Agencies across the country are encouraged to suspend all non-emergency activities from June 20-26 and focus on rehab education. An entire week has been set aside to ensure that all shifts and personnel can participate.
Many think simply providing food and beverages to firefighters constitutes a rehab program but rehab should encompass all areas of health, including cardiac, nutrition, exposure, mental health, hydration, and heat stress. Earlier this year, two young firefighter recruits – Victor Melillo of New Jersey and Peyton Morse of New York – collapsed during training drills. Although the cause and conditions for those two tragic incidents are not known, they and others underscore the importance of prioritizing rehab.
In part, the NFPA 1584 fact sheet, stresses that:
Rehabilitation is an integral part of fire scene management, training exercises, and an occupational health and safety program
Incident commanders, company officers, rehabilitation managers and firefighters all have critical roles and responsibilities
Consistent terms including rehabilitation, recovery, active cooling, and passive cooling will ensure that all members understand key information
Standard documentation can help crew members understand which rehab efforts to apply, what needs to be documented, and necessary tracking requirements
The Safety Stand Down site offers a wide array of resources for departments. Additionally, members of the fire service are encouraged to take and share the “2021 Fire Service Safety Stand Down Quiz” Sweepstakes. The informative and interactive online quiz, available at www.nfpa.org/fireservicequiz; features 13 questions and will be live through Wednesday, June 23. A limited-edition challenge coin commemorating this year’s Safety Stand Down theme will be given to 200 randomly selected participants.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has authorised the use of federal funds to assist the state of Arizona in combating the Telegraph Fire, which is burning in Pinal and Gila counties.
On June 6, the state of Arizona submitted a request for a Fire Management Assistance Grant (FMAG) for the Telegraph Fire. At the time of the request, the fire threatened approximately 2,600 homes in and around the communities of Top of the World, Kearny, Superior, Kelvin, Riverside, Miami and Dripping Springs. The fire also threatened around 100 buildings, five mines, a critical watershed, power distribution lines and cell towers in the area.
The FEMA regional administrator approved the state’s request on June 6, as the fire threatened to become a major incident.
FMAGs provide federal funding for up to 75 percent of eligible firefighting costs. The Disaster Relief Fund provides allowances for FMAGs through FEMA to assist in fighting fires that threaten to cause major disasters. Eligible costs covered by FMAGs can include expenses for field camps, equipment use, materials, supplies and mobilisation, and demobilisation activities attributed to fighting the fire.
The NFPA Fire & Life Safety Policy Institute has released the 2020 Fire & Life Safety Ecosystem: Year in Review report. This latest edition examines U.S. and international events in the last year including massive wildfires, the Beirut port explosion, and another exterior cladding high-rise fire that highlight how gaps, cracks, and weaknesses in our global fire and life safety system become tragedies.
Wildfire and the Beirut explosion will be covered in the report
The Fire & Life Safety Ecosystem is a framework NFPA developed in 2018 that identifies the components that must work together to minimize risk and help prevent loss, injuries, and death from fire, life, electrical, and other hazards. If any of the components are missing or functioning poorly, calamities happen and the risk to life, property, and economic productivity increases. The NFPA Fire & Life Ecosystem is a key to understanding how decisions made over time can either exacerbate or control these threats to safety.
“The year 2020 threw a lot at the world, but as disruptive as it was, it also provided us with a number of fire and life safety events to learn from,” said Jim Pauley, president and CEO of NFPA. “By looking at these incidents through the lens of the Fire & Life Safety Ecosystem, we not only understand the role fire plays in today’s society, but we can examine the factors that have contributed to a reduction of fires and associated losses, and identify areas where work is still needed.”
Tragic incidents worldwide continue to underscore the need to prioritize fire and life safety in policymaking and invest in a complete fire prevention and protection infrastructure. By examining the events outlined in the Year in Review report, communities can see the fault lines that enabled each calamity and use the examples to help address fractures in their own fire and life safety ecosystems to create safer areas to live.
The free 2020 Year in Review report and related resources, and information about the NFPA Fire & Life Safety Ecosystem, can be found on the NFPA Ecosystem webpage.
