Bruce Philpott, New Fire Models, Segment 7

Bruce Philpott, New Fire Models, Segment 7: Staffing, Three Versus Four

This evening we will consider whether to staff engine companies with three or four firefighters. The Glendale Fire Department generally staffs with four firefighters on engine companies. Historically, Glendale and most other fire departments routinely staffed with three. As we have presented, the GFD routinely staffs with three on engine companies from between two hours to the whole 24-hour shift. During the three decades that I was in public safety, all engines were staffed with three firefighters and fires were many more times problematic and destructive than they are today. The advent of cell phones, fire resistant building materials, smoke alarms and automatic sprinkler systems have made great contributions to reducing the number and size of fire incidents as a result of earlier detection. In Glendale, fire calls have gone down from 3000 in year 2002 to 1700 in year 2005. More than 99% of fire calls are relatively insignificant fire events. According to their own records, there were only five large structure fires in the city of Glendale last year. Five of 1700 calls is .03% of the fire call volume.

How did we get from three to four? The answer is found in three documents. The first is found in the National Fire Protection Association, otherwise known at the NFPA. On June 26 of this year (2007) the Glendale Fire Department presented to the city council its reasons why it staffs its engine and truck companies with four firefighters as opposed to three.

As you can see, the slide takes a quote out of the NFPA 1710 guideline that states, “Personnel assigned to the initial arriving company shall have the capability to implement an initial rapid intervention crew (IRIC).” An IRIC is composed of four firefighters, thus the reasons to staff with four. Carl Peterson, Director of the Public Fire Protection Division of the NFPA, in a discussion several weeks ago said that a four person initial engine company arriving at a structure fire is not able to assemble and mount a four person entry team, aka IRIC, simply because NFPA 1710 also requires that one firefighter be stationed at the hydrant and one firefighter – the engineer – be stationed at the controls on the engine that regulates the water flow. This means that with the four firefighters arriving on the first engine, only two can be dedicated to the entry team and four is needed. Engine companies that are staffed with four firefighters would still be two firefighters short of the needed four to make up the entry team. Either all engine companies would have to be staffed with a minimum of six firefighters at an added cost of between $6 and $7 million dollars annually or they would have to wait for the second engine to arrive in about two minutes later. No real time is lost because it takes several minutes for the first arriving engine to lay the hoses from the hydrant to the fire ground and from the engine to the entry point. Time is also needed by the fire captain to assess the situation and direct in-coming fire personnel and equipment to where they are required. Within this two-minute period of time, the second engine will have arrived and the four-person entry team can make entry. It is important to note that the four-person entry team can be accomplished only with the arrival of the second engine company regardless of whether it is staffed with three or four.

The fact that you cannot safely assemble an entry team of four firefighters from an engine company staffed with four is one reason why the NFPA 1710 guidelines have not been adopted by the State of California fire authority or by any city within the entire State of California, including Glendale. The GFD uses this guideline, referring to it as a “requirement”, for one of its three justifications to staff engine companies with four firefighters, even though they still are unable to mount an interior attack on a fire with an engine staffed with four.

I will illustrate this with the next slide that is a rather crude but, hopefully, an informative diagram.

The second document cited by the Glendale Fire Department to justify staffing with four is from the Office of Safety and Heath Administration, also known as OSHA. OSHA, being a governmental body established by law, has enforceable safety requirements. It requires that four firefighters be assembled on the fire ground dedicated to making entry. NFPA calls this the initial rapid intervention crew or IRIC. Two remain outside as a safety precaution while the other two enter, to extinguish the fire. OSHA refers to this as the “2 in, 2 out rule” and is also cited as a reason why the GFD staffs with four. But, unlike the NFPA which has no authority and is heavily influenced by the national fire union, OSHA will never dictate to local communities on minimum numbers for staffing fire engines and trucks, nor will it tell local police departments how many officers must be in a patrol car. Firefighters know that it takes multiple engine and truck companies to knock down a structure fire and they have the capability to mass a large number of firefighters and equipment on the fire ground in minutes.

Neither the NFPA nor OSHA sets a minimum number of firefighters required to make entry for the purpose of conducting a rescue or search for victims. OSHA articulates an exception to the 2 in, 2 out rule for this purpose. To save a life, just one firefighter is permitted to make entry, although that would be extremely rare.

