The rescue mission of the firefighters turned to be a defense mechanism. The compromised design of the warehouse was a major contributor to the firefighter’s death. They did not have a clear picture of the building and thus making them lose their way out of the burning warehouse. As a result of these deaths, NIOSH comes up with the various mechanisms to be adopted by the fire departments to avoid further occurrences ( Zalosh, 2003). The following section discusses the approaches suggested by NHIOS.
The fire departments were supposed to carry out pre-fire planning entailing thorough inspections of buildings which are vacant. This approach should be based on determining the material and physical aspects of the building such as age, design, renovations, and possible hazards to be encountered during the mission. From these pre-planning assessments, the Incident Commander can be well informed on the essential structural design of the building to implement an appropriate and effective attack plan. Indeed, the information will be communicated to the firefighters on the existing entry and exit channels in the building to prevent getting lost in action.
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According to Smith and Trimbur, (2003), t he fire departments should ensure full implementation of the incident command systems during at the incidence of fire. The Incident Officer will have the overall role of overseeing the mission through assumption, situation evaluation, deployment, maintaining, initiating, and controlling communications.
Apart from Incident Commander, fire departments need to appoint an independent Incident Safety Officer. The appointed fire personnel will have the role of automatically responding to fire cases which are pre-designated or when there exist multiple fire alarms. The personnel will be concerned with coordinating and giving directions to all undertakings at the scene.
Fire departments are supposed to have an intervention team which needs to respond rapidly to the fire cases immediately they arrive at the scenes. The team should always report to the Incident Command and also remain intact with the fire scene up to the time when the case will require their interventions.
The NHIOS recommended on the use of floodlights with high intensity on entry and existed points which will be useful to the disoriented or lost firefighters. These will be essential in the smoky, dark, and maze-like fire scenes. For instance, when personnel get lost in the scenes, they may call for help, and someone with the floodlight intervenes to give directions.
Before embarking on rescue missions, the departments need to ensure all the fundamental procedures and equipment are sufficient and adequate to offer support to radio traffic in the scenes entailing multiple fire alarms ( Chen, et al. 2012).
The fire departments need to ensure that all firefighters follow and adhere to the mask rules which are mandatory in accordance with the established administrative guidelines. This will ensure that the firefighters work on the same line without misunderstanding during rescue missions.
The NHIOS suggested the use of sophisticated cameras to help in identifying and locating downed or lost civilians and firefighters in the scenes. When conducting searching, the fire departments were supposed to the marking system. Besides, the approach used in marking should clearly understood and known by everyone participating in the rescue and search mission. To avoid duplication, the crew places a half mark while entering and completes the mark when exiting ( Wallace, 2006).
The Incident Command should maintain a close and clear accountability for all firefighters and other personnel at the scene. This accountability can be carried out through the use of individual tags or maintaining a list of all personnel.
References
Chen, Y. Y., Chuang, Y. J., Huang, C. H., Lin, C. Y., & Chien, S. W. (2012). The adoption of fire safety management for upgrading the fire safety level of existing hotel buildings. Building and environment , 51 , 311-319.
Smith, R., & Trimbur, J. (2003). Rhetorics of unity and disunity: The Worcester firefighters memorial service. Rhetoric Society Quarterly , 33 (4), 7-24.
Wallace, M. (2006). Fire department strategic planning: Creating future excellence . PennWell Books.
Zalosh, R. G. (2003). Industrial fire protection engineering . West Sussex, England: Wiley.