Today, Rosenbauer America and FESCO Emergency Sales announced they will be partnering together to service in Virginia and Washington, DC territories starting Friday, 04 June 2021.
“We are excited to welcome FESCO to our dealer network responsible for the Washington, DC and Virginia territories,” said Mark Fusco, Vice-President of Sales & Marketing for Rosenbauer America. “With the addition of FESCO in combination with C.W. Williams Fire, Rosenbauer’s existing dealer in North Carolina, customer service and support remain top priorities.”
FESCO is a third-generation family-owned and operated fire apparatus and EMS industry dealership. FESCO was founded in 1953 by Walter “Ed” Laake.
“We are excited to partner with Rosenbauer in the Mid-Atlantic,” added Pete Laake Jr., President of FESCO Emergency Sales. “We have established a team that is ready and eager to support this great opportunity. We represent the highest quality products, and focus every day on providing exemplary customer service.”
FESCO is a leader in the market and are well known for their responsiveness, reliability, quality, ingenuity, excellence and integrity. Their energized and talented associates are committed to quality standards through a team approach that, in combination with our competitive pricing, provides outstanding opportunities.
Today, RapidDeploy, a cloud-based emergency response platform, announced a strategic partnership with Western Fire Chiefs Association (WFCA), a registered non-profit and division of the International Association of Fire Chiefs focused on developing best practices, cultivating leadership, and driving funding and improved quality of life for firefighters in the Western states. Together, the organizations will work to combine their visions and improve RapidDeploy’s fire-focused service offerings and technologies.
“WFCA’s storied history of grappling with the many hazards associated with the Western states’ unique environment and geography will bring unparalleled perspective for the team at RapidDeploy,” RapidDeploy CEO Steve Raucher said. “Our new alliance will offer an incredible opportunity for our platform’s evolution as we look to serve the fire and EMS communities with new features and technologies in the months and years to come.”
Today, RapidDeploy serves over 550 9-1-1 centers in California and Arizona, and its alliance with WFCA is expected to drive more adoption across the Association’s territory.
“RapidDeploy is doing things with its technology that public safety has dreamed about for decades,” WFCA CEO Jeff Johnson, Fire Chief (Ret.), said. “For the fire community, situational awareness is everything. From tracking environmental threats, to receiving OnStar data directly in the RadiusPlus Map, the data RapidDeploy can surface through its platform is an incredible asset for 9-1-1 and first responders.”
“There’s the platform itself, which is already powerful,” Raucher said. “But what we have found is, when you put people who have spent a lifetime of service in public safety with the platform, we gain insight into new nuances and potential use cases and can innovate on them quickly.”
“No one is more creative than the public safety community when it comes to their mission,” Johnson said. “When our teams sit down together and roll up their sleeves, we’re confident we can provide significant insight that helps evolve the tool and bring our shared visions even closer.”
To learn more about RapidDeploy’s 9-1-1 Public Safety ecosystem, please visit www.rapiddeploy.com. For more information about the mission of Western Fire Chiefs Association, please visit wfca.com.
One crew member has died after a firefighting helicopter carrying four people crashed while attending a training exercise near Leesburg International Airport, Florida.
The helicopter crashed into a marsh near the airport at around 4 p.m, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a news release.
One body was recovered Tuesday night and no survivors had been found, Leesburg Fire Rescue said in a Facebook post.
Hours after the crash, rescue crews were still trying to get to the wreckage to see if there were any survivors, Leesburg police Capt. Joe Iozzi said, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate. Officials did not immediately release additional information.
Leaning on 33 years’ experience in mobile water transport, Hytrans Systems explains the benefits of hydraulically driven submersible pumps
Hytrans® has developed, manufactured and supplied mobile water transport units with hydraulically driven submersible pumps (HydroSub®) since 1988. During these 33 years Hytrans has supplied almost 1200 HydroSub® units across the globe. Quality, proven performance and innovation are the keywords that contributed to the success of the mobile water transport equipment of Hytrans®.
The biggest advantages of using the hydraulically driven submersible pumps versus the conventional suction pump is the vertical pump lift without draft loss and the deployment time. With a conventional system there is a suction line in place, and the needed priming consumes valuable time, especially when time is at a premium. In addition, when drafting from 7 meters down the pump capacity reduces by 70%.
