(Sorry for the cop-out copypasta, but it's relevant.)

My only thoughts: I would feel more comfortable if the Mayor replied with a strong "yes, we are prepared," instead of his disconcerting use of a litote.

Also, with an increasing call volume, continued difficulties with both personnel staffing and apparatus maintenance, and the ever-dwindling numbers of ALS providers, I do not think it bodes well for the efficacy of the Department in the event of a large-scale or mass-casualty incident—and certainly not during the summer months, when everything tends to break down (both literally and figuratively).

I'm no Subject Matter Expert over here, but to quote Sgt. Joe Friday—"all we know are the facts, ma'am."

—RL

—————

Can D.C. Handle A Boston-Like Attack? D.C. Mayor Says Yes, After Letter Suggesting Otherwise

WASHINGTON — Can D.C. handle a Boston-like attack?

The Washington Examiner reports that D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray suggests not in a recent letter:

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray has warned key lawmakers that the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department's staffing protocols are leaving the District at risk in the event of a Boston-style attack against the city.

"The existing shift structure permits many personnel to commute extraordinary distances to report for work," Gray wrote in a letter to two legislators. "Should a serious emergency situation impact the District of Columbia, as it did [on April 15] in Boston, it would be almost impossible for many off-duty FEMS workers, who would be desperately needed, to respond in a timely manner to meet the needs of our residents."

Firefighters currently work 24-hour shifts before receiving three days off, but the Gray administration has used contract negotiations to seek a new arrangement of shorter shifts.

Gray spokesperson Pedro Ribeiro told The Huffington Post that the letter — you can read a PDF of it here – was intended only to recommend a more flexible FEMS staffing protocol, but that Gray did not mean to say D.C. is currently unprepared.

"What we're saying is it would be easier if those folks were closer. However it doesn't mean we're not prepared. We are," said Ribeiro. "We respond to hundreds of incidents a day…To say that the District is unprepared is absurd."

The president of the D.C. firefighters' union told the Examiner that he disagrees both with Gray's proposed changes, which come as the city and the firefighters will be going into binding arbitration, and with the suggestion that D.C. is unprepared to respond to an attack:

Edward Smith, the union's president, said firefighters are sufficiently close to the District, and he dismissed Gray's contention that the current shift structure poses a public safety threat.

"I think he's playing on people's emotions," Edward Smith said. "I don't believe those claims at all."

Smith added: "We'd be able to respond initially to any emergency."

For more on the historical context of the administration's dispute with firefighters, see this recent Washingtonian article.

And more: Gray and Washington Post reporter Tim Craig exchanged tweets over the Examiner story today:

I could barely hear the Lieutenant’s voice from the front of the fire engine; with the Q siren, the air horn, and all the radio chatter from the first- and second-due companies, his voice was almost imperceptible.

A quick glance to the left out of the layout man’s side of the engine confirmed was I was hoping—that this detached, single-family home had already lit off. Smoke belched from the front door as a truckman forced the door open. We’d learn later that the fire apparently started in the basement, but for right now, all we knew was that we were about to have a really good night.

Sean expertly piloted the wagon towards 33rd St, SE—seeing that everything was blocked up from this direction, he spun the wheel at the last second to bring the engine on track to circle around and approach from the other side.

“Pull our own line; pull our own line!” the Lieutenant repeated; throwing his words over his shoulder; they fell onto an already-empty back step.

Aw, come on, Lieu—you know we got this.

I snagged the 250’ line from the rear of the wagon, shouting to Sean (and hoping he heard) that I was taking something off the back.

Well, fuck it. He’s a smart dude—he’ll figure it out. After all, when there’s a fire, “…ain’t nobody got time for that.”

Thwack, thwack, thwack. I threw several folds of hose off my shoulder in a rough zig-zag, counting on my layout man to clarify the squiggles of cotton I’d drawn on the ground. I dropped to a knee in the front yard, sinking just beneath the gray smoke pumping out of the front door and securing the nozzle squarely between my knees.

