Cutting costs and still getting what you want is beginning to take on a new meaning. Do you replace apparatus based on longevity (a 15-20 year plan), or do you base it on the condition and use of your engine, truck, heavy rescue or squad? In any case, fire departments are holding onto their apparatus a few more years.

If your engine is pump-tested on an annual basis and passes, you might be able to push back the purchase of a new apparatus. And in the case of an aerial ladder, if the ladder and components are tested and X-rayed and present no problems, you could do the same.

You could also consider buying used from a fire apparatus broker with a good reputation. You can find some good bargains out there if you are willing to make some adjustments to what you need.

If you decide that this isn't the way to go for your department, then you might choose to order a program apparatus from one of the apparatus manufacturers. A program vehicle is limited on the amount of options you can order, but you're trying to save money anyway.

A demo is another way to go. Most major manufacturers build these for shows around the country as well as for dealers to show prospective buyers. At various shows around the country, you can sometimes see fire departments write out checks right on the show floor to buy a vehicle.

Again, you might not get exactly what you want, but if it's close and saves you money, why not?

Analyze your immediate and future needs. Do you need a 2000GPM pump, or will a 1250GPM single-stage work for you? Is the 515HP diesel engine a must-have, or can you settle for a 475HP? Can you get by with simple manual gate valves and hardwiring, which, by the way, a great deal of fire departments are going back to, or do you need flow valves and wiring connected to computers?

There are many features you can delete or downsize without really affecting the purpose or the operation of your new purchase. Not to sound like a dinosaur, but since the objective is to extinguish fires and you can get away spending $250,000-300,000 for an engine, then why spend $500,000-750,000 to accomplish the same goal?

Shop around. A great many fire apparatus dealers and manufacturers will work with you and give you some good prices during this down economy. The decision is up to you and your apparatus committee.

As 2011 ended, we marked the 40th anniversary of one of the most influential pieces of legislation involving the nation's fire service. In 1971, the United States Congress appropriated funding to establish the National Commission on Fire Prevention and Control. Up to this point, subjects such as fire suppression, fire prevention and related topics were perceived not to be a national problem but a local issue.

After two years of work, the Commission released its report entitled "America Burning." The report was groundbreaking for its time. It called for a national fire academy, the development and enforcement of uniform building codes and the establishment of a national fire administration, along with other initiatives. The report estimated that 12,000 people were dying annually as the result of fires in this nation.

"America Burning" also recommended that more emphasis be placed on fire prevention, increased training of fire service personnel and educating the public about fire safety.

In 1987, the USFA convened a workshop to examine the changes that had taken place as a result of the Commission's recommendations and to develop plans for the fire service that would take us into the 21st century.

In 1999, President Clinton appointed a panel "to reexamine the evolving role of the fire services in the safety and sustainability of today's American communities." The commission's report reached two major conclusions:

1. "The frequency and severity of fires in America is a result of our nation's failure to adequately apply and fund known loss reduction strategies. The primary responsibility for fire prevention, suppression and action on other hazards dealt with by the fire services properly rests with state and local government. Nevertheless, a substantial role exists for the federal government in funding and technical support."

2. The panel's chair, George K. Bernstein, stated, "Until the USFA is empowered by funding and staffing to truly become the leader in our nation's firefighting efforts, unless the fire services are adequately funded, and unless local communities enforce known fire preventive and suppression measures, the establishment of this commission and its efforts to develop recommendations will have been an exercise in futility."

The reason I have given you this historical information is because it appears that the current congressional leadership is about to diverge from this four-decade-old policy. Recently the U.S. House and Senate passed the Fiscal Year 2012 Appropriations Plan.

The 2012 spending plan lowers the amount of funding for the AFG and SAFER programs to $337.5 million. This is a collective reduction of $135 million from FY 2011, when both programs were funded at $405 million. The USFA is cut by $1.5 million, and the program's budget is now more than 40 percent less than it was in 2002.

Congress further reduced the amount available to other Homeland Security Initiatives, including Urban Areas Security Initiative, the State Homeland Security Grant Program and Citizen Corps. These programs were cut by nearly 50 percent from their 2011 funding levels.

We have made substantial progress in the fire service in America since the National Commission on Fire Prevention and Control first issued its report. Civilian fire deaths have decreased by 66 percent, and firefighter fatalities have dropped from 157 to 87 in 2010.

At the same time, the number of calls answered by our nation's firefighters has continued to increase. Now a fire call is received every 1.18 seconds in our country. Also, the number of firefighters answering these alarms has been drastically reduced.

In particular, the number of volunteer firefighters in this country has dropped by 10 percent in the past 25 years. During that same time, the average age of volunteer firefighters has increased dramatically. In 2009, the percentage of volunteer firefighters over the age of 50 was 21.8 percent; this is nearly double the amount it was just 12 years earlier.

The fire service in America needs to respond to related cuts in the federal budget, and we need to do it quickly. In the time it took you to read this article, fire departments in our nation responded to nearly 200 alarms.

We need to tell our federal legislators that the foundation laid by the Commission on Fire Prevention and Control needs to be supported and built upon rather than destroyed. We need to tell them that programs like AFG, SAFER and the Fire Prevention and Safety Grants are working and now is not the time to take steps backward.

You are a company officer who has been given the choice between two firefighters as new members of your crew.

The only thing you know about the two is that Terry recently rescued a child from a second floor bedroom during a big fire, and Lee recently hit a citizen's car when driving the fire truck. Who will you choose to be on your crew?

Realistically, with just this information to go on, no one would choose Lee over Terry. Those officers who say that it made no difference to them which of these firefighters would be assigned to them are probably not being completely honest with themselves either.

It is human nature to believe that success will be predicted by prior success. This is true even if that success is based on nothing more than a single incident or pure chance, which could certainly be the case in this example.

It is possible that Terry's success in finding the fire victim was a result of luck — just randomly being assigned to search the room that had an occupant versus all the other rooms that did not.

In a more extreme case, Terry might have disobeyed orders and been freelancing when making the big save. On the other hand, Lee's accident may have been the result of quick thinking that averted larger damage or bodily harm.

