The tragedy of 9/11 brought firefighters from all over the world to New York City to see if they could offer their assistance. At the time, I was a lieutenant working in an engine company in Harlem that had just lost three officers at the World Trade Center, a lieutenant and two battalion chiefs.
We were asked by someone at headquarters if it would be all right if the second-in-charge chief of Guayaquil, Ecuador, stay with us for a week. Everybody in the house was still reeling from the tragedy and the loss of our brothers, so no one seemed to mind. Chief Christian Huerta Dorman came to our house.
There was one immediate problem: Huerta didn’t speak English, and no one in our house spoke Spanish. But we somehow were able to communicate and, at the end of the week, he asked if I would be interested in coming to visit with him in Ecuador. I agreed, but only if I could be involved in training exercises during the visit.
1,000 FIREFIGHTERS SERVE A CITY OF 3 MILLION
I traveled to Guayaquil in February 2002 with another firefighter from the house, Brian Currid. We had no idea what to expect. We weren’t sure of the types of buildings they had; how they were constructed; and what the status would be regarding apparatus, equipment, and staffing, among many other things.
 (1) Live burn in a vacant high-rise building in downtown Lima, Peru. (Photos by author.) |
I put together some very basic drills. The only experience I had in the fire service at that time was what I knew from New York City, so I taught what I knew: fire behavior, line placement, ground ladders, and some vehicle extrication.
The department hired a translator to work with us for the week. Brian had a family emergency and had to leave early; prior to this, he had gotten very sick shortly after we arrived. So I was pretty much on my own for most of the visit to Ecuador.
One of the very first lessons I learned was learned the hard way. I had the use of a small house that was in the drill yard behind one of the firehouses. The idea was to make a small fire in one of the back rooms and bring the firefighters in a few at a time. When everything was ready and I had a few pallets and some hay going good, I brought the firefighters inside. Then I realized that it was getting pretty hot and they needed to get low, but there was a small problem: The translator was outside, and I didn’t know how to say “get low” in Spanish! I wound up physically pulling each of them down. After that near fiasco, I realized I needed to learn some basic words in Spanish.
The Guayaquil Fire Department is comprised of about 400 paid firefighters and 600 volunteers serving a city of about 3 million. It has about 20 stations, with 45 companies; of the 20 stations, eight are ladder apparatus; the remainder are pumpers. The department also has 40 tankers, because there is no hydrant system.
 (2) A forcible entry prop is used in a training exercise in Guayaquil. |
When I first arrived, firefighters had only a few SCBAs, and most of the trucks were antiquated. Firefighters’ personal protective equipment (PPE) was hit and miss. Most firefighters had barely a decent coat and a helmet.
My first fire came midweek when we were in between training sessions and I noticed a lot of commotion going on. I knew something was up, and I didn’t need to speak Spanish to know that numerous calls were coming on a box in the downtown residential area. The chief grabbed me, and I understood that we were taking in the fire.
On our arrival, the fire had full possession of a store on the first floor of a four-story multiple dwelling. The scene I witnessed was nothing short of total chaos. Civilians were grabbing lines off the pumper, and they were running in and out of the fire building. I counted about five lines stretched; some were just hitting smoke through the open windows on the floor above. Firefighters were running around in shorts and T-shirts with handkerchiefs around their faces. Eventually the fire went out, but I couldn’t help but be stunned by what I had just witnessed.
The next fire I witnessed was on the top floor of a five-star hotel. We were about 90 miles away at the beach when, again, the radios started getting very busy. I knew that the chief was very concerned because most of the firefighters were at the beach for the weekend. We headed back to the city and made it in just over an hour.
Again, I couldn’t believe the scene. A fully occupied hotel had water gushing out of the top-floor window like a waterfall. A small fire had started in a sauna in the presidential suite. The HVAC was still running, The elevators were still operating. I made my way up to the top floor, where there were six inches of water in the hallway. The firefighters stretched a 1 3/4-inch house line with no shutoff on the nozzle from the hallway on the fire floor. They had only two SCBAs, so the chief and captain took the line and put out the fire in a room about 6 feet × 4 feet.