By using the Hytrans® hydraulically driven submersible pumps, this is not a problem anymore because the hydraulically driven pump is floating, priming is not needed and as a major advantage there is no draft loss. This means pumping water from 60 meters vertically down to any (open) water source can be achieved easily.
As Hytrans® strives to supply their customers with mobile and easy to handle water transport systems, they have chosen to build these systems onto containerised modules. With this, each container can be handled by means of a truck with a hook arm lift off system. In case of a large-scale incident, systems can be combined as complementary modules to increase capacity and pumping distance with a minimum time and manpower. When all this is combined, it makes for the perfect tool for situations where water is a key commodity.
A versatile solution
Hytrans® supplies complete mobile water transport solutions over long distances for municipal Fire and Rescue services as well as for the Industrial Fire Service and Nuclear Power Plants. The HydroSub® high volume pump units have a capacity from 1.500 lpm @ 10 bar (approx. 400 GPM @ 150 psi) up to 45.000 lpm @ 12 bar (approx. 12.000 GPM @ 175 psi) and are part of the standard products range.
The HydroSub® units are not only deployed to provide fire water for large scale incidents but also to reduce the aftermath of large-scale floods and supplying cooling water in emergency situations for nuclear power plants. For example, in 2012 Hurricane Sandy ripped through the city of New York, resulting in floods. HydroSub® units were used to pump the flood water from the Holland tunnel.
Hytrans® equipment also had a significant role during the Fukushima incident in 2011, and even more recently HydroSub® units have been deployed all over Australia to supply firefighters with water in difficult circumstances to fight the ongoing bushfires that are becoming more common every year in the region.
The FloodModule
Because of climate change, flooding is becoming more prevalent all over the world. In anticipation of this, Hytrans® developed an add-on system for flood fighting for the HydroSub® 150 unit, called the FloodModule. This module is equipped with specially designed flood pumps which can replace the standard submersible pump. With this add-on system the capacity of the HydroSub® unit is multiplied by 6 to achieve a capacity of 50.000 lpm (13.200 GPM). Based on this success other models of the HydroSub® range can be equipped with flood pumps and new development has made the pump lighter and therefore even more easy to deploy.
The HydroSub® high volume pump units are an important part of the system but it is not the only item that needs attention when considering a complete mobile water transport solution. The Hytrans® Hose Layer Containers including Hose Recovery Units are designed to deploy and recover hoses including the coupling up to 12”-diameter.
These large diameter hoses will have a recovery time of only 45 minutes for a length of 1.000 metre (12”). Recently, Hytrans® introduced a fully automatic hose recovery system called the AutoFlaker. With this system one can recover up to 12”-diameter hoses without the need of manpower. The only manpower needed is the truck driver, who can control the system from his or her cabin. Making the system easy to deploy and recover will encourage people to use it and train with it, so they will be prepared when it really matters.
Fast deployment
Fast deployment is key in emergency situations. For the deployment of large diameter hoses, it is important that couplings can withstand ground impact. A low weight on the coupling reduces the force of the impact but also increases the length of hose that can be stored inside the Hose Layer Container, because of the decrease in size of the coupling. Therefore Hytrans® supplies HFS/AWG Multi Lug couplings as a standard for the hoses, these are PN16 rated but also low weight and have a high impact resistance.
To make the connections within the mobile water transport as well as the connection to fire trucks or monitors, Hytrans® has a range of light weight portable water supply equipment. It gives you the ability to make the connections to set-up a complete temporary above ground hydrant network in minutes. Die casted aluminium Y-Pieces that can be manhandled, non-return valves, gate valves etc. are available as a standard up to 12” in diameter, but Hytrans® is also able to manufacture special hardware.
An important element for a high-volume water transport system remains the choice of material for large diameter hoses, with the basic options being rubber or polyurethane. The main difference between these two materials is heat resistance. PU is not recommended for firefighting because it is unable to withstand the effect of a burning object, as per BS 6391 (Hot Cube Test). Therefore, the hoses that Hytrans® supplies are made of through the weave extruded rubber. Several factors should be considered when equipping your water transport system with the right large diameter hoses. These include working pressure, burst pressure, wear resistance, weight, elongation/expansion ratio, and hose recovery.