Limited knowledge
In either case, the outcome may have absolutely no predictive effect on the skill or ability of each individual. Having only this limited knowledge of the firefighters should have no effect at all on preferring one over the other as a crew member.

But is this how it plays out in real life? Hardly. When I first became a firefighter, I was given lots of good advice. I clearly remember my captain telling me, "If you want to succeed around here, just make sure you don't do something really stupid your first year on the job."

Those who had an accident, or who spoke too freely, or who violated some unwritten rule were often labeled for a good duration of time, if not their entire careers, according to that single incident.

On the other hand, someone who may have just had a lucky break during that critical early period may be labeled in a positive way that may not accurately reflect that person's ability at that moment in time.

But what happens after those labels are applied? Then the expectations often become self-fulfilling prophecies. The person who is expected to be good is noticed and affirmed every time he or she does something positive, and tends to be excused when the inevitable mistake is made.

Constant scrutiny
On the other hand, the person who is expected to be bad is under constant scrutiny, noticed for all mistakes made, and positive outcomes are considered to be flukes.

It doesn't take long for this cycle to become self-perpetuating. They say that nothing succeeds like success, and there is a lot of truth to this statement, at least as far as people's perceptions are concerned.

This is known as the halo effect, a tendency to like everything about a person, including things you have not directly observed, based on liking one thing about that person.

On the other hand, when expectations are negative about a person, that person may internalize the characterization to the point where they represent themselves in a diminished way, if only just to meet the expectations that exist about them.

I remember early in my career meeting an older firefighter who introduced himself this way: "Hi, I'm Ray. I'm kind of considered dead wood around here." It was partly ironic, but mostly true.

He was considered to be dead wood around the department, based on a couple early incidents in his career, and he subsequently lived up (or down) to that expectation.

Bad beginnings
What I found when I worked with Ray, and others who had a similarly unfortunate beginning on the department, was that he was a good man with lots of knowledge to share.

But there was no expectation among his peers that he had much of anything to contribute and thus had been written off early in his tenure on the job.

Company officers have enormous power when it comes to managing expectations among their crew members. A first important piece of this effort is recognizing the reality of the halo effect, for better and for worse. The halo effect says that success breeds success, and failure tends to predict the same.

Therefore, it is critical that company officers give all new crew members a blank slate, no matter what they have heard about them or what actual incidents have occurred in the past.

This openness must not just exist in the officer's mind. These expectations (especially negative expectations) have been internalized by the crew members themselves. It is important for the company officer to verbalize this clean slate approach for everyone.

You must let everyone know that they are starting on equal footing, and that your expectation is that the team's success always outweighs individual performance.

To some degree it is impossible to ignore the strong influence of prior knowledge of someone, no matter now limited that information may be. The best officers recognize the dangers of the halo effect and work to bring out the best in every crew member, regardless of that person's reputation or prior history.

It may seem a long time ago now, but it was a brutal summer, ending in the final week of September when Los Angeles posted an all-time record high temperature of 112 F. It was also around this time when the NFPA published the Loss of Life data for 2009, and the record shows a significant decrease in deaths related to fire rescue activities. We need to celebrate the success stories of decreasing fire rescue injuries and loss of life.

Incident rehabilitation was featured in dozens of local media pieces over the summer months on how workers were coping with the hot conditions, and many were accompanied by pictures of proud rescuers who were given the opportunity to briefly rest, cool, rehydrate, and be evaluated. This was occurring before they resumed work at that incident scene, or at the others that would occur before the shift ended.

I also watched this summer the rehabilitation that professional athletes utilize in hot weather during football, soccer, and baseball games. We should view ourselves and our operations as "more valuable." Why? Our job is actually much more difficult then theirs. Ours is completely unpredictable. The athletes know they don’t have to play another full game an hour from now. Our public safety personnel do not.

I witnessed an occasion this summer where five firefighters were brought from the same incident, fortunately none with life-threatening problems. What was the issue? Nothing particular to that individual fire scene, but due to the fact that three working incidents had been managed back-to-back by the crews, with the third being the most difficult, on the hottest day of the year.

And those crews were not even halfway through their shift yet! In extreme weather conditions, rehab must be diligently applied at the first incident, to enable our professionals to prepare for the incident or two or six that still may be coming.

Consider taking a picture of one of a group of your fire/EMS personnel rehabbing at a working incident or training, and pair it up with a photo of a football team cooling on the sidelines. Make sure everyone of your personnel understand the priority of team preparedness, and the physical benefits of optimal performance by every team member. Rehab is a vital part of professional sports, and of professional emergency operations.

In the agencies where I work, we had many hot weather incidents, and all were managed using an incident rehabilitation program that has evolved over the past few years.

What is notable is that we started with the process, and now we are moving to the "props" that will make it more effective and more professional. Agencies have invested in cooling systems, fans, shades, drink dispensers, icemakers, and other equipment that increase the effectiveness of the process. There are no "Gatorade" signs hanging around (and no commander gets a Gatorade shower at the end of the incident), but the rehab area is beginning to look more organized.

It is our opportunity at the end of summer operations to reinforce the benefits of incident rehabilitation within our organizations and with our members. Even as we prepare in many locales for cold weather rehabilitation, there is no time like the present to prepare for another hot summer starting in about six months.

Here's a five item list to consider.

• Have you cooperated with your mutual aid and other nearby organizations to establish a consistent rehab process? Maybe even develop a regional rehab unit.
• Have you extended your program to cover the law enforcement, utility, and media personnel who are sweating in the same sunshine as you are? This builds incredible positive public relations.
• Have you considered and applied local donations of equipment and supplies to enhance the rehab operation? For those of us with the tightest budgets, it is worthwhile.
• Is the rehab operation paperwork filed with the incident report? Does someone check the sheets to make sure all working crews received rehab, or is some other process in place to ensure compliance of all crews with the program?
• Have you begun to use the rehab program as a bridge to other physical (and mental) well-being programs for your personnel? Some agencies have used the development of the rehab program to initiate an interaction with local universities, sports medicine programs, and nutritionists. That interaction then extended to other programs that brought routine fitness evaluations, nutrition training, and wellness programs into the organization.

Our personnel deserve the time, respect and attention to detail. The incident rehabilitation process is a critical process that ensures that each emergency operation can be carried out as safely as possible. And that detail will allow us to produce healthy retirees.