I left that Sunday, vowing to the chief that I would return and would try to get as much equipment together as I could and send it down.
GATHERING EQUIPMENT FOR A RETURN TRIP
On my return to New York, I began asking local departments if they had any surplus equipment. Before long, my garage was full of SCBAs and PPE. I also had found two vehicles, a pumper, and a ladder truck. I loaded up the trucks and sent them down. That was the beginning of many more trucks and much more equipment to come.
After getting the equipment side of the supply chain up and running, it was time to focus on the training. I thought about the logistics of physically being able to come down and do the training, as well as the other hurdles we had to overcome, primarily the language barrier. I had no shortage of instructors, but the trick was finding people who could deliver what was needed in Spanish.
We decided to concentrate on five basics: SCBA; search; forcible entry; ground ladders; and, most importantly, engine operations. The idea was to combine some of the courses. We teach SCBA with search because this is a natural progression. My thinking is that after learning the basics of SCBA, we can get the students used to operating on air and at the same time teach the basics of search. Ground ladders and forcible entry go together as a truck company operations program. Engine company operations is our biggest and most important component.
Of the many hurdles and obstacles faced in Ecuador, the biggest is the absence of a real training academy. We used everything you can imagine to recreate some of the scenarios needed to do the training. One of my favorites was doing a live burn in a vacant building in the middle of the downtown area.
When I came on the job in New York City, vacant buildings were common in the South Bronx, where we had numerous fires. We also used them to train young firefighters. The local people were used to the fires, and we were a common sight on the streets of the South Bronx. It was not unusual for the night air to be filled with the smell of burning wood and paint. In South America, this is a new concept: The sight of smoke pouring out of the top floors of a building in the middle of the city is not an everyday occurrence.
The local people gathered in amazement as the local firefighters went through their paces. The event drew so much attention that it was carried live on the local television news. I couldn’t believe that a news crew was there with a reporter on the scene.
FROM THE “SMOKE HOUSE” TO NEW HAMPSHIRE
Most of our training in Guayaquil was done in a local fire station that serves as the academy. We also had the use of another firehouse, where we constructed a mask confidence course and a standpipe prop. We learned by necessity to be very resourceful. The academy consisted of two classrooms, a small drill yard, an aerial ladder prop, and a building we called “Casa de Humo” (the smoke house). Within those parameters, we were able to do all the training needed.
 (3) This mask confidence course was built from scratch using wooden pallets. |
We used the outside of the firehouse to do our ladder operations. For forcible entry exercises, we constructed our own props. SCBA drills were done in the drill yard and the break room of the firehouse. We used the smoke house and firefighter bunk rooms for search and the whole facility for engine operations.
I spoke with one of our instructors, Chris Johnson, about the possibility of bringing a few of the Ecuadorian firefighters to the New Hampshire Fire Academy (NHFA) for a week of “Train the Trainer.” Johnson is a firefighter from Concord, New Hampshire, who also is on the staff of the NHFA.
 (4) Ecuadorian trainee practices on standpipe prop. |
We were able to work it out, and our New Hampshire Training Program was born. The idea was to be able to do the type of training we couldn’t accomplish in Guayaquil because of our limited resources. Rick Mason, director of the NHFA, has been a great supporter of mutual aid, and he did everything to facilitate our training there.
The NHFA is a state-of-the-art facility with dorm rooms in a tranquil rustic setting. There is a really peaceful atmosphere, and the academy setting is very conducive to learning. The firefighters from Latin America have been able to experience training not now available in that part of the world, specifically the flashover simulator. We also are able to offer “roll-in drills” that brings firefighters from Latin America together with our staff for some very intensive “hands on” training that puts the students in real-life scenarios. We also are giving their chiefs the opportunity to run the fire scene with one of our staff by his side. The students who graduate from the New Hampshire program are serving as instructor trainees in Guayaquil to assist us in our training sessions there.
