Charleston Fire Department Policy and Procdeure Review

While reading Mark Cleary's Lowcountry Listening Post today, I came across this article from Firehouse.com. Quotations from the article are in italics; all other comments are mine. This article really made me ask some questions (based on my knowledge of the Incident Command System and fire department monitoring experience) about how the Charleston Fire Department has operated in the past.

The mayor of Charleston, SC assembled a panel of fire experts (one of whom, Tim Sendelbach, is a former training officer with the Savannah Fire Department) to review the Charleston Fire Department's policies and procedures in the aftermath of the June 18, 2007 deaths of 9 firefighters in the Sofa Super Store fire. I have never had the opportunity to monitor the Charleston Fire Department and I am not all that familiar with their operations, but it sounds like they were a big city fire department using the operating procedures of a small town fire department. Throughout this post, I'll compare some of this panel's recommendations with how Savannah Fire and Emergency Services (an agency that is from a similar sized city) operates.

Among the panel's recommendations are:

Establish Fire Department Safety Officer position -- Fill with qualified officer on 6 month temporary assignment

Has the department been operating without safety officers on the fireground? I've heard Savannah Fire use safety officers for years. Safety Officers are an integral part of the Incident Command System. Have they not been using the Incident Command System? The fire service as a whole has seemed to take to the ICS more quickly than any other public safety service. Not only is the ICS a more efficient way of command and control, it is a major step toward interoperability.


Minimum of two dispatchers on-duty at all times

Given the size of Charleston, were they not operating the fire dispatch with more than one dispatcher at a time? Surely the Charleston department is a relatively busy one. Using one dispatcher to track multiple multi-unit incidents is inherently unsafe for the firefighters on the scene. Dispatchers are lifelines for public safety responders; overloading one not only makes their job more difficult, it also puts those on the other side of the radio from them in a more dangerous situation.


Communications changes including the elimination of 10 codes and the use of the tactical radio channel for responses

I don't see where 10-codes are all that much of a problem during a single agency response (was the Sofa Super Store fire a single or multiple agency response?); with training and experience, public safety personnel begin to think in their agency's 10-codes. On the other hand, if the incident response if composed of multiple agencies, plain talk should be used to eliminate code/signal confusion. Savannah Fire has been using plain talk for years now on both single and multiple agency responses.

I'm not sure that I understand fully the second part of this reccomendation. Has the Charleston Fire Department not been using tactical or fireground channels to coordinate on-scene actity? I can't believe that they haven't been using radios at all on the fireground. I have to interpret this as meaning that they were conducting their fireground communications on a channel used for other purposes. That is just as dangerous as a single dispatcher. If you have radio traffic from other incidents, dispatches, or administration on the same channel with your fireground operations you are asking for confusion. Confusion is dangerous and leads to mishaps. Savannah Fire department has utilized three fireground channels since Chatham County and Savannah began using an 800 Mhz trunking system.



Apply incident command procedures on all incidents (ICS -- NIMS procedures)

First arriving officer assumes command, performs size up and provides direction for all others
Safety Officer assigned for working fires and hazardous incidents

Rapidly implement personnel accountability system with passports and PAR

Provide training for all Fire Department members in firefighter safety and survival, risk management, air management, standardized actions for lost/disoriented firefighters, rapid intervention operations, objective-based tactical operations, and other critical firefighter safety procdures

The Incident Command System comes up again. This is something the agency should have at the most already adopted and at a minimum should have already been training for. This is a good time to note that basic ICS-NIMS training is required by DHS. ICS-NIMS training is even being required of Amateur Radio Emergency Service volunteers.

These are all things that I have heard Savannah Fire doing for years. They have operated using the Incident Command System for as long as I can remember. The first four of these recommendations pretty much describe how a Savannah Fire fireground operates: ICS is used, the first arriving officer assumes command until a higher ranking officer assumes command, a Safety Officer responds or is assigned by command, and PAR checks (personnel accountability reports) are done on a regular schedule to ensure firefighter safety.

These procedures are reinforced through regular training (which can be heard monitoring the department's training channel or fireground channels). Several of the volunteer departments in the Savannah area have been heard training with many of these procedures. I find it hard to believe that an agency the size of the Charleston Fire Department was not using these procedures!

Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net