Personally, I was very pleased to hear about this proposed program to help get our veterans employed as firefighters in their local communities.

In my experience hiring numerous firefighters and medics through the years, I've found members of the armed forces to be outstanding candidates.

Whether retired from active duty, or still serving in the Guard and Reserve, our veterans have demonstrated many of the same competencies we expect in our fire departments.

I know that some fire chiefs are concerned about Guard members and Reservists potentially being deployed for extended periods of time, and I certainly understand the hardship that can place on departments that are already suffering from budget cuts and staffing shortages.

It's also true that returning veterans sometimes need additional support to address what they've experienced in the course of their service. (Although our departments should already be providing substantial access to behavioral health services for incumbent firefighters and other responders.)

But in my opinion, the benefits of hiring our veterans far outweigh any potential costs.

Discipline, commitment, service, flexibility, physical fitness, and the expectation of continual learning are characteristics shared by our veterans that translate very well to the civilian world.

Certainly those members of our departments who did not serve in the armed forces bring their own, highly valuable, public service commitment and skill sets to the table.

I tend to think that, as with so many things, combining the best of our civilian and military workforces holds great promise to positively shape the next generations of the fire and emergency services.

And I can't help but wonder, if this program is successful, how the fire and emergency services culture might change in the future?

Please join me in thanking all our veterans for their service and stay safe!

My favorite book, Who Moved My Cheese, is by Spencer Johnson, M.D. Through this quick read, you will learn about four little characters that are in the maze of life.

Two characters are named Sniff and Scurry, and they are mice. The other two characters are Hem and Haw, and they are little people.
They all begin at Cheese Station C where they enjoy the great things in life like security and tasty cheese.

However, Sniff and Scurry taste a change in the cheese that they don't like and they journey out into the maze of life to find new and better cheese.

Hem and Haw, however, deny there is any change, and are reluctant to face it. The book in itself is well worth a read, but particularly as it has so much relevance to us in the fire service.

The cheese we have enjoyed in the fire service has changed and doesn't taste too good.

How to survive
While it's not as easy for members of the fire service to journey out into the maze because we are locked down in a secure job, we should begin thinking about the strategies of how to survive in this new age that we have seen in 2011.

It all comes down to using the resources we have more wisely, and how we market ourselves.

When we consider the deployment of resources, are we using them to our fullest advantage? What does the public think when we send a multitude of apparatus and personnel to a general sick call? What cost cutting measures are we implementing in our departments and how does it affect our business model?

Better yet…what is your business model? These are just a few of the many questions that the fire service needs to be prepared to answer as we move into 2012.

Need to change
The deployment model will need to change in 2012 for many agencies. I'm all for as many butts on the truck as it will seat, and as many in the firehouse as it will sleep, but that model is changing.

How will departments that have been accustomed to having bountiful resources handle a reduction in personnel and changing their deployment model?

Answer: Ask the volunteers and smaller departments. They have been doing it for years. But hold on…this isn't just for the big boys!
Volunteer departments have been experiencing a change in their volunteer recruitment and retention for some time. As the economy continues to hurt, individuals are faced with working more jobs, longer hours, and have less time to volunteer.

People have less money to donate, which also is hurting many volunteer fundraisers. How are they going to cope?

Perhaps dialogue between career and volunteer departments would be in the best interest of all. Our cry is for firefighter safety. How will changing deployment models affect that?

Less people doesn't always mean less safety, but it does mean less work we can do with those we have, which will eventually affect service delivery.

Reflect back on my last column, Why We Need A Culture of Safe Suppression. Maybe the popularity of aggressive exterior firefighting will gain in popularity?

How we market ourselves
The second item we need to look closely at is how we market ourselves. Social media is not going away; in fact, it will only develop into new and more creative ways we get information.

What we say on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and other forums will continue to get us in trouble. We must maintain a professional image to those who trust us.

And we must stop saying that if the public doesn't care about us, then why should we care about them?

Are you kidding me? I've seen that so many times of late in blogs and posts. The old Pogo cartoon used to have a saying, "We have met the enemy and he is us!"

Do you think the people in Tennessee have a respectful perception of the fire service when two houses burned because subscription fees weren't paid? Right, wrong, or indifferent, how people FEEL about the incident carries the day.

Fire departments will need to be more creative in community involvement. Open up your firehouses and stop living in a secret society behind closed bay doors, because this is "your house."

This is their house too, and they need to be a part of it. They need to know how hard you work in training, call volume, EMS calls, hose testing, apparatus and equipment maintenance, physical fitness, stress, sleep deprivation, EMS calls, studying for promotions, public education, EMS calls, company inspections, pre-fire planning, and last but not least, EMS calls.

If you wait until the budget cuts are on the table before you start telling your story and trying to build support, you're too late. Market yourself now!

Be involved
Don't just show up to community meetings on emergency responder appreciation day. Be involved in the associations to drive the agendas to get your name, your department's name, and your message in front of the voters.

Be a part of the community proactively and not just reactively. Never forget the political process either. Refer back to my article "Firefighter Safety: How Politics Play A Part."

Marketing ourselves to our politicians in a professional-business way gains us a better seat at the budget table rather than casting stones at them once the damage is done.

2012 will be another exciting year and we will have to see how everything evolves. There is nothing to say that anything I have said in the aforementioned will or will not work.

But I've got a couple of rodeos under my belt, and have managed an eight-second ride a few times! Where will your cheese be in 2012 and are you brave enough to take the journey into the maze to find it?

Buckle up, hold on tight, and be safe!

Note: Billy D. Hayes will be presenting "A Business With No Sign Is A Sign of No Business" at Firehouse World in San Diego on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 from 9:45 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.

AP/Minnesota Daily, Stacy Bengs
Firefighters size up the scene after the bridge collapse in Minn. last week.

Years ago, when I took my first search and rescue class, the instructor talked about the six-sided review of a building or incident. "Look up, look down, and make sure you look all around before committing yourself," he told us.

Over the years, I have thought of that simple saying on many emergency incidents and have passed it on to thousands of my students during training. The bottom line: Don't get sucked into something before you give it the old once over.