Mask, hood, helmet, gloves, go. The routine’s pretty well-ensconced in the lizard part of my brain, so it’s never hard to access—even without the adrenaline that was currently coursing through my veins. Into the front room we went, managing after what felt like forever to make it past the sea of reflective coats that always seem to be blocking the most efficient route for a hoseline.

Get… outta… c’mon… *grumble*… sonofa… I let out an exasperated sigh as I hauled on the hose behind me, trying to gain any amount of inches towards the orange ceiling I could see through the next doorway.

Minutes of straining went by, and my layout man and I gained a few more feet. I could already see one company ahead, looking like they’d make it into the room before us. Not yet resigned to our second-rate fate as the third-due engine, my officer and I started plotting how to access the next room without using the blocked doorway. Examining the first floor walls, we estimated that the majority of the fire in the next room was directly on the other side of this wall. Which means that this wall needs to have a big-ass hole in it. My Lieutenant went to work with his ever-present halligan bar, smashing between studs; I, on the other hand, didn’t have anything but a hoseline.

Or did I? I reached down towards my pocket to grab a set of cutters, pliers, anything I could use to bash through a wall without breaking my knuckles. My hand dropped down, almost intuitively, to the heaviest thing that was easily accessible: that flashlight I was testing out: the LED-powered, aluminum-milled monstrosity that I had turned on without thinking and had been lighting my way for the past few minutes. I had carried it with me on every alarm since I’d received it, eagerly awaiting the chance to really put it through the ringer (as you’ll see in the photos, I had jury-rigged the light onto an old radio strap with a hose clamp and some key rings).

Fuck it. Coast is gonna love my writeup on this.

I began slamming the flashlight’s front edge into the wall as hard as I could, tearing out chunks of drywall with each hit. Several times, I made jarring contact with 3/4” plywood screwed to the other side of the studs, stinging my hands and producing a loud crack I could hear over the din of the room. After several hits (and with the light still functioning well), I saw the doorway clear out.

Hmm. No sense in continuing this wall-breaching exercise if I’ve got a perfectly good avenue into the next room.

(I would learn later that one engine company had burst a section of their hoseline, rendering their presence useless; another company hadn’t pulled enough line, and were stuck just before the doorway with no more hose and no recourse.)

An engine Lieutenant was hunkered down just inside the room, asking in the most polite manner possible if “anyone in this goddamned fucking place” had a hoseline. Two hard taps on his shoulder spun him around to face me, where I waddled over with a nozzle and a couple extra feet of hose, looped into a circle beside me.

“That’ll do!” After pointing out several holes in the floor—the largest of which he had laid his halligan bar over—we settled against the wall and I opened the nozzle with a satisfying whoosh.

Here, there, and everywhere; the orange that had once sat atop us gave way to a humid gray fog that sank to our level. Several minutes later, it was all over, and I directed a slightly-wider fog stream out the back window to draw the smoke out.

I’ll have to admit that it felt damned good to get some water on a fire again. We run our medicals, we ride our ambulances… but we want nothing more than that irreplaceable, unparalleled, and undeniably satisfying feeling of going to a good fire.

And everybody's got time for that.

—————

A few more notes about the flashlight that survived the treatment I gave it: you can see in the following photos that it took quite the beating; there's debris and soot coating it from front to back, and the lens area is filled with all manner of gunk. The photo below is immediately following the fire, taken while I was removing my gear beside the engine.

This is one bruiser of a flashlight; I’d highly recommend it with one tiny change: please make another model that has connection points both fore and aft, as well as a button just behind the head of the light (like where a MagLite sits); that way I can turn it on easily and sling it over my shoulder like a typical firefighting handlight without having to cobble together some parts to make a strap.

Oh, and the knife has held up extremely well, for all knife-related things I’ve had to do (as I said, it became my every-day-carry while at work, and I have had no problems with it. I even had it clipped onto the same leather strap that the flashlight was on, and it survived well without falling off or becoming damaged.

All in all? A damned fine job, Coast. I love the products… you should definitely send me more stuff to abuse!

Except, perhaps: "…seriously?"

