LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Liable for NFPA code compliance
Wayne DePew’s letter, “NFPA 1500 not a law” (December 1990), is a minefield for the naive. While he is substantially correct in asserting that most vehicle-induced injuries are due to carelessness, this may not absolve the employer, manufacturer, or distributor of any negligence in the design of the vehicles.
Whether or not NFPA 1500 is adopted as law by the local municipality, it is a legally recognized standard. This means that the owner of any fire apparatus purchased after the publication of NFPA 1500 can be held liable for noncompliance. The courts have recognized these standards as more than mere “guidelines” and have held employers and manufacturers liable for deaths and injuries resulting from the use of any noncompliance apparatus. For those members in OSFIA states, NFPA 1500 meets or exceeds subpart L of the OSHA requirements, and that may be revised soon to include 1500.
Many states have statutes that exempt firefighters from liability’ due to, how shall we say, less than sterling performances. But as Bob Dylan said, “The times they are a-changing.” Who is responsible if the aerial ladder collapses, killing firefighters and civilians? I’ll bet Mr. Lawyer will come looking for your testing documentation per NFPA 1914 to determine who is responsible if there is no compliance with NFPA 1403 and a firefighter is killed or seriously injured in a training fire. Can you say “wrongful death”?
To Mr. DePew and others who keep their heads in the sand while more than 200,000 fellow firefighters are injured or die each year. 1 say, “Shame on you!” And if you want to know what the courts will say, just ask the manufacturers of fire apparatus. I believe there is more than one who can spell “Settlement.”
Joseph M. Pitts
Fire Captain Henderson (NV) Fire Department
Equality on the fireground
I would like to commend Richard A. Marinucci for the well-written and unbiased article “Women in the Volunteer Fire Service” (Volunteers Corner, January’ 1991).
I have been a volunteer firefighter for the past eight years and can relate to some of the points brought out in the article. Most men have never been told “The fire truck is too big for you to drive” or “The firehouse is no place for you to be.” Some of it is genuine concern for a woman’s safety, but a majority of it is discrimination, whether intentional or not.
Sometimes people look at me like I’m crazy when they see me getting off the apparatus, but firefighting is something I enjoy.
As for my background, 1 am an NFPA-certified level III firefighter and fire instructor II. I was recently made the company training officer—not bad for a “girl”!
Pam Layne
Training Officer Portsmouth fVA) Volunteer Fire Department
Where are logical rating systems?
Frank Brannigan’s article “Fire Loss Management” (Fire Engineering, August 1990) on insurance interests is basically correct, and Mr. Jack Cottet’s comments (Letters to the Editor. December 1990) represent the ideal environment in a sane insurance world. Insurance company operations are far from sane in today’s competitive world.
All insurance companies operate on the basic principle that each risk is subject to a 100 percent loss if it is of “combustible construction” and are “prepared” to pay the insurable amount on the policy. Any insurance underwriter deviating from this principle would be committing commercial suicide if he tried to establish an estimated maximum loss (EML) on a building and its contents, except for buildings that are fully sprinklered or of fire-resistive construction.
Because of severe competition in the insurance industry, the total fire protection systems in any city or town mean little in the acceptance of a risk, as if a company is “hungry enough” to increase its premium it will cut premiums or reduce rates to a level where old, somewhat scientific rating systems embodying most of the points that Cottet brings up are simply thrown out of the window.
The old analytical rating systems had an influence on overall fire protection, as there was an incentive for an insured to improve his property in order to benefit from a lower premium. In today’s world an insured simply obtains two or three quotes from his agent or broker and usually picks the lowest bidder that provides the same coverage. Rather than spend a considerable amount of money improving the property to meet some loss-control specialist’s requirements for his company, similar tactics are used until the risk is accepted by a company “as is.”
This is one of the problems with fire protection in the United States and Canada. We have a group of highly qualified loss-control specialists in the field doing their best to reduce losses—unfortunately an underwriter in his office who is always under pressure to increase his company’s premium will “waive” recommendations for the policy term and hopefully have them implemented during the next policy term (fat chance).
Logical rating systems have disappeared, for it is possible to pay less premium on a three-story wooden garden apartment than on a similar one-story private home. I have worked on risks where our recommendation to sprinkler a building resulted in an increase in fire rates—this applies to fire-resistive office buildings as well as industrial risks.
It would be beneficial to us and fire departments if all insurance companies operated in a similar fashion to Jack Cottet’s company. Unfortunately, this is not the case under our system of free enterprise. Perhaps if we adopted the Swiss system whereby all properties must be certified by the local fire department if they wish to carry insurance, we may end up with a sensible, consistent loss-control effort that would benefit all of us by having lower insurance rates.
Norman Wypruk
Professor, Municipal Fire Protection University of Montreal Montreal, Quebec, Canada
More on hydraulics
I applaud Lieutenant David Fornell’s thought-provoking article “Taking the Pressure Off” (December 1990), which challenges the 100-psi NFPA standard fog nozzle inlet pressure rating.
Fornell says, “No one seems to know why 100 psi was chosen as a standard operating pressure for spray nozzles.” However, if inlet pressure is increased much above 110 psi for handlines with fog nozzles designed to flow their rated capacity at 100 psi, the pattern is seriously degraded; below about 60 psi the stream becomes limp and ineffective. The “magic” 100 psi is easy to remember and gives close-to-maximum reach. In the days of five-member engine companies when 100 psi was “carved in stone,” the resulting nozzle reaction wasn’t much of a problem.