When having to use large diameter hoses, one needs to make sure that the hoses are flexible, heat resistant and have limited elongation. Due to the use of special fibres, the elongation of the Hytrans® hoses are less than 1,5% at working pressure. Tests have proven that hoses with more than 1,5% elongation will move a lot or even “jump” when pressurised.
The importance of accuracy
As the benefits of a complete mobile water transport solution become recognised, the systems become widely used for firefighting. Because of this it was necessary to develop a foam injection unit that is very accurate and can deal with high flows that are needed to extinguish the largest (petro-chemicals) fires. This resulted in the Hytrans® PowerFoam option which can either be integrated in the larger HydroSub® units or supplied as a standalone unit.
The latter can be placed at any point in the water line. Due to the hydraulic driven foam gear pump and the accurate monitored water flow, the exact amount of foam concentrate is added to the water flow. Foam setting can be done from 0-6% with increments of 0,1%. The system works in such a way that it is fully independent from pressure and water flow and adapts automatically if there is fluctuation. Accurate foam mixing is the result. It also features a return line which allows you to return the foam concentrate back to the container during training sessions. The whole foam setting on the unit as well as the foam logistics can be trained without using precious foam.
The system works in such a way that it is fully independent from pressure and water flow and adapts automatically if there is fluctuation.
To complement the mobile water transport systems, Hytrans® has a range of trailer mounted monitors up to a capacity of 60.000 lpm. These monitors can be equipped with a nozzle that has a variable flow adjustment which allows you to change the flow setting at work pressure and without interruption of operation. The trailers are designed in such a way that there is no need for a water ballast tank.
Monitors above the 20.000 lpm are mounted on a trailer that has an extremely reduced overall height so the wheel axle can be lowered by means of an integrated mechanical operated hydraulic pump. The gears that move the monitor are self-arresting and completely covered, sealed and greased for complete lifecycle. The monitor bodies are made of an aluminium alloy and the inside is optimised to get superior performance. For every specific need Hytrans® can supply the right type of nozzle, such as jet, jet/spray and nozzles with foam attachments.
The mobile systems made by Hytrans Systems are a complete solution and designed to be used in extreme circumstances. In these circumstances the system must be deployed in minutes using minimum manpower. Therefore the engineers at Hytrans® are constantly working on making things easier, lighter and with a higher performance without affecting performance. Mobile high-volume pumping will always be a constant development to get bigger, better, faster and lighter equipment to help fire fighters to fulfil their job. We are using our 33-years of experience to make the best system worldwide available.
The National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) and Columbia Southern University (CSU) are partnering for the 13th year to support volunteer responders by offering two scholarships to NVFC members to help them further their education in the fire and emergency services. Each scholarship will cover up to 60 credit hours towards one online degree program.
CSU offers a wide range of accredited degree programs, including fire science, fire administration, occupational safety and health, and more. The university offers many online learning options designed to accommodate the busy life of a volunteer firefighter or EMS provider. Scholarship recipients may pursue an associate, bachelor’s, or master’s degree.
“Online learning has been instrumental to help our first responders continue their education, especially over the past year,” said NVFC chair Steve Hirsch. “We thank CSU for their continued support of our volunteers and the opportunities they provide to help these men and women enhance their skill sets and better serve their communities.”
“As a university whose students and alumni are actively involved in their community fire departments, it is imperative that we stay connected to organizations like the NVFC,” said Chief Keith Padgett, CSU’s fire and emergency medical services academic program director. “Our partnership with the NVFC ensures that we continue to teach a relevant, indispensable curriculum to volunteer and career fire professionals.”
Since 2009, this scholarship has helped many NVFC members launch their careers and advance their position in the fire and emergency services. To date, 24 NVFC members have been able to achieve their educational goals through the partnership. Click here to see how the scholarship has benefited other volunteer responders.
To be eligible for the scholarship, applicants must:
Be a member of the NVFC. If you are not currently an NVFC member, click here to learn about membership benefits and join for just $18.