It's easier said than done sometimes, especially when lives hang in the balance and quick action will affect the outcome of an incident. But what about all of those other occasions when you may have the time to do it right?

What is your approach and thought process when you come across a technical rescue or any type of rescue for that matter? Is it a well executed series of steps or a fly by the seat of your pants operation?

Good team members, the right tools and practical training shouldn't be under valued, but that doesn't replace mentally being on your game.

To do that, you have to do something that most people hate or are too lazy to do Rescue is a thinking game you need to play the "what if" game. "What if a car goes over that edge, what if that building falls down, what if that place blows up, what if I have to cut that guy in half to get past him, what if I have to crawl in that hole to get that victim?"

It's not enough to just know how to use the tools, or be well practiced or to have a cohesive team. Rescue is a thinking game, and the people who can plan ahead, see something coming and be ready for it are worth their weight in gold.

Organized chaos
You're always behind before you get there, that's a given. But how far ahead of the incident are you when you arrive? I used to work for a battalion chief who would say, "You don't bring a crisis to an emergency." Sure it's organized chaos at some scenes, but your level of organization and the ability to achieve the required levels under the most impossible circumstances is the real key.

How many of us can say that we are "masters" of our craft and how many want to be? Chances are, if you're reading this column, you're already a student of the trade, which makes you a cut above the rest. But there is a lifetime of learning to be done and every day is a school day in our profession.

If you think that you know it all, have seen it all or have it done it all, we're all in trouble and chances are you're probably a liability at a significant incident. Confidence should never be replaced by arrogance.

Rescue is a thinking game. The best people who have seen a thing or two tend to mostly be humbled by the experience — they don't say much, but when the going gets tough they often get going.

I love watching new firefighters, they have so much energy and so much enthusiasm, and they're great to be around. It's also fun to watch them expend all of that energy to no successful end sometimes. But with age and experience comes wisdom!

The veteran firefighter may not always be as enthusiastic, but that tempered approach, years of real world experience and knowledge of the tricks of the trade often carry them through most calls.

But to be in the class above, you have to love it a little more to be really, really good at it. Superstars train harder, practice longer and are very, very focused.

So what does it take to be a master of disaster? Out of the box thinking, the ability to write down your first 20-30 moves on any type of rescue with a twist and a constant desire for perfection. And don't forget the lifetime of learning, listening and talking about the "what ifs" of our job.

We have written several times in the past stating the importance of specific standards for the fire service. The majority of these standards originate from the National Fire Protection Association.

Standards on personal protective equipment establish minimum levels of performance that are intended to reflect firefighter needs.

The process for creating and revising standards is fully dependent on the technical committees which are established with fixed size committees. These include a balanced membership from various interested categories including end users, labor unions, manufacturers, research and testing laboratories, and special experts.

However, these standards only become better when individual firefighters and other experienced end users outside the process provide their input to the committee to reflect the practical realities of personal protection.

This month we are writing to encourage you to consider providing proposals and comments on several standards that are in the process of being developed or being revised.

Before we address the current standards in revision, it is important to understand how anyone can provide input to the NFPA process. Unlike many standards development organizations, the NFPA provides two different phases for public recommendations.

Formerly known as public proposals, the first stage is public input. This phase permits individuals to put in suggested changes to an existing standard that are considered by the committee writing the standard in preparing their first draft of the revision.

Any topic is open for consideration, but the NFPA requests that the proposals be put forward in a format where a specific change is suggested and a statement for substantiation should be provided with the change.

The committee reviews each suggested change and either agrees to make the revision or disagrees by rejecting the proposal. However, the committee can also agree in principle by making a related change or accept part of the proposal.

While each suggestion is separately reviewed, the committee may react to a large number of proposals on a single topic and respond with a change that addresses each of the related proposals.

The NFPA is in the process of implementing new procedures where public proposals are viewed more as suggestions as the committee creates a first revised draft of the standard.

The second phase of public involvement is public comment. NFPA is also adapting the rules for how this part of the process is carried out, but for the current year the existing procedures will be in place.

Public comments are submitted after the NFPA publishes its report on proposals, which shows how each of the public comments are handled and an initial draft of the revised or new document.

Like proposals, comments provide recommendations for specific parts of the proposed standard or revision. These recommendations can take the form of adding or changing text, adding new language, or removing parts of the standard.

The committee again reviews each comment and decides whether to accept or reject comments. As with proposals, comments can also be accepted in principle or in part, but another option open to the committee is to hold the proposed change to the next revision.

The actual procedures for submitting a public proposal (now public input) or a comment can be found on the NFPA's website, under the tab for "Codes and Standards."

The forms appear to the right side of this page and include explanatory notes for submitting the respective change. In addition, draft documents can be reviewed by selecting the specific standard of interest from the list that appears to the left side of the same page under the heading, "Document information pages."

By choosing the respective standard, information on that standard will appear, including a full draft of the standard, notices and minutes of any meeting, and a list of members for the respective committee.

The pages for each individual standard also provide a list of specific deadlines for submitting input or comments for the particular standard.

The most important document to look at is the "Report for Proposals" on new documents. This document provides information on what proposals were submitted and how each proposal was addressed by the committee.

In the next part of this article, we'll outline several standards under development or revision – and what they could mean for you.

One of the biggest myths in fitness and in injury prevention is how to properly train the abdominal wall.

Think of your abdominal muscles like a corset or weight belt, and with that visual in mind get rid of the notion that crunches and leg raises make your abs stronger.

Your abdominals' primary job is twofold: to create trunk stability and core/spine stiffness. The key to strong abs is possessing the ability to maintain postural control with the abdominal wall engaged for the duration of an event.

In public safety, this directly affects patient handling and lifting. The exercises in this video — plank reach, lateral plank and core press — are simple and highly effective. They allow you to get stronger while on duty and in uniform.

The keys to the exercises are simple, perfect positioning and progressive hold of the positions. As you get stronger, the duration of the exercise will increase, which will directly affect the ease at which you do your job.

Since crunches actually increase your chance for back injury, and leg raises cause postural distortions that increase your chance for back and knee injury, it only makes sense to incorporate some very safe, effective and easy on-duty exercises into your training.