Man in Kentucky Arrested for Breaking Into Firehouse, Allegedly Masturbating On Firemen’s Gear

 Taylor Berman

Last weekend, 27-year-old Nicholas Gonzales got drunk in Louisville, Kentucky. Then, as drunk people tend to do, he made a stupid decision and allegedly broke into a nearby firehouse, smashing one of the building's windows. When firefighters went to investigate the sound of broken glass, they found Gonzales in the midst of an act that they probably weren't expecting: he was reportedly masturbating onto their gear, which he'd removed from their lockers.

The firefighters detained Gonzales, which I'm sure was an interesting ordeal, until police arrived and arrested him. But why was Gonzales allegedly masturbating onto the firefighter's gear, according to the police report?

"Because I wanted to."

Fair enough. Gonzales was charged with burglary, public intoxication and criminal mischief.

The petition is concise, and is listed in its entirety below. It would appear that Durand, Jr. is not seeking any further action, compensation, or redress besides the elimination of the bill. According to change.org at the time of this writing, 135,905 supporters have signed the petition.

I'd love to hear from some strong opinions on this one. Would you sign it? Does he have a case for this, or anything further? I'm looking at you, FireLaw!

—————

I'm starting my year off nicely; you gotta love getting some new gear to use and abuse on the job, right? I've been offered an opportunity to test out an LED flashlight and a pocketknife from COAST, a Portland, OR -based company who specialty is—you guessed it—flashlights and knives. Apparently, they've been producing knives since 1919 (originally COAST Cutlery Company, offering edged tools to farmers and ranch hands in the Pacific Northwest), and now it's my turn to try and beat 'em up.

First up is the Rapid Response 3.00, a spring-assisted folder with a secondary lock on the handle, something I've never had in a knife before. The sliding thumb tab allows you to lock the blade in position whether open or closed, essentially keeping it from popping open in your pocket or from closing when you don't want it to. Seems a bit redundant for a blade that already has a liner lock, but I kind of see the appeal.

Weight: 104g, by my measure.

Length: 3.00" blade / 7" opened / 4" closed

Steel: no indicator of this stamped on the blade itself, but the website lists it as "5Cr15Mov." For any metal junkies out there, that's a Chinese-made stainless steel with chromium, molybdenum, vanadium, and manganese (and a few others) tossed into the mix. Rockwell hardness scale is about a 55-57, which I would call about standard for knives and metal generally intended for moderate use. It should hold an edge for some time, but I wouldn't want it to be a drawn-out pain in the ass to sharpen, either. We'll see about that.

Handle material: "fiberglass-filled textured nylon," says the website. Not sure how they do that, but the material itself is grippy without catching in a pocket while dry—unfortunately, all grip retention goes out the window when wet. I'd be concerned using this heavily while wearing gloves, but again, we shall see. Bonus points to Coast for utilizing the main pivot point to add a subtle Maltese cross to the overall design of the knife.

Pros: Thin-bodied, doesn't cause any uncomfortable edges or bulkiness when in a pocket. The clip is very strong, requiring a greater-than-usual effort to remove it from your pocket, which I like (because I drop stuff all the time). Opens quickly and decisively with an audible snap, letting you know it's locked and ready. Internal mechanism appears well-made, with no perceptible wiggle or "loose" feeling in any moving parts. It arrived razor-sharp right out of the box, requiring no additional tooling or honing on my part. Thumb studs are strong and accessible from both sides, for you lefties, and the knurled grips and handle cutaways are in all the right spots to make the knife sit well in your hand when open.

Cons: The handle, as I said, is slippery when wet. The photo below shows that the chamfers on the spine have been ground a little bit unevenly—not really a cause for alarm, as I wouldn't expect this to affect the performance in any way, but I am a stickler for build quality and craftsmanship. If you're willing to sell an item with a visible flaw right out of the box, what other corners might have been cut in the manufacturing? In November of 2011, Coast posited that the Rapid Response series might be "the best blade-assist knives ever manufactured" (source).

Price: $40.00 at LightsAndKnives, Coast's preferred vendor.