Submit a 500-word essay on this subject: “Explain how the opportunity to continue your education through this scholarship will advance your participation in the fire and emergency services or enhance your ability to contribute back to the emergency services community.”
Provide at least one letter of recommendation (from a teacher or someone at the fire department you reported to directly).
Must not have previously earned a scholarship through CSU or the NVFC.
Have a high school diploma or equivalent (GED), and be able to provide a transcript.
Be able to begin coursework within 90 days of the date of the award.
Maintain a 2.0 undergraduate GPA or 3.0 graduate GPA.
Remain in good standing with CSU and NVFC throughout the degree program.
Maintain continuous enrollment in the CSU degree program for the duration of the scholarship.
Current CSU students must already meet these requirements to be considered.
The deadline to apply is August 25. An NVFC scholarship committee will select the winners, and recipients will be announced in October 2021.
COVID-19 has had a significant impact on frontline first responders, including the volunteer fire and EMS community. To assist in the safety of these workers, FirstNet, Built with AT&T has teamed-up with the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) to donate pandemic supplies to volunteer fire and EMS departments. Up to $900,000 worth of pandemic supplies will be awarded to volunteer departments.
Departments must request a minimum of $5,000 worth of supplies to be considered for the donation. Available supplies include vinyl gloves, hand sanitizer, sanitizing wipes, and reusable face coverings. To be eligible, departments must be over 50 percent volunteer, serve a population of 25,000 or less, have an annual revenue less than $250,000, and demonstrate a need for the supplies.
“We thank the FirstNet Program at AT&T for their support of our nation’s volunteer firefighters and EMS providers through this donation,” said NVFC chair Steve Hirsch. “Many volunteer fire and EMS departments have limited budgets that they must stretch to cover their expenses. This donation will help resource-constrained departments get supplies they need to enhance the safety of their responders while being able to allocate the money they would have spent on these to secure other necessary resources.”
The application period is open from May 20-June 18. Recipients will be announced in July and August. Learn more and apply at www.nvfc.org/pandemic-supply-donation.
FirstNet is the only nationwide, high-speed broadband communications platform dedicated to and purpose-built for America’s first responders and the extended public safety community. It is Built with AT&T in public-private partnership with the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority) – an independent agency within the federal government.
FirstNet and the FirstNet logo are registered trademarks and service marks of the First Responder Network Authority. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.
More than 800 people registered to attend the 2021 Wildfire Prevention Summit hosted by the Western Fire Chiefs Association (WFCA) on Tuesday, May 4, 2021. The daylong, virtual event covered three primary causes of wildfire ignitions (arson, roadside and utility infrastructure) with a focus on roadside and utility infrastructure ignitions and was scheduled during National Wildfire Awareness Month to promote dialogue and discussion around fire prevention as we head into what is expected to be another active wildfire season in the Western United States.
“This is not just a Western U.S. problem—it is affecting the entire country, and California is just the tipping point. If we don’t take aggressive action to address wildfires, they will continue and the death and devastation they cause will continue to increase over time,” says Chief Bob Roper, Policy Advisor for the WFCA. “This was a very informative event that provided national, regional and local perspectives on wildfire prevention, and I encourage everyone who was unable to attend the Wildfire Prevention Summit live to view the recorded presentations on the event website.”
Nearly two dozen fire related experts made presentations related to wildfire prevention and protection during the Summit, including representatives from the USDA Forest Service, CAL FIRE, California Public Utility Commission and Arizona Public Service. Representatives from three of California’s major utility companies – PG&E, San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison – participated in a panel discussion on Current Efforts and Challenges regarding wildfires. This panel discussion and all other presentations made during the 2021 Wildfire Prevention Summit are now available to view at https://www.wildfirepreventionsummit.com.
“We are thrilled with the turnout for the 2021 Wildfire Prevention Summit,” says Edward Goldberg, CEO of Perimeter Solutions, Platinum Sponsor for the event. “What I hope attendees took away from the day’s discussions is that there are tools available to help improve vegetation management, and that today’s preventative retardant treatments are very effective at preventing wildfire ignitions and spread. Technology continues to evolve and improve, and we look forward to offering more sessions related to fire safety in the future.”