Train your abs 2-3 times per week for 2-3 sets of a progressive hold. Start out with 20-30 seconds and build up from there, but remember that form always trumps function. As with all your training, it's quality over quantity.

By David Peterson

Training sessions for hazmat response can become boring, monotonous and stale over time. This staleness can take its toll with a downturn in the team's morale and even resignations of members. If left alone, good operating hazmat teams can quickly become dysfunctional and difficult to correct. So what can be done to prevent a hazmat team's demise from a training perspective?

The answer lies in how training sessions are approached. With a small amount of imagination, they can be challenging and stimulating and even leave team members wanting more. Hazmat training should also be realistic with a focus on real-life situations that the team has faced in the past or could face in the future.

During a recent hazmat team training session we held, a vacant building was secured for Level A entries. The building is inside our city and served as a dairy during its active years. Fortunately, most of the pipes and valves and containers for the ammonia cooling system remained on the premises and consequently were ours to play with. The building also did not have electricity so was extremely dark inside even on a sunny day. It all bode well for a challenging training session.

Few restrictions
As the building is slated to be deconstructed, there were not many restrictions. Consequently a scenario was developed where a multi-purpose fire extinguisher would be used to create a yellowish cloud within a small room where a pipe leak had developed. The cloud would be proclaimed as a chlorine gas leak from a corroded pipe and entry teams would need to apply a leaking-pipe patch kit. To make the entries realistic, the extinguisher would be discharged just before the entry team members entered the room.

Also in the room with the yellow cloud would be a marked pipe to indicate the source of the leak. To make the leak realistic, an air cylinder was cracked open and left to slowly leak at the floor near the leaking pipe (see image #1). This would indicate to the entry team where the leak was located when they entered the room. The air cylinder also helped to "kick-up" the extinguishing agent as it started to fall out of the air.

Now that the setting for the "business end" of the session was completed, the team was briefed on the scenario and they were left to respond as they normally would. They were also informed of the layout of the building and the location of the valves and shutoffs by an anonymous building "employee." To tackle this problem, the team decided to make entry in Level A suits and first shut down all lines as directed by the responsible party (see image #2). Next they decided to use positive pressure ventilation to clear the room with the leaking pipe of the simulated chlorine gas (see image #3). Last, the entry team would apply a patch to the leaking pipe (see image #4).

Ways of approach
The team utilized their position vests, their position checklists, appropriate monitoring equipment, and decontamination in their approach to mitigating this scenario. They also researched the chemical and physical properties of chlorine in order to respond to the release effectively. Because of the information from the responsible party, the entry team also brought a small step ladder and hand lights in order to better navigate the dark rooms. To complete all of the tasks that were identified and planned, two entry teams were needed.

At the completion of the scenario, all team personnel were escorted into the building to see what the entry teams saw. This is an effective technique so everyone can benefit through the visualization of the business end of hazmat. This important tool also provides an opportunity to answer questions that may arise.

It is also an opportunity for team growth in that it builds confidence, lends to a better comfort level for entry personnel and also provides the team trainers and leaders of tomorrow with ideas for future training sessions.

As you can see, an effective and challenging training session is actually an easy task if you use your resources and your imagination. The only cost of this session was the recharging of the multi-purpose fire extinguisher.

For a minimal cost, a very realistic scenario was developed to prepare Level A entry personnel for the real thing. What is the sign that personnel enjoyed the training session and felt that their time was well-spent? The answer is found by listening to their banter afterward. If you hear them saying how much the scenario challenged them and how it exceeded their expectations, then you’ll know it was not boring, monotonous or stale!

SUMMARY
Carbon monoxide is the most frequent cause of poisoning in industrialized countries. Reports indicate that over 500 people a year are killed by unintentional poisoning, with about 15,000 people seeking treatment at hospitals. Firefighters play a key role in responding to and rescuing patients suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. Symptoms of mild poisoning include headaches and flu-like effects. However, larger exposures can lead to significant toxicity of the central nervous system and heart.

OBJECTIVE
Upon completing this educational curriculum on carbon monoxide poisoning, by Bryan E. Bledsoe, DO, FACEP, the student will be more aware of the importance of carbon monoxide detection and carbon monoxide treatment in the fire-ground setting.

Download the curriculum materials below.

This educational module is sponsored by Masimo Inc., and is endorsed by the National Association of EMTs, and the International Association of Firefighters.

Copyright 2008 by Cielo Azul Publications.

"'When your crew have taken you past these Sirens, I cannot give you coherent directions as to which of two courses you are to take; I will lay the two alternatives before you, and you must consider them for yourself." - Homer

Another year is fading. As it fades I pause to consider all those who died this year. I also try to reflect on those who got hurt badly this year, those who spent days and weeks in the brutality of the burn unit. Those who look in the mirror and see vicious scars that no amount of time will heal.

I think about the people I know who continue to struggle with nightmares after the funeral uniforms are hung back in the closet. I consider those people because I think it is a noble mission to try and make sure that no one else has to suffer that much.

I am not silly enough to believe that it could never be me. I know that on any given day my luck can run out and I too can join that painful fraternity. I also know that while I can never eliminate the uncertainty, nor fully quantify the risk, I can resist the siren song call to uncritical action.

I can push back against the hero or coward ethos that seems to be the prevailing modality of fire service discourse. I can fight that and will because I owe my family as least that much.

I am worried that we have been collectively conditioned to accept risk as a sort of rite of passage. There is this myth about the firefighter, partly urban legend, partly true but mostly self-contrived, it goes the firefighter goes into anything at anytime to save a life and to save some property. And while there is nothing inherently wrong with that ethos as a starting point it only offers cowardice as a converse.

We are being taught by blog comments, by websites and keynote conference speeches that if you are not "slaying dragons" from the inside in an overtly aggressive manner you are doing something wrong; you are failing the public, you are disturbing the ethos and you are not one of us.

There is a systematic attack against "culture of safety," the "culture of analysis," and the culture of critical thought. They tell us that the public expects us to engage no matter what, that it is expected and accepted that we might die. They tell us that to believe otherwise borders on criminal.

I no longer engage in the perpetual debates about fog versus straight stream, just as I no longer engage in the Ford versus Chevy debate. If you can put water on burning surfaces with a 4-cylinder Honda Civic who cares? What I care about is how the discussion gets framed.

