IAFF Safe Fire Fighter Staffing

1 IAFFI nternational Associationof fire Fighters safe fire Fighter Staffing Critical Considerations 1 This manual identifies those benchmarks by which safe and effective minimum firesuppression services should be assessed. It provides both citizens and municipal officialswith the facts they must consider in making informed decisions regarding the appropriatelevel of service for their communities. fire Fighter Staffing directly affects delivery of fireprotection service and is therefore essential to any discussion or debate involving is generally accepted that a municipality has the right to determine the overall level offire protection it wants. However, regardless of the level of fire protection chosen by thecitizens, neither they nor their elected representatives have the right to jeopardize the safetyof the employees providing those pay for protection of life and property through their tax dollars, and they assumethat their elected and appointed officials will make informed decisions regarding thatprotection.

2 Too often, that decision making process has been based solely on budgetaryexpedience. However, irrespective of the resources provided, citizens continue to believethat fire fighters are prepared to provide an aggressive interior assault on fires, successfullyaccomplishing victim rescue, fire control, and property conservation. They do not expectfire fighters to take defensive actions, , to simply surround a fire and drown it, becauseto do so would be to concede preventable loss of both life and property. However, whenstaffing levels are reduced, misguided economics and community expectations collide, withpoliticians insisting that potential budgetary savings will not affect the level of citizens understand the relationship between Staffing levels and their own life safetyand the protection of their property, it is not realistic for fire fighters to expect them to insiston appropriate service levels, including minimum Staffing .

3 Elected officials and managerscannot be expected to make appropriate decisions concerning the level of service without aneducation in effective firefighting and an understanding of the impact their policy decisionshave on the citizens they represent. Therefore, it is essential to make clear to the communitythat reduced Staffing equates to reduced service levels, and that if they expect a continuedaggressive attack on fires, they must provide the department with at least the minimumresources required to meet the community s expectations. To do less forces fire fighters toaccept a level of risk to their own health and safety that the community at large findsunacceptable for , the standard for fire suppression in North America has mandated an offensiveattack in situations involving structural fire .

4 Study after study has demonstrated that if the forceavailable to initiate an interior fire attack is less than fifteen personnel, the goals of victimrescue, fire control, and property conservation are seriously compromised. These studies statethat when fireground Staffing is reduced below the level necessary for aggressive tactics, theinevitable result is that fire fighters must resort to defensive rather than offensive operationsor risk their own has always been labor intensive and remains so. Although new technology hasimproved firefighting equipment and protective gear, it is fire fighters who still perform thecritical tasks necessary to contain and extinguish fires. When Staffing falls below minimumacceptable levels, so does service, and the goals and expectations set by the community areessentially number of court decisions and arbitration awards have recognized that while firefightingis one of the most dangerous occupations in North America, fire fighters should be providedthe safest possible working environment.

5 Thus, Staffing affects not only the public safety butalso the safety of fire fighters and as such is a condition of employment. Although firefightingis by its nature dangerous, that does not justify employers increasing that inherent level of riskby reducing safe minimum Staffing under the guise of financial position has been recognized by many organizations such as the InternationalAssociation of fire Fighters, Metropolitan fire Chiefs Division of the International Associa-tion of fire Chiefs and the fire Administration. Even the International City ManagementAssociation has stated:..too few companies or poorly manned ones, can result in property and lifeloss beyond community accepted norms. Also, the cost of a firefighterdeath or disabling injury may far exceed the expense of a fire is not to say that there is a fixed value on a life or injury.

6 The pointis that the firefighting forces are the asset that protects the economic andtax base as well as its health and welfare. This asset is a valuable one andmust be carefully provided and wisely 1 Impact of Initial fire Attack on Property Loss and Citizen SafetySuccessful delivery of fire protection services involves two major elements fire preven-tion and fire suppression. fire prevention can be defined as those pre- fire activities thatreduce the probability of fires occurring and help limit the loss of property and life in the firesthat do occur. 1 Since fire prevention will never be 100 percent successful, it is necessary tobuttress fire prevention goals with adequate fire suppression services. It is the objective of firesuppression to get to the fire as quickly as possible and to extinguish it with minimum loss topersons and property from the fire and from fire fighting activities.