—————

Next item up for abuse is: the HP14 focusing LED flashlight. Unlike the Mag-Lites I grew up with, the focusing mechanism of this beam will never have you accidentally twisting the head of the light clean off if you're in a hurry. The "slide-focus" feature simply has you extend or retract the head by pulling or pushing on it. Additionally, the head locks in place with a simple twist, so if you're really pressed to keep that beam focused, no worries. I'm not sure if the lock is necessary, but Coast seems to have a trend with locking things in place. Who knows, maybe I'll drop it one day and curse the heavens because I have to re-focus the light. Shoulda used the lock, dude.

Weight: 396g / 13.96oz., by my measure. Just under a pound, and you can definitely tell the second you pick it up.

Length: Anywhere from 8 1/4" to 8 3/4", depending on the slide-focus position.

Material/case: Aluminum casing with a rubberized O-ring for waterproofing. The lanyard hole also serves as an anti-roll device, which works surprisingly well. It comes with a velcro belt case—which I doubt I'll be using—that seems to hold and protect the light snugly.

Batteries: 4 AAs, mounted in a slide-out tray. There's a high- and low-output mode for this light, toggled with the sole switch on the butt of the handle. Battery life is given as almost 5 hours on "high," 20 hours on "low."

Light output and beam distance: This is a damned powerful light. Beam distances are given when the light has been focused to its smallest spot area. High-output: 339 lumens, with a max reach of 574ft. Low-output is 56 lumens, with a max reach of 118ft.

Pros: This thing feels like a tool when you pick it up. Or a weapon. Maybe both. It's heavy enough, and robust enough when you wield it, that I can't see being able to do much to it except taking off some of the black paint. The LED is touted as "unbreakable," and I hope the waterproofing/impact resistance will prove itself. The on/off button is rubberized, and offers just the right amount of resistance so that I wouldn't struggle to turn it on in a hurry (conversely, nor would I be concerned about it turning on by accident in a bag or pocket). The light output is stunning, and I look forward to using it in some crappy situations.

Cons: The knurled body is stylish-looking, but the knurls themselves are too small to do anything in the way of grippy-ness. The weight, while nice to have if you really had to smash a window or swing this bad boy as a weapon, is a bit much for an everyday carry. Also, the button-on-the-back styling is good if you can hold the entire light in your hand (like a penlight, or smaller. I have a small Streamlight that takes two AAA batteries that I carry with me all the time, and the button-on-the-back is perfect for your thumb). But for a longer/heavier light, turning the light on and then holding it in a balanced position of utility requires re-positioning your hand, unlike a Mag-Lite style that keeps the button under your finger when you're holding it in a useful grip. Knowwhattamean? Call me nuts, but I notice these little design decisions.

All in all, I don't see too much that could actually go wrong with this item (famous last words, eh?) It's fairly straightforward, so we'll see how it holds up.

Price: $65.00, also from LightsAndKnives.com.

—————

Again, Happy New Year, everyone! Be safe, have fun, and maybe a few of us will even get a couple fires under our belt this year (doesn't happen often, but there's always hope; just trying to keep fire in my life, as Ray McCormack was wont to say.)

/RL

It's not as gadget-y as a newfangled door chock design.

Hell, it's not even as DIY-and-practical as some of the widgets on VentEnterSearch's "What's In Your Pockets?" page.

But it's damned cool, and I'm kicking myself for not thinking of it first.

—————

Station Supply Co. has a wide variety of colors and prints from all manners of hose, and I think they've done a pretty snazzy job of it. It doesn't seem like there'd be much in the way of edge protection, but it would certainly make an iPhone less slippery when you're holding it.

I'm still facepalming over this one. This could have been my big kickstarter campaign, you never know!

Damn.

/RL

—————

Just when I thought I'd missed it (I know, I'm a bad fireman, I guess), BURN returns! I'm traveling this weekend, so I'll catch it next week in Georgetown. I haven't read anything about it—specifically to keep myself in the dark—so I'm excited to see what Denis Leary and Tom Putnam have in store for me.

