Texas Fire World
Jan.-Feb. 2005 Issue

While providing mutual aid in a commercial restaurant/lounge structure fire in Missouri, a 40-year-old career firefighter was killed. The victim was searching for the seat of the fire along with two volunteer firefighters from another department.

One of the volunteer firefighters lost the seal on his self contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) mask, and immediately abandoned the nozzle position

retreating through the closest door followed by his backup firefighting partner. The two fire fighters were unaware that the victim was still inside due to thick smoke with zero visibility.

An imminent roof collapse caused the Incident Commander (IC) to order an emergency evacuation using an air horn signal. Personnel accounting revealed that the victim was still inside the building when the roof partially collapsed.

Search attempts led to the discovery of the victim face down with his mask and thermal camera tangled in a chair. The face mask was dislodged and not over his mouth. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has established some guidelines in order to minimize the risk of similar occurrences. Fire Departments should:

Conduct pre-incident planning and inspections to facilitate development of a safe fire ground strategy.

Review, revise where appropriate, implement and enforce written Standard Operating Guidelines (SOGs) that specifically address: Incident Command (IC) duties, emergency evacuation procedures, personnel accountability, rapid intervention teams (RIT) and mutual operations on the fire ground.

Train SOGs about the incident command system, and lost fire fighter procedures with mutual aid departments to establish interagency knowledge of equipment, procedures and capabilities

Ensure the IC conducts a risk-versus-gain analysis prior to committing fire fighters to the interior and continually assesses risk versus gain throughout the operations.

Ensure that all firefighters are equipped with radios capable of communicating with the IC. For more information on the case (#F2004/10) call toll free 1-800-35-NIOSH or visit the website: www.cdc.gov/niosh/firehome.html.