ASSESSING OUR PROGRESS: EASTER RESCUE IN ECUADOR
I am now able to step back and see the progress we have made in this short time. We have refined the training to a point where we have a regular curriculum. I feel it is so important, especially in this type of situation, to stick to the basics of firefighting: stretching a line and putting out the fire. When you understand that, it eliminates most problems on the fireground. Sometimes it is very hard to see results when you are immersed in something like this, but last year was the first time I really saw that we were making a difference.
Easter 2005, after returning from church with my family, I saw a message on my answering machine. Chief Huerta had called. I called him back, and he told me a story about Engine 30.
Engine 30 responded to a fire early that morning. Two children were locked in a small house on the poor side of the city. The firefighters pulled up to the house and found a fire in the kitchen. They forced entry, searched the house, and found the two children in the bedroom. They rescued and removed the children and extinguished the fire.
 (5) In the “cone drill” pictured above, firefighters make their way through a course of nine cones set 20 feet apart. The drill teaches them to work together during searches. |
They were driving a 74 Thiebolt engine, donated by Lyme, New Hampshire. They were wearing bunker gear donated by Woodstock, Vermont. They were using SCBA that were sent to Guayaquil from Passaic, New Jersey. Shortly before this fire, we had just sent four and did a week of training with firefighters from Engine (Unidad) 30.
We still have lots of work to do. The Guayaquil Fire Department, like most departments in that part of the world, is mostly volunteer. The idea is to incorporate paid and volunteer firefighters to work together. The old thinking was the paid drivers’ only job was to get the apparatus to the fire scene and that the firefighter was there just to assist. I think we have changed that thinking.
I see a tremendous difference in the way the paid firefighters carry themselves in Guayaquil. They are now stretching lines and making searches, usually long before the first volunteer shows up. One of the major hurdles a chief has at any fire is how to use his resources most effectively. In New York, this is relatively easy: We respond according to our response ticket, and we know what is expected based on our response assignment.
 (6) Firefighters stretch a 13/4-inch line during a live-fire exercise at “Casa de Humo.” |
With a volunteer force, it is a mystery at times who is going to show up and when. I believe the key to this system is to use the incident command system. When firefighters arrive, they should report directly to the staging area. To me, the main difference between a paid and volunteer force is the fact that paid firefighters are “staged” in the firehouse all the time.
Some volunteer departments in South America require firefighters to stay in the firehouse for a night and respond. This is the system they use in Lima, Peru. You still have to manage the firefighters who will be arriving in their personal cars after the initial call. I believe the key is a staging area run by a chief who can dispatch fire teams to handle the necessary assignments.
The next step in our program with Guayaquil is to give a chief’s command course. I have witnessed chiefs at fires in Guayaquil inside the fire building overhauling with a six-foot hook. This is totally unacceptable. The chiefs need to be delegating the tasks and running the fire.
We are now slowly attempting to branch out. We are talking to some other countries in Latin America that have heard about our work in Ecuador and would like us to come and help them with their department. Our training staff has grown to about 20 instructors. We have various members on our staff, mostly from the FDNY, of all ranks. We also have a group of bilingual instructors from Florida. We have translated all of our curriculum into Spanish. To date we have sent out more than 20 trucks, hundreds of sets of PPE, and close to 200 SCBA.
To sum it up, one of the most valuable lessons I have learned from all of this is to realize just how lucky we are here in the United States. For the most part, we have everything we need at our disposal when we have to fight a fire.
DANIEL SHERIDAN is a captain with FDNY, covering the 6th Division. He has 21 years of firefighting service. He is an instructor at the Rockland County Fire Academy, a member of FDNY IMT, and founder and president of Mutual Aid Americas, Inc., an organization that is spearheading the training of firefighters throughout Central and South America.