Also, don't miss out on extra footage: available for digital download are 80 extra minutes (2gb of video) that didn't make the final cut. Only $15 bucks, and it's a great way to support BURN and watch some (surely) cool stuff.

Erin Cox, of The Baltimore Sun, covered a "Fire Ops 101" course in late September in Maryland's Anne Arundel County. The purpose was to put council chairs and other "lawmakers" into the very situations that county firefighters experience—all while having their budgets slashed and their manpower reduced. Humping hose up flights of stairs, crawling through pitch darkness, vehicle extrication; no scenario was avoided, and each participant was warned by Division Chief Keith Swindle that "…I'm not going to coddle you" while they did it.

"I knew it was going to be tough, but this is 10 times harder than I thought," [AA County Council Chairman Derek] Fink said. “It made me appreciate the shortage of manpower they have,” [Councilman Peter] Smith said. "When me and Derek were going through that building looking for people, it wasn't enough. You just need more people."

A few lines from the article struck me as rather poignant:

• "…how budget cuts have sapped morale…"
• "…Fire Chief John Robert Ray said that to help balance the budget, the county cut 75 vacant jobs in the Fire Department, enough to eliminate a shift of firefighters. For now, the county has been paying overtime to fill the vacant spots."

Sounds a bit familiar.

Apparently, Anne Arundel isn't the only county with progressive enough administrators to participate. According to the article, "…it follows jurisdictions across the country that launched the program designed by [IAFF]. This year, firefighters have hosted politicians in Omaha, Neb., Memphis, Tenn., and Denver. In May, Howard and Prince George's county executives, along with some other elected officials, completed a "Fire Ops 101" in College Park."

I would love to see this become a reality in Washington, D.C. I know I'm certainly proud of my city—but would our government officials let themselves be bested by those in charge of the surrounding counties?

—————

Full article here (it's a great read, especially what some of the firefighters had to say). All direct quotations Copyright © 2012, The Baltimore Sun.

As you can see by the image below, the Technical Rescue Operations that we (members of Rescue Company 3 and Engine 15) took part in was only a small portion of the military's agenda for Capital Shield.

Please note the most excellent graphic logo at the top of the page—no, not the overly wordy "National Capital Region" one. The sword crossing the Washington Monument is the shoulder sleeve insignia of the Military District of Washington, headquartered at Ft. McNair on the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. A military base for more than 200 years, Ft. McNair is bested in length-of-service by only the military academy at West Point and the U.S. Army War College's Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania. A few months back, we ran a box alarm for a reported fire in one of the (many) huge mansions maintained by the Army for various high-ranking officers (including the Army's Vice-Chief of Staff, the position of which is afforded a permanent residence within Ft. McNair). It's a beautifully-maintained, expansive space that is quite clearly military residences. I would have taken pictures, but you know how those Army fellas can be about cameras…

Either way, the scenario for this year's drill was the following: The eponymous "Capital Hotel" was the target of a bombing and subsequent collapse. This produced a large rubble pile (including debris from the parking structure for the hotel), within which lay several viable victims. Four entry points were available—according to the Army's plan—and there were "spotters" all over the site to direct rescuers who had any questions or requested any clarification regarding the scenario and our limitations within.

Enjoy the pictures and captions below!

/RL

What remains of the Capital Hotel.

There was definitely some creative forklifting/machinery work done here.

Planning is crucial, both on the part of the "rescuers" and the organizers. Each bit of progress required constant vigilance to ensure that the scenario would continue as planned—otherwise, a new approach would need to be formulated.

The fluorescent yellow band indicated a spotter who watched for safety hazards and ensured that the participants followed the rules/limitations of the give scenario.

Lt. Chris Holmes and Cazo (who you may remember from this post, when they were deployed to Haiti) were some of the first DCFD members "on-scene," searching for and marking locations of potential victims while the technical rescue team examined the rubble.

Initial victims were able to be removed after only a bit of work with hand tools and shovels, as they were located toward the outskirts of the pile. Victims deeper within would have to wait until a more intensive plan was devised, ensuring the safety of victims and rescuers alike.

