Chief Kanterman’s Journal Entry 64
At 0200 hours, your company is responding to a report of a fire in a store at 123 Main St. On the way, dispatch gives you an update that they received another 911 call reporting smoke in the area. The address of 123 Main St. rings a bell in your head…you did a fire inspection there about a month ago. During your inspection you noticed that the store owner had erected several partition walls without permits. These walls were used to close off a part of the store and make it into an apartment. You took proper code enforcement action at the time of the inspection, but did the owner act after you left? You tell the other members of the company what you found when you did your inspection and this changes the strategy while en route. Preincident information and code enforcement actions do have a dramatic impact on firefighter safety. Fire prevention does save firefighter’s lives!
Code enforcement action taken while conducting fire inspections will have a positive impact on firefighter safety. The hardest part of this equation is getting your fellow firefighters interested in performing these inspections. A firefighter that is interested in doing this work will undoubtedly perform to a higher level than a firefighter that is just “going through the motions” because that’s what’s required of them. Ben Franklin had the right idea. We know he is credited with starting the whole thing in 1736 and he wrote dozens of papers on fire prevention in an effort to keep people safe from fire. Fire departments were formed to protect the people through prevention efforts first. When that fails, the fire department turns out and takes care of business. When the doors go up and the trucks roll, we’ve had a failure in the system. With the current emphasis on firefighter health safety, we get to enhance Franklins original plan by including “us” in the prevention = safety equation. Examining the links between fire inspections/prevention, public education, and firefighter safety, the fire service at large must take an interest. We should, because our lives depend on it.
The Signs of Tragedy
As an example, in New Jersey the fire code requires buildings that have truss construction (roof and/or floor) to have a truss placard affixed to the structure near the front door. It’s a simple “R” for roof or “F” for floor in a reflective triangle. The link between this fire code requirement and firefighter safety is tragic. New Jersey’s requirement for truss construction placards like most other codes, is written in blood. On July 1, 1988 a fire at the Hackensack Ford Dealership claimed the lives of five firefighters when a bowstring truss roof collapsed. On November 29, 1988 in Kansas City (MO), a trailer full of ammonium nitrate exploded as the companies pulled up to a construction site, killing six firefighters and tossing their tiller truck across the street like a Tonka toy. Now, every building in KC has an NFPA 704 placard on its door. Fire inspections are critical to firefighter survival.
- Tulsa Fire Department’s Bowstring Truss ID System
- From the Fire Engineering Vault: Hackensack Ford Fire
Be well, say well, be safe.
Ronnie K
RON KANTERMAN is the executive inspector of the Bureau of Fire Prevention for the Fire Department of New York. He is a more than four-decade veteran of the fire service and recently retired as chief of the Wilton (CT) Fire Department. He has a B.A. degree in fire administration and two master’s degrees. He’s a contributing author for Fire Engineering, the Fire Engineering Handbook for Firefighter I and II, and the 7th edition of the Fire Chief’s Handbook.