What I care about is the insidious nature of the binary debate, the tacit assumption that if you are not stretching hoses inside burning houses you are a coward. That ethos is a recipe for continued failure.

The devolution of the public fire service discourse into the coward versus firefighter binary is troubling. By its very nature, such a discourse denies those of us who don't believe in the foolhardy the counterbalance of active critical thought.

If there is such a thing as a real answer or a universal truth, with regards to firefighting it is that no person who claims to have a real answer or a universal truth is to be trusted. If firefighting could be boiled down into simple axioms, if we could tell the rookie to, "…just do this one thing and everything will always be fine…" there would be no need for full scale burn tests or magazine articles. There are no, "nevers" and no "always."

The purpose of study, analysis and critical debate is not to provide the universal truth but rather to systematically and critically assault our knowledge and assumptions about our operational environment. When the core basis of our actions are challenged the right thing to do it to engage in constructive debate.

The wrong thing to do is to crawl into a corner, grab your ¾ boots, smooth bore nozzle, and bare your teeth while proclaiming yourself protector of the ethos.

The science, the case studies, and the conferences do not exist to confirm what we already knew. They exist to challenge what is known and to provide a framework around which individuals and organizations can begin to define what is right for them. “I cannot give you coherent directions as to which of two courses you are to take; I will lay the two alternatives before you, and you must consider them for yourself."

One of the most common descriptors used to explain fireground operations is the word chaotic. Firegrounds, especially in the critical opening minutes, are chaotic. You can't make the chaos go away but you can dampen the effects of chaos if you can ensure that all the oscillations that describe it occur around a common critical framework.

In the end what I am saying is that I worry. I worry that despite the explicit declarations of every major fire service organization, we are implicitly saying that no danger is too much, nothing is beyond trading our lives for, no shell of a house is too little to die for, that only squares and people who write school papers are concerned with questions. That is a lot to worry about.

With 2008 under way, it's time for us to reflect on the year past and to begin developing our plans for the future. Here are eight straightforward ideas that company officers can use right now to help their crews stay ahead in 2008.

1. Be an informer
Passing on relevant information about decisions, plans and activities to the people (your firefighters) who need it to do their work is vital. You can't expect them to accomplish goals that they know nothing about. Discuss the daily objectives at the morning briefing, including any training, inspections, pre-fire plans or scheduled community education. You can never provide too much information to your people.

2. Promote the team
Crew cohesion, or working together as a team, is an important human factor in firefighter safety and for getting things done. Problems with crew cohesion have been identified with several near-misses and tragic accidents. Look for and promote good work practices that safely and effectively accomplish team objectives. Stress the importance of how individual capabilities contribute to the team's success.

3. Create a training plan to keep your crew ready Your training goal should be to prepare your firefighters to be ready to operate safely and effectively at any intensity level, anywhere, anytime, and to return home alive. Readiness training demands teamwork, dedication and sustained practice. Create a flexible and believable training plan that addresses the training needs for your crew while prioritizing those training needs, focusing on safety first.

4. Address problems as they occur
Be willing to confront problems head on and have those tough conversations with your firefighters. A team that is comfortable talking openly with each other, and willing to air their disagreements or problems, will move forward together. Identify and remediate all performance issues immediately, understanding that everyone operates at a different level.

5. Define your expectations and keep them believable
It's pretty simple. Let your crew know what you expect of them. Here are a few examples: Be safe by responding safely, following operational policies, maintaining and operating equipment properly, and practicing personnel accountability. Be proficient by training for readiness and improvement, arriving on scene ready to work, communicating effectively, and following the chain of command. Be professional by practicing a positive image all the time, everywhere you go. Be nice to each other and everyone you meet. If your team makes an effort to follow these basic expectations, you will have a safe and rewarding year.

6. Motivate them
Recognize the likes and differences of your firefighters to help you motivate them to be a more productive team. Appeal to their individual emotions and values to generate enthusiasm for their work. Invite their participation when making decisions, and allow them to have responsibility in carrying out their work activities.

7. Recognize and praise them, at the right time
Provide praise and recognition for excellent (not ordinary) performance. If it's really good work, put it in writing. Be specific about what you are praising. Give praise for weak performance that’s improving. Recognizing their efforts shows your appreciation for the work they do.

8. Support and mentor them
Act friendly and considerate. Be patient and helpful. Do things to facilitate your firefighters' skill development and career enhancement. Be responsive to their requests for assistance or support, and set an example for proper behavior. Be their leader.

Take some time and see if you can add a few ideas to the list. Even if you can only address a few of these recommendations you'll be on the road to developing a fresh attitude and healthy approach for a new and exciting year.

A box truck fire in Athens, Ariz., last month put firefighters in a dangerous situation because of poor initial size-up and rig placement.

We are taught early on in the academy that size-up starts when the call goes out. We are taught to practice continual size-up and have situational awareness.

Without these critical components and a basic understanding of fires we will continue to place ourselves in compromising situations.

En route, continue your size-up and plan a safe attack method and approach. Typically on arrival, vehicle fires are a total loss.

Unless the vehicle is occupied there is absolutely no reason to put firefighters in a position of unnecessary dangers and risks. Vehicle fires are not the fires in which to play hero at.

On arrival, remember the importance of rig placement. Understand the ramifications of wind on vehicle fires as well as changes in elevation.

Changes in elevation at vehicle fires can be dangerous for the following reasons:

• Fuel spills compromising firefighters or apparatus
• Hazardous liquids compromising firefighters or apparatus
• Vehicle can lose brakes or not be in park, compromising firefighters or apparatus

Wind direction can impact:

• Smoke direction
• Exposure Risks
• Fire spread

Knowing the changes in elevation and the wind direction can assist you in allowing the apparatus to be positioned in a safe location.

This placement will also allow firefighters to advance the line downwind and downhill to help limit inhalation and spill hazards.

The firefighters in the video above are punished for not following the basics, but were thankfully not hurt. Use this video as a training tool to limit unnecessary risk and exposure in your department.

