Train Your Firefighters Not To Die !

Continued Funerals are not acceptable.

Tragic accidents will occur and firefighters will die.

Some accidents can and should have been prevented.

Review NIOSH Reports with your personnel.

They can be found at the NIOSH Homepage.

Look at what went wrong there. Compare to your own department operations.

Determine what things you can do to change the outcome.

Five major common factors among line of duty deaths are:

Lack of use or participation in Incident Command

Lack of proper risk assessment.

Inadequate communication.

Lack or failure of SOPS

Lack of accountability.

If you are a firefighter pay attention to these factors or make sure your dress blue uniform is ironed so you look nice when you are laid out in it.

If you are an officer and are afraid to train and enforce these procedures because of how you will be thought of, don't worry about what your personnel will think of you, worry about facing their family at the funeral.

The above concepts will be looked at in detail over the next few weeks, but you could spend five minutes on the above drill or five days.

You decide how much safety really means in your own department.