This week marks the IAFC's annual Fire/EMS Safety, Health and Survival Week. This year's theme concentrates on fire ground survival by providing fire chiefs and firefighters the required skills to survive or ensure the survival of our own people.
The fire ground is one of the most dangerous areas a firefighter can operate in. Granted, working a motor-vehicle accident on an interstate or responding to a scene of a gunshot puts firefighters at risk, but no other situation places them in such an unsafe environment as a working fire. Conditions can change so quickly that many seasoned officers or firefighters may not recognize it until it's too late.
This is why it's so important to train and encourage good situational awareness and crew-resource management in people at every scene. True team work should be built into the entire organization to ensure everyone remains safe at every incident.
In honor of Fire/EMS Safety, Health & Survival Week, NFPA, together with the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF), have distributed a copy of Understanding and Implementing the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives, published by the NFFF and written by subject matter experts from the fire service, to all 45 NFPA Public Fire Protection Technical Committee Chairs.
These Committee Chairs are intimately involved in the codes and standards process, and it is important for them to have this valuable resource as they make decisions on documents that impact the fire service. It is the hope of the NFPA and NFFF that these Chairs will use the information presented in the book as they consider issues that could impact firefighter safety and survivability. It is time to take action to further reduce the number of firefighter deaths and injuries—we all have a role to play in making sure every American firefighter goes home after every shift.
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