Have you ever pondered the origin of the famous quote, "You want to have your cake and eat it, too?" No you say? Well, this sometimes misquoted proverb is from the work of an early English writer named John Heywood. What Mr. Heywood actually said was, "Would ye both eat your cake and have your cake?" But there are some cases where you can absolutely have the best of both.

In speaking with fire and EMS agencies about the Assistance to Firefighters Grant program, there is a great deal of confusion about just how many applications each eligible agency may submit in a given year. Some say one, others two.

Very rarely is the correct answer given. According to the 2008 published guidance for the Assistance to Firefighters Grant, each eligible agency may submit one application for each "program area" for a total of three.

The 2009 AFG workshop has not provided any information which would lead one to believe that there will be changes in this area. The three AFG program areas are:

• Fire/EMS Operations & Safety
• Fire/EMS Vehicle Acquisition
• Regional Projects

Each individual application is scored independently of the others, and submitting multiple applications will not affect an application's score. One caveat to this is any agency hosting/participating in a regional application is prohibited from requesting the same equipment as part its own application. Doing so will result in both applications being made ineligible.

Part of the 2008 AFG guidance reads:

In FY 2008, you may submit one application per application period in each of the program areas, (i.e., one application under Operations and Safety, one under Vehicle Acquisition, and/or a separate application as a regional host). If multiple applications are submitted on behalf of one organization within one of these program areas, either intentionally or unintentionally, we will deem all of that organization’s applications in that program area to be ineligible. For example, if any applicant submits two applications for Operations and Safety, both applications will be deemed ineligible.

Fire departments or nonaffiliated EMS organizations that will benefit from a regional project may also apply for funding under the AFG, as long as they are not requesting the same items as the host applicant for the regional project. For example, if a host applicant applies for a multi-jurisdictional communications project, a participating organization that will receive some of the communications equipment can apply for other needs as long as it does not apply for duplicative communications equipment. Host applicants MAY NOT apply to address other needs beyond the regional project on the regional application; however, a host applicant may submit a request to meet its own, non-regional needs in a separate application.

While the 2009 AFG guidance has not yet been published, workshops for the 2009 AFG program are ongoing. I would encourage you to attend, get the facts, and increase your chances for success in 2009!

Best of luck!

In my previous column, I used the analogy of football. In this column, I want to take this a step forward. In October, the college football world was rocked by the news from Pennsylvania State University.

I am not going to get into the debate of rights and wrongs or analyze the situation; rather, I think we can take away many lessons from the events that occurred.

Rehab is slowly becoming a part of our incident scenes and training ground activities, and I say "slowly" as I question whether it has truly evolved to match the intent for which it was designed. As members of the rehab section, we have to make tough decisions. Should personnel return to the incident scene or continue with training? Are personnel being rehabbed to the level they need in order to return to the fireground or training ground?

We know that firefighters and emergency service personnel have a determined attitude, which is good but can also be deadly. None of us wants to deny fellow firefighters the ability to fight fires or improve their skills by training. But are we jeopardizing our personnel by allowing them to go back to duty if they are not physically able to perform the job?

This is a tough question. On paper, it is relatively simple as we know we don't want anyone to be harmed or in danger, yet it happens every day, and in some instances, officers command rehabbed firefighters to go back.

This column seems to be asking more questions than answering them. Quite frankly, when it comes to ethical situations, we need to ask more questions. The answers are not always clear and, in some cases, will put you in a difficult predicament.

You have to ask yourself the bottom-line question: Are your actions or inactions jeopardizing your reputation and putting you at risk of liability? You have to make some tough decisions if your officer is not handling the situation as you would expect him or her to.

A great activity for rehab-focused training is to talk about a few scenarios and how to respond to them.

Scenario
You are assigned as the rehab officer. You have a battalion chief who is sent to rehab. Per rank, she outweighs you. Her blood pressure is 190/110, and even though she appears to be symptomatic, she will not admit to any other symptoms. She orders you to release her back to the fireground. In addition, the incident commander agrees with releasing her. How would you handle this situation?

Situations like this are tough to deal with. There comes a point when you are not able to convince some individuals to seek medical help; we know this to be the case in EMS with the patients we respond to. The best defense in these situations is to provide as much information as possible about the risks. If they are still not convinced and you are overruled, you must document very thoroughly. Unfortunately, there will be adverse outcomes at times, and you need to do your best in presenting the risks and then documenting the events.

Conclusion
The dilemmas you encounter may not be the same magnitude as the events at Penn State, where criminal activity was involved; however, you might have to make ethical decisions that could be the difference between life and death. Based on the circumstances, you need to take the appropriate course of action. This may mean that you will need to call outside agencies to investigate.

Thorough documentation to protect yourself and the organization is paramount. Looking the other way just once could erase a lifetime of accomplishments.

By Bob Smith
Director of Strategic Development, APCO International

It's 0300 hours, you're in the front right seat of the first due engine on a multi-story residential structure fire with several exposures. As you climb out of the truck and start your size-up you've got about 10,000 things going through your head.

How many personnel are responding to this fire? Is that enough? What units are responding? Is that enough? Should I call for an additional alarm? Or two? Where should I position the ladder when it gets here? And dozens more. The number and complexity of those things you'll need to consider won't really start to dwindle until the clean-up is over and units are returning to the station.

One of the many things being considered during this process is that of personnel accountability. Who's on the scene, where are they and what are they doing? Another issue is incident development. How long has this fire been burning? How long have we been at this offensive interior attack? Is it time to switch tactics to a defensive exterior attack?

Well let's take a moment to discuss an often overlooked resource that can assist an incident commander with personnel accountability and monitoring incident progress — the communications center. An adequately trained and staffed comm center can assist incident commanders in a multitude of areas beyond the traditional dispatch, information management and resource tracking.

PARs in the fire service
Let's start with accountability. Conducting personnel accountability reports (PAR) during an event of any size has become second nature to the fire service. Effective department accountability programs should incorporate PARs on incidents of any size and of any nature.

A PAR is a tool that allows incident commanders to ensure all personnel on scene are safe and accounted for. This action can easily be carried out by the comm center and many jurisdictions have done just that by training their comm center personnel on how to conduct PARs and how to relay the PAR's findings to the IC. One less action needed to be carried out by the IC.