The article raises several hydraulics issues that will be discussed in my series of Fire Engineering articles. Three points on fire suppression merit comment now.
- Fornell refers to structure fires “becoming more intense, generating more heat than 125 gpm can suppress.” In my experience, the volume of a fully involved compartment is a much more important factor in determining knockdown fire flow than fire intensity within that compartment. The National Fire Academy agrees, promulgating its minimum attack flow rate formula, which states that the minimum gpm should be onethird of the floor area for a singlestory compartment. This means that 125 gpm will be ineffective for a fire compartment larger than 375 square feet regardless of fire intensity.
- Fornell refers to 150 gpm as “an
- ideal target flow for a single interior attack hoseline.” My experience suggests this is the ideal target flow only for a fully involved 300-square-foot single-story fire compartment, which should be darkened in a few seconds by 150 gpm properly applied. Again, the ideal flow rate depends on the fire compartment size.
After flashover, 150 gpm won’t make much difference to a fire larger than a 20by 25-foot living room simply because heat is being generated faster than it can be absorbed by boiling 150 gallons of water per minute.
- His statement “Our personnel are taught to apply the water directly on the burning material, not into the overhead” certainly applies before flashover. After flashover, however, when the compartment is fully involved, gases burning over are the burning material. This complex situation calls for more than a simplistic response. Tactics should depend on location of fuel sources. In the extremely rare case of a truly noncombustible compartment where the only source of fuel and fire is contents near the floor, application of water below the overhead will darken the fire by eliminating the fuel source.
In most other cases, the best tactic seems to be to apply high enough gpm to darken the burning overhead gases, blowing fire out through the ventilation opening (removing heat from the fire tetrahedron). This breaks the thermal radiation feedback loop described by Chief Vincent Dunn in “Flashover” (December 1990).
Another reason for applying water overhead is to penetrate material evolving inflammable gases through pyrolysis, thus removing fuel from the fire tetrahedron. Plain water though is largely ineffective because its high surface tension causes it to “ball” and run off, causing water damage without suppressing fire.
To remedy this, since 1978 I have enhanced water with surfactant/Class A foam concentrate, which permits it to wet and penetrate material undergoing pyrolysis. This speeds knockdown and dramatically reduces waiter damage and rekindling. Pyrolysis occurs fastest nearest the ceiling—not at floor level where the temperature is usually much lower.
The joint U.S./Canadian fire suppression research project 1 am working on, in addition to comparing advanced Class A systems with traditional application of plain water, should provide quantitative answers to some of these vital questions. Discarding obsolete tradition by embracing effective new technology is the best way 1 know to defeat our too-often-victorious enemy—uncontrolled fire. Articles such as “Taking the Pressure Off,” followed by constructive debate supported by measurement as opposed to speculation, are very positive steps. Keep up the good work!
C. Bruce Edwards
Deputy Chief North Vancouver, BC, Canada
Empowerment
Buzzwords are an important part of life today, and empowerment is one of those words. Empowerment can mean a couple of things: (t) to give authority or legal power or (2) to assign ownership of a work process. 1 believe a fire department can use the “E” word as the latter definition a fair amount of the time.
I like the idea of the word “ownership.” We understand what a “work process” or “task” is, but ownership here has a very specific meaning. Following are four requirements that allow us to claim “ownership” of a task.
- The first step is understanding the process (task). Going through the motions of a task rarely will bring out the best performance of an individual.
- Second, an individual must bear the responsibility for the results of the task. It is often difficult to justify giving your best effort if you’re not going to receive any recognition. Remember, though, some tasks are ex-
- pected of you, and you really shouldn’t expect “recognition” for meeting the requirements of a task.
- The third step requires the task performer to have the ability to perform the work process. If you do not have the training or equipment, you simply cannot do a good job.
- Fourth, and most important, the “owner” of the task must have the authority to modify the process to produce the outcome of the task. You may understand the instructions perfectly well, but if you do not have the “authority of change” to improve results, you do not have ownership.
Confusing? Let’s take a simple task—ventilating the building. The fireground commander establishes as one of the priorities laddering the building for ventilation. You and your crew take that command and become the task performers. You understand the process of properly removing, carrying, setting, and raising the ladder—requirement #1. You understand that the attack crew needs the ventilation to get rid of the gases and heat—#2. You have ladders, axes, saws, and “abilities” to do the job — #3The #4 requirement is somewhat of an intangible —the authority to deviate to achieve the task objective. We train you to wear protective gear and SCBA, provide positivepressure ventilation, work off a roof ladder, open over the fire, punch through the ceiling with a pike pole. But what if that is all you do? What if it is a large building or one with multiple points of fire?
You do not need a specific command in all instances to be empowered to perform a task. Empowerment allows the elimination of the traditional boss, or step-by-step commands. Empowerment means having greater control over one’s understanding of the importance and impact of tasks. It means gaining a deeper understanding of the task and developing a working relationship with coworkers. Empowerment establishes and maintains the team concept.
F.C. Windisch
Chief Ponderosa (IX) Fire Department