7 2 The successful attainment of the goals of both prevention and suppression require abalanced approach and commitment of resources. This balance has in recent years been tippedin the direction of fire prevention while largely ignoring fire the data in the following table shows, the concern with fire prevention has beensubstantially rewarded. According to the NFPA s Annual National fire Experience survey ,the total number of fires, civilian deaths, and injuries has declined remarkably over the lastdecade. This data attests to the substantial impact that public education, smoke detectors, anddevelopment and enforcement of building codes can have on preventing , closer examination of the same data also tells the other side of the story, whichis that de-emphasis of fire suppression in recent years has led to increasing rates of civiliandeaths and injuries and property loss when fires do.

8 National fire Protection Association Rate Per 1,000 Residential FiresTotalTotalTotalDirect PropertyReal PropertyResidentialCivilianCivilianCivil ianCivilianDamage PerDamage PerYearFiresDeathsInjuriesDeathInjuriesR esidential FireResidential fire [1]1978730,5006,18521, $3, $4,6021979721,5005,76520, $3, $4,8281980757,5005,44621, $4, $4,8741981733,0005,54020, $4, $4,8911982676,5004,94021, $4, $4,9831983641,5004,82021, $5, $5,1741984623,0004,24019, $5, $5,3141985622,0005,02519, $6, $5,6231986581,5004,77019, $6, $5,5801987551,5004,66020, $6, $5,9041988552,5005,06522, $7, $6,1501989513,5004,43520, $7, $6,2791990467,0004,11520, $9, $6,9681991478,0003,57521, $11, $8,5471992472,0003,70521, $8, $5,8591993470,0003,82522, $10, $7,1311994451,0003,46520, $9, $6, [1] Determined by deflating the direct property damage by the the six-year period 1978-84, measures of both fire prevention and fire suppressionexhibited equally impressive results.

9 Through the efforts of fire prevention, the total numberof residential fires declined , while the total number of civilian deaths and injuries,respectively, dropped by and those situations where fires did occur, firefighting also scored substantial gains. Duringthe period, the rate of civilian deaths per 1,000 fires declined , while the rate of civilianinjuries and real property damage showed only modest in the last ten years, the results were substantially different. Between 1984 and1994, the rate of civilian fire deaths per 1,000 residential fires increased , the rate ofcivilian injuries increased and real property loss rose ability of adequate fire suppression forces to greatly influence the outcome of astructural fire is undeniable and predictable. Data generated by the National fire ProtectionAssociation provides empirical proof that rapid and aggressive interior attack can substantiallyreduce the human and property loss associated with structural fires.

10 At each stage of a fire sextension beyond the room of origin, the rate of civilian deaths, injuries, and property damagegrows exponentially. Rate Per 1,000 FiresAverageCivilianCivilianPropertyFire Extension in Residential Structures:DeathsInjuriesDamageConfined to Room of $1,505 Confined to Floor of $12,134 Beyond Floor of $21,343 SOURCE: National fire Protection Association5 Clearly, an early aggressive and offensive initial interior attack on a working structural fireresults in greatly reduced loss of life and property damage. Consequently, given that theprogression of a structural fire to the point of flashover (the very rapid spreading of the firedue to super heating of room contents and other combustibles) generally occurs in less than10 minutes3, two of the most important elements in limiting fire spread are the quick arrivalof sufficient numbers of personnel and equipment to attack and extinguish the fire as close tothe point of its origin as conclusions reached in the Dallas Study have recently been confirmed for small firedepartments by the Westerville, Ohio fire Using standard firefighting tactics,the results of the Westerville fire Department study showed that 4 fire fighters could performrescue of potential fire victims 80% faster than a 3 fire Fighter .