Fire unions continue to perpetuate the mistaken belief that engine companies have to be staffed with four. Last week in a Los Angeles Times article, Afrack Vargas, legislative advocate for the state fire union, known as the California State Firefighters Association, said, “State rules require that two firefighters be present as backup for every two that enter a burning building. With three on an engine, that’s impossible”. That is exactly the same conclusion that the GFD has presented to the city council. Again, fire union representatives try to present the case that an entry team can be accomplished if the engine is staffed with four firefighters. Carl Peterson, the Director of Public Fire Protection Division of the NFPA, states that it is not possible to staff a four-person entry team with the first arriving engine, even if it is staffed with four, because not all of them can be dedicated to the entry team. The engineer cannot leave the controls of the pump that regulates the flow of water to the fire hose used by the entry team. If water pressure drops due to a leak or damaged hose, or the engine overheats and stalls, the lives of the firefighters making entry could be placed at an unreasonable risk. The engineer is the firefighter with the responsibility of guaranteeing constant and steady water flow for the successful suppression of the fire. Abandoning this position so that he can make up part of the entry team is not sound fire management and violates all principles of fire ground safety.

On November 13, 2007 I spoke over the phone with Gary Gicomo who is a top official with the California State Firefighters Association, the firefighters union at the state level. He agreed with the same conclusion that Carl Peterson had made: it is not possible to mount an interior attack on a structure fire with the first arriving engine company, even if it is staffed with four. He also agreed that the only way to mount an interior attack, unless the first arriving engine is staffed with a minimum of six firefighters is to wait for the second engine company, and that it wouldn’t matter if both engines were staffed with three or four. He agreed that you could mount an interior attack if both engine companies were staffed with three firefighters.

Staffing engine and truck companies remains a local issue. Required staffing of four on engine companies does not exist, even though you have been told otherwise. Unfortunately, many cities, under the belief that they have to staff their engine and truck companies with four, have done just that. It has been very costly and has required, in many cases, the diversion of money that can support other city programs and services.

The Glendale Fire Department’s activity logs and other data have demonstrated consistently over the years that they can safely staff engine companies with three, similar to other cities and the Los Angeles County Fire Department, that have not been persuaded by firefighters’ claims and generally staff with three. Two samples of activity logs shows that the GFD staffs every day with three firefighters on engine companies. One sampling showed 33% of engine companies staffing with three, another sampling of 44 engine company logs showed 26 of them operated with three firefighters for an average of five hours during a 24-hour shift. During the times that they were staffed with three they routinely handled all medical and fire calls assigned to them. The staffing levels of three always occurred during the highest frequencies of emergency calls. 87% of their calls are for medical backup and over 99% of those are single person events. As a result they are all handled easily by three on the engine who are assisting the two paramedic firefighters on the rescue ambulance. When the rare event with multiple injuries occurs, the proper resources can be dispatched. Of the 13% that are fire call related, 93% of fire alarms are false and 90% of all fire calls can be handled by the first in engine company, according to the international fire union. There does not seem to be a reasonable justification to have a policy that staffs every engine company with four firefighters. In the rare instances where multiple injuries occur, or at a large, working structure fire, or other major fixed-point disasters, the fire department can have as many resources as it needs in very few minutes. The train derailment involving eleven deaths is an example.

The third reason the GFD gave at the June 26, 2007 presentation to the city council was that “State Mutual Aid system requires us to staff with 4 firefighters”. According to Paul Beckstrom, Assistant Chief of the State Office of Emergency Services and an expert on the California Fire Service and Rescue Emergency Mutual Aid System, in a phone conversation on 11-13-07, said that the statement is not true. He said there are no provisions that set minimum staffing levels in the state mutual aid system. The document is silent on staffing. He said the state system recognizes that local communities set their own staffing levels and the state does not dictate how many should be on the apparatus when the system is activated.

He did say, however, that a related document, and perhaps the one to which the GFD was referring, is found in the Field Operations Guide, or FOG for short. In FOG, there is a provision that addresses the issue of reimbursements and if the engine company sent by a city which claimed it was staffed with three firefighters, but really had four, the question of payment for the fourth firefighter would be in question. He said the three versus four is a funding question not a tactical one. He added that it is important for the incident commander to know how many firefighters are arriving on engine and truck companies, and not have to guess. But there is no requirement that engine companies sent by cities or counties to a mutual aid incident have to be staffed with four firefighters.

It appears as though all three of the reasons given by the GFD to support the justification to staff with four lacks logic and foundation. If you decide to keep the staffing level at four, next week we will give you a model that will maintain staffing levels at four and at the same time save Glendale between $5 and $11 million per year.

Contact information and for questions and copies of documents:

Bruce Philpott

(818) 240-8949