May/June 2004

Texas Fire World

Laredo International Fire and Law Enforcement Training Center - A Valuable New Training Resource for Texas and International Fire Service

The Laredo Fire Department Fire Service and Emergency Medical Service Program prepares men and women for careers in the Fire Service and Emergency Medical Service. In its first 18 months of operation, it has also become a resource for firefighters from France, Africa, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Nicaragua and Chile. Soon, the staff will begin training embassy personnel in Colombia on firefighting techniques. The curriculum offers students the opportunity to receive a wide choice of certifications, and/or continuing education units, depending on their needs.The program:

• Offers courses for firefighters to maintain and upgrade career skills
• Prepares students for employment in fire, hazmat and EMS
• Introduces fire and EMS as career opportunities for high school graduates.
“We do pretty much everything,” said Captain Fernando Alarcon, training instructor. “Hazardous materials, high angle and confined space rescue, emergency medical services, industrial firefighting and airport rescue and firefighting.”

According to their web site, the City of Laredo has a population of 200,000 and is the number one inland port in the U.S. with 8,000 trailer trucks and 1,500 rail cars passing through the area daily. Almost half of those trailers carry hazardous materials. There are also 2,000 warehouses in Laredo with 600 storing mostly hazardous materials. The Laredo Fire Department has the responsibility for being the first line of defense for homeland security in the surrounding border community and Mexico.

The state-of-the-art training center is a 10,000 square foot building that sits on 77 acres. Two hundred acres