The United States Fire Service

[jack10562 414]

Statistics include Comparison of Fire Department Calls, Type of Call, Firefighter Fatalities, Firefighter Injuries.

[SteveOFD 176]

A lot more NFPA stuff here NFPA "State by State Findings of Four Years Later - Fire Department Needs and Response Capabilities". You will see that we have it good by seeing some of the eye opening info in this report.

[helicopper 1,050]

Interesting, and somewhat disturbing, facts in the NFPA report.

For a building collapse with technical rescue and EMS requirements one-third of all departments consider such an incident outside their responsibility.

For a haz-mat with chem/bio agent and 10 injuries, again one-third of all departments consider such an incident outside their responsibility.

OK, enlighten me, if it is not the local FD's responsibility whose responsibility is it?

• An estimated 79,000 firefighters serve in fire departments that protect communities of at least 50,000 population and have fewer than 4 career firefighters assigned to first-due engine companies. It is likely that, for many of these departments, the first arriving complement of firefighters often falls short of

the minimum of 4 firefighters needed to initiate an interior attack on a structure fire, thereby requiring the first-arriving firefighters to wait until the rest of the

first-alarm responders arrive.

• In communities with less than 2,500 population, 21% of fire departments, nearly all of them all- or mostly-volunteer departments, deliver an average of 4 or fewer volunteer firefighters to a mid-day house fire. Because these departments average only one career firefighter per department, it is likely that most of these

departments often fail to deliver the minimum of 4 firefighters recognized by national standards as the necessary minimum for interior fire attack.

An estimated 42% of them volunteers serving in communities with less than

2,500 population, serve in departments that are involved in structural firefighting

but have not formally trained all involved firefighters in those duties.

• An estimated 128,000 firefighters, most of them volunteers serving in communities with less than 2,500 population, serve in departments that are involved in structural firefighting but have not certified any firefighters to Firefighter Level I or II.

And you guys are OK with this?

[SageVigiles 1,194]

OK, enlighten me, if it is not the local FD's responsibility whose responsibility is it?

Very few local fire departments have the training and/or resources to handle a technical rescue/collapse scenario or a HAZMAT. What they could be referring to is that it is out of their realm of responsibility in that county/state/federal resources would have to be brought in to mitigate the problem, since they are logistically incapable of doing so themselves.

[helicopper 1,050]

Very few local fire departments have the training and/or resources to handle a technical rescue/collapse scenario or a HAZMAT. What they could be referring to is that it is out of their realm of responsibility in that county/state/federal resources would have to be brought in to mitigate the problem, since they are logistically incapable of doing so themselves.

OK, I can understand that. Does this mean that these agencies have memorandums of understanding with these other assets to insure that they are available to them or is part of a specialized mutual aid agreement? Cause thinking about the mutual aid agreements that I've seen around here, it is not spelled out.

[SageVigiles 1,194]

It may or may not be. I'm just commenting on the fact that sometimes statistics aren't nearly as clear as they ought to be, and that some things can't be explained or defined by numbers. Special situations occur all the time in the fire service, so personally I have to take every statistic I hear with a grain of salt and consider what might lie beneath.

[ny10570 745]

I haven't read the report, it looks like sage all ready hit on the collapse, tech rescue, etc type calls. Often times there is not a specific mutual aid agreement nor is one necessary. The few collapse units available in the county are available to anyone who calls without specific agreements between depts.

The training could be explained by areas that don't subscribe to NFPA training. I believe right here in NY our training was not equivalent to NFPA until recently. Doesn't mean its better or worse, it just didn't translate.