A Message FROM THE PRESIDENT

 
A Transparent View from within the Fire Service May 2, 2011 As of late, there has been a lot of inaccurate propaganda and slanderous comments being made about the service that we provide the residents of our community. Claims of “too many firefighters” and “top heavy administration levels” coupled with inaccurate accounts of the perceived and slanted “facts” have led me to a point where it is no longer possible for me to stay quiet on these remarks. Don’t get me wrong; I still plan to take the moral “high road”, and will not participate in a “he said, she said” debate within the sentences of this editorial: I prefer to handle that kind of challenge in a face-to-face style. Instead, I am going to provide you, our customers, and our community members with the facts about your fire service in Monroe Township. Fire departments across the country are charged with two key responsibilities: the first is to arrive at the scene of an emergency rapidly, efficiently, and safely; the second is that said response brings a sufficient amount of trained, competent firefighters to the scene. These responsibilities do not begin to scratch the surface of all of the services we provide, such as technical rescue, extrication, fire prevention, pre-planning, hazardous material response, and emergency medical care, just to name a few. But to keep it simple, I will keep the focus here to responding to structure fires. A person may not understand why the “rapid” response is so critical. It is because the properties of combustion wait for no one. Simply put, fire behavior and spread is based upon chemistry and physics, nothing more, nothing less. Alan Brunacini, retired Chief of the Phoenix Fire Department, has been quoted as saying that “Nothing screws up a good fire like putting a building around it”. In other words, when we sit outside at night roasting marshmallows around the roaring campfire, all is right and safe because the heat energy that is being released from the blaze escapes straight up into the air and cools and stratifies into the atmosphere. Now, take that same exact fire and put it in your living room; the results are much different. Tight compartmentation and insulating properties, coupled with the addition of highly toxic, extremely flammable hydrocarbon-based materials in today’s modern homes and furnishings, have drastically increased the heat energy and pressure within the compartment (your home) to levels that are untenable within 90 seconds. That is right: 90 seconds… Heat energy, not allowed to vent due to tight compartmentation, is re-invested into the fire, a phenomenon known as Thermal Radioactive Feedback. The heat energy escalates exponentially resulting in significant dynamic events that can be lethal to occupants and firefighters alike. Without getting too technical for non-firefighting members of the public I would like to make one succinct statement- to combat chemistry and physics, the response to a fire incident needs to be rapid, systematic, and efficient. National studies have shown that there are significant benefits to sending an appropriate number of firefighters to the scene as quickly as possible within the first few minutes of the alarm. With four (4) firefighters working as a crew on an arriving apparatus, the report shows that: Length of time to get water onto the fire (extinguishment) was REDUCED by nearly 20%; Laddering and ventilation operation time was REDUCED by 30%; Occupants exposed to the products of combustion had much less exposure particulates when there are sufficient amounts of firefighters on-scene quickly; Search and rescue of trapped occupants was completed 30% FASTER with four firefighter crews; Injuries and fatalities have been significantly REDUCED; Property damage results were significantly reduced; and Overall on-scene time for fire department crews was REDUCED by over 30%. This list is not-all-inclusive; reports show that there are 22 critical tasks that have to be completed on the fire ground, and at least a half dozen of them have to be started IMMEDIATELY upon arrival for the operation to be successful. So how many firefighters does it take to perform these tasks in the first few minutes? The National Fire Protection Association(NFPA), which is considered the “industry standard” for fire department guidelines and procedures, recognizes that a minimum of 15 firefighters would be needed immediately on-scene to be considered an effective response force for a structure fire, as described above, within a building that is no larger than 2,000 square feet. Here in Monroe Township, a large amount of residential buildings surpass 2,000 square feet in size, which suggests that more firefighters are needed within the first alarm assignment. Our structured fire department consists of three districts, two of which have career personnel on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all of the time. One district is completely volunteer, and provides members to respond to these emergencies as well. All three districts would be dispatched on the initial alarm in the event of a reported structure fire in our town. The fire department response to an emergency of this nature in Monroe Township guarantees 12 firefighters within the first few minutes of the alarm. While other members may respond after alert tones are put out and they respond to the station and muster onto an apparatus and respond, the first few critical minutes are covered with the 12 on-duty members. Lack of adequate manpower on-scene means that one or more of those half-dozen or so tasks that need to be accomplished are simply NOT GETTING DONE. I bring this topic to light because there are those with agendas that put some type of personal/political/retaliatory priority over the safety of both our community members and our firefighters. We live in the greatest country in the world, where people are free to speak and express themselves in a manner as accepted by society. But, with that freedom comes a responsibility: when it comes to public safety, and that includes the safety and well-being of both our firefighters and their loved ones, comments like “there are too many firefighters” and “we don’t need all these guys” have yet to be confirmed or supported with any credible data that has been brought forward, at any level whatsoever. Furthermore, there exist numerous line-of-duty death and injury reports that clearly identify the lack of sufficient, competent manpower on scene at the alarm as a contributing factor to the injury or fatality. Injuries and fatalities in the emergency services are heartbreaking, unacceptable, and, most of all, PREVENTABLE. I welcome any comments and discussion that you, our community members, and our customers, may have regarding this issue, and I am sure that any of our members would discuss the topic as well. Feel free to stop by our stations, meet your firefighters that are on-duty, and ask all of the questions that you may have. Chances are, we not only have the answers that you are looking for, we also have the documentation to back it up as well; after all, you deserve to have the best protection that we can afford you, based upon accurate and credible information, without compromise. Thank you for your continued support of our mission, and we all look forward to continuing to serve you in the future. Respectfully; James Grande President- Monroe Township Professional Fire Fighters Association

© COPYRIGHT 2011, Monroe Township Professional Firefighters - Local 3170, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.