DCFD's entry point was a concrete tube with an approximately two-foot interior diameter. Throughout the tube, several obstacles of varying materials had been placed, forcing rescuers to breach through several levels before reaching victims.

Inter-agency drills afford different departments the ability to check out what gear their neighbors are using. The Army's own had quite the assortment, obsessively organized (as only the military can do).

Other entry points into the rubble pile (and the victims that lie beneath) were under or through concrete, requiring creative use of levers. (Author's note: I got a very "Iwo Jima" vibe from this photo as the men pictured struggled to raise a large slab of concrete, I enjoyed shooting it and trying to grab that moment in time.)

One of the more interesting points of entry was through the floor of a vehicle on its side. Following the breach of the floorboards, victims had been placed several meters down a long, rectangular concrete tunnel seen extending off the left side of the photo.

"Whose turn is it to be the man-in-the-hole?"

At any given time, there were dozens of rescuers working on and around the pile. Simultaneously, multiple organizations were operating pneumatic chisels, electric saws, cutting torches, and countless other tools.

There's nothing like lunch on a rubble pile, right?

When it was determined that the oxyacetylene torch would be necessary for [DCFD's] entry point, rescuers in the hole had a four-gas meter clipped to them and a ventilation fan blowing fresh air into the tube while they were operating.

Author's note: one of the reasons I love this job is because I get to play with (and perhaps, one day, become proficient with) tools and toys that I would never have encountered or even touched otherwise. Before I came on the job, I had never even seen an oxyacetylene torch in operation—before I had finished my probation, I was cutting sloppy "E15"s into an old scrap of I-beam. After lunch, our team had to cut through a panel of Conex box/shipping container that stood between us and a victim. I crawled in that surprisingly-small tube and cut out a good portion of the double-walled steel, reluctantly giving up the torch only when the officers told someone else to take a turn. I have to say, it's a different experience doing something like that in a cramped space, as opposed to having all the room in the world.

8 a.m. to about 5 p.m. proved to be a very long day. But the punishment didn't stop there—after packing up all the equipment we had laid out and used all day, back we went to Southeast. We ran calls for the rest of the night, with concrete dust on our uniforms and smiles on our faces. Tired, but more learned and feeling like we put in a good days' work.

According to Urgent Communications Magazine online, Durham, NC has officially made texting 911 a reality.

Yes, that's right. Texting.

Holy shit.

How this escaped my radar, I'm not sure (Rocco, I'm looking at you). Apparently, this has been in the works for over a year, says Gizmodo. However, Verizon has been running this particular pilot/trial program in North Carolina for the past year, and has decided to continue the "text-to-911" offering for all of their providers within the Durham area.

James Soukup, the director of the Durham Emergency Communications Center (ECC), went on record for Urgent Communications, saying:

"It’s definitely not going to be a burden on any 911 center anywhere, because the public is smart enough not to text you for things you need an emergency [voice call] for."

Seriously? What kind of people live in Durham? I need to move there; and if they're that smart, MENSA headquarters should relocate as well. I don't know, Mr. Soukup; maybe it wasn't advertised well enough, or perhaps there aren't that many system-abusers in Durham. (In the same article, Soukup admitted the possibility "…that Durham’s low number of texts to 911 can be attributed to the fact that many people still are not used to having the option.")

I don't see this ending well for major urban areas. The call takers (not to mention us folks responding to the actual "emergencies") are overloaded enough, and you'd like to add texting to it?

Talk about upping the public's convenience level, and lowering the amount of information received by dispatch.

A point I will concede: yes, it would be a lifesaver if there was any situation in which speaking aloud is either not feasible (mute/deaf individuals), or unsafe (your hostage takers probably don't want to see you on the phone, and I doubt they'd believe you were calling your great-aunt Edith).

The only saving grace, however, could be the prohibitive cost of building this capability into an already-existing response system. John Merklinger, president of the New York State 911 Coordinator's Association, estimates that purchasing and maintaining the current software could cost a single county up to $150,000 per year (via WNYT).