![]() ![]() I’m not saying these things were not important, but the emphasis was not on the high-risk tasks we need to perform at fires. More emphasis was put on things that really had nothing to do with firefighting. The disconnect came once we hit shift work. At the end of school, we were in great shape. I remember in recruit school, we never worked out, but we did work in gear every day. Maybe we get so lost in the fray that we lose focus on what really matters. #EMBRACE TRADITION FULL#Would physical fitness be that big of an issue? How physically fit would we be if we dragged around a 200-pound mannequin in full PPE? What if we knew without a shadow of a doubt that we did everything in our power to save a life at every call? Would mental health be as big of an issue? If we, as officers, enforced wearing masks during overhaul and doing gross decontamination prior to doffing turnout gear, would cancer be as big of an issue? It seems we get complacent on the front end and then go to the extreme to solve the issue on the back end. But imagine training for an hour every shift in bunker gear. I understand that there are major issues that need to be addressed – cancer, mental health and physical fitness, to name just a few. In recent years, we have seen a huge push to promote firefighter safety. I could give my firefighters every tool available, but if I didn’t change this mindset, nothing would change at all. We get so busy worrying about our own safety that we deprioritize the civilians who have no protections from the hostile and toxic fire environment. It is engrained into our culture that firefighters are the most important individuals on the fireground. We needed to expect victims at every fire. We needed to put these tactics in place at every fire. ![]() Ventilation was something we did to remove the smoke after the fire. Primary searches were only called for if there was a report of victims. Our members could knock down a fire very quickly with limited resources – but that was about where it stopped. Our department was excellent at extinguishing fires. The problem wasn’t the equipment, concepts or procedures. The culture in our organization was so quick to write off victims. ![]() One member said, “It wasn’t a survivable space.” That disturbed me deeply. Firefighters put hands on the victims but failed to get them out. We missed two opportunities to rescue victims from fires. Weak links are exposed under stress, and in 2021, we were exposed. We were checking all the boxes, or so I thought. #EMBRACE TRADITION PROFESSIONAL#We also began offering professional development opportunities, including webinars, bringing in outside resources for training, and making sure our members were exposed to the education they needed to be successful. That included improving attack packages, putting thermal cameras in the hands of company officers, and instituting a truck company. I started by compiling a list of resources I would want on the fire truck as a firefighter and company officer. I went to work and learned as much as I could from whomever I could. My not being completely prepared was not a valid excuse for failing in this mission. Now it was my turn to make an impact on our department and community. I was not prepared for the position, but I think anyone jumping from company officer to fire chief would face challenges. In 2019, I promoted from captain to fire chief. We always practiced search and rescue, but our focus was skewed to say the least, and the inefficiencies kept becoming more evident. One of those challenges was our attitude toward primary search and civilian rescue. Like so many fire departments, Hammond was moving forward but facing a few challenges, too. Training once a year on victim removal is not enough," writes Folks. This means training on this all the time. "We should show up to a fire expecting to find a victim. ![]()
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