: http://www.fire.org.nz
It's just all PC rubbish!!.
[Message edited to correct URL]

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 10-03-2003).]

Pinemarten,
Sorry to just "bump you off" like that!.
Yes, I would imagine that the approval is for the Smoke detection part of the unit.
Carbon Monoxide(CO), as it is, is heavier than air, therefore it stays around the floor level, just the same as a Propane leak!.
Anyone that installs Smoke Detectors, should know that there are a few Golden Rules about fitting these simple, but essential bits of household equipment:

• Keep all smoke detectors at least 500mm from a wall!. (any FF worth thier salt will tell you that within 400mm of an upright wall and ceiling, there is a Dead Air Space, that will render a smoke detector null and void.
• Never wall mount a smoke detector, anyone who has told you to do this, is an idiot, smoke detectors work on vertical heat and smoke currents!.
• If you have a 2+ storey house, make sure that you have a smoke detector at each landing in the stair wells, as this will be the areas where a fire will spread quickest.

Need anymore advice?, just ask away!.
Cheers,
Trumpy.

Trumpy, i beg to differ....or should i say our country's standards do..

Sparky,
Yeah, that's a bit of a strange one.
I have always been taught that smoke will always stay away from walls in the initial stages of an outbreak of fire and will only move down a given wall, after there is sufficient smoke to cause it to "mushroom" down the walls.
Is my way of thinking all back to front?

DougW,
Thanks for the reply on SOP's!.
With respect to Comms between the Pump Operator and the Branch-man, we are sadly lacking here, the only one who gets to carry a Hand-held here is the Officer-in-Charge of the Incident and half the time he can't hear the darned thing, either.
Normally the Pump Operator makes most of the Comms to the Comms Centre, via a Blaring RT Horn Speaker (you have to be able to hear the Radio over the top of the Pump Motor!).
This is why we have a Senior Fire-fighter as a Pump Operator, at least we don't get wrong assessments of a job!.
We had a situation a few years ago where we had a Probationer FF, acting as a PO, while the guy went to the toilet (Bathroom), and the PO, came back and wanted a confirmation from the Comms Centre of sending 2 Hazmat Appliances and a TTL!.

Just as a Question, guys.
How do you guys, qualify as Fire Appliance(Pump) Drivers?.

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 10-18-2003).]

Doug,
There's a fair bit of use of acronyms in your post about SOP's, a few of which I don't really understand, but hey, that's just me!.
With respect to a MAYDAY call, from a lost FF, over here, we use a DSU (Distress Signal Unit) that comes with the BA set, not nearly as good!.