Another tool that comm centers can provide an IC to assist with personnel safety are regular time checks during an incident. Time checks can be designed so that beginning at a certain point in the incident — say 10 minutes after the first unit arrives on scene or the IC announces that knockdown has begun — the comm center staff will notify the IC every 10 to 20 minutes.

We all know that 10 minutes worth of free burning in a traditional structure fire can make the difference between a successful knockdown and leaving nothing but the foundation. Also, most departments have limits to the amount of time they will allow personnel to remain inside a building during interior attack modes.

This "heads up" from the comm center allows the IC to monitor the passage of time during an incident without having to actually watch a clock themselves. One less action needed to be carried out by the IC.

Emergency evacuations
Another area that allows for comm centers to assist ICs during an incident is playing a role in a department's emergency evacuation process. Many agencies across the country have developed emergency evacuation plans that incorporate steps such as having the comm center make evacuation announcements over primary and tactical channels and even activating pagers and radio alerts on scene.

To accomplish this, the comm center personnel must be trained in the department's evacuation plan and the plan must be tested regularly. In addition, comm centers that serve multiple fire departments should encourage all departments to adopt similar evacuation procedures to prevent confusion should a department need an evacuation announcement made during an incident.

All of these actions combined with routine responder safety actions such as monitoring the radio for Mayday calls or other unexpected traffic can increase the level of service and assistance your local comm center can provide to your department.

To accomplish this though, the comm center must have a highly trained and professional staff equipped with the most current tools and resources available. It is the responsibility of every firefighter and officer to encourage your local comm center to ensure their personnel are trained and equipped to the highest level. Because as the old saying goes, "the life you save may be your own."

A few years ago, I gave a patient assessment lecture to a group of EMTs. Early in the lecture, I announced that my assistant would be coming around with a handout. The assistant was a portly gentleman sporting a wide, ugly tie with yellow splotches. After standing in front of each student to distribute the material, he left the room.

Midway through the lecture, I asked the participants to describe his tie, thereby emphasizing the importance of observation to patient assessment. Most participants could not describe the tie or my assistant with any degree of accuracy. About 15 to 20 percent gave a fairly precise description of the tie, generally including the term 'ugly,' and a few must have been asleep as they wanted to know, "What assistant?"

The term for this aptly demonstrated phenomenon is 'inattentional blindness' because while we look, we don’t see. The information doesn’t register because our brains are focused elsewhere and ignoring the visual input. This may not pose a huge problem during a lecture, but can prove to be quite a predicament in the field.

How does our vision work?
Light waves (electromagnetic waves) are continuously bouncing off every object around us. Those light waves in the visible range (we can’t process ultraviolet or infrared waves) that get past the cornea and pupil then hit the retina in the back of the eye. The retina creates electrical signals that are transmitted to the brain, which in turn interprets the information and produces the vision that we 'see.' Don’t believe me? Close your eyes. What do you see?

Signal interpretation
Do we 'see' all the visual signals we receive? From where you are right now, stop reading and take a 180-degree or half-circle view of your surroundings, then close your eyes and recall what you just 'saw.' Now repeat the scan slower, paying attention to details and taking note of what you do not 'see.' All of the light waves bouncing off the objects in your visual field hit the retina and produce visual signals for the brain. Why did your brain fail to give you the total picture of what you saw? Information overload in any system can decrease performance, including your brain. To a significant degree, you determine what you see by the extent of attention you apply to what you are looking at or looking for. A lot of the visual input from the eyes to the brain never gets to perform on your brain's visual screen because you do not pay attention to the content. This can be both a blessing and a curse.

Blessing
Can you imagine trying to start an IV in a nice fat vein but as you start to insert the needle your vision is overwhelmed with mental images of surrounding objects such as the patient’s clothing, the cot, the blood on the floor, etc., etc., etc.? You would likely be hard-pressed to hit the vein. Our ability to concentrate visual signals on the task at hand helps us select the visual information we need to get the job done.

Curse
But what happens when we fail to recognize important visual input? Think about the last time you were providing patient care and asked yourself, "Where did THAT come from?" It might be when the visual input about your patient’s cyanotic lips and weak respirations were sidelined by the visual input of the bloody, deformed open femur fracture, or when you did not 'see' that large pool of blood on the floor before you kneeled down. Or perhaps you found yourself in such a situation after your failure to notice a weapon on the ground. All these events occurred within your field of vision, but failed to register with your brain.

Inattentional thinking
Inattentional blindness has a partner called 'inattentional thinking.' Dispatch sends you to the third intoxicated, unresponsive individual of the day or to the chronic back pain patient that you have visited too many times before. The danger is thinking that the problem is going to be the same as before, or that the scene is as safe as it was the last time you were there. If we fail to consciously evaluate the scene every time, or assess the patient every time regardless of presentation or how many times we have previously seen the patient with the same complaint, we may miss scene hazards or fail to benefit from an accurate patient assessment. What if the intoxicated patient noted above is not just drunk this time, but has a subdural hematoma that occurred from an unwitnessed fall, producing a dilated pupil that we did not think to check? What if the chronic back pain patient on this trip has an expanding abdominal aortic aneurysm that we failed to find because we did not think to examine the abdomen for a pulsatile mass? How many other 'what if' scenarios could feasibly exist?

Summary
We all fall victim to unwanted inattentional blindness and thinking. Decreasing the frequency of its occurrence requires awareness, and awareness is fueled by knowledge. If this is your first look at inattentional blindness, I would encourage further study. Resources include Blink, a book on this topic by Malcolm Gladwell, as well as print and video resources readily available by searching the Internet. In the mean time, keep your eyes open and pay attention out there.

References
1. Rensink RA, O’Regan JK, Clark JJ. To See or Not to See, The Need of Attention to Perceive Changes in Scenes. Psychological Science. 1997:8; 368-373.
2. Simons DJ, Chabris CF. Gorillas In Our Midst: Sustained Inattentional Blindness For Dynamic Events. Perception. 1999. 28; 1059-1074.
3. Rensink RA. When Good Observers Go Bad: Change Blindness, Inattentional Blindness, and Visual Experience. Psyche. 2000:8.
4. Rensink, RA. Seeing, Sensing, and Scrutinizing. Vision Research. 2000:40; 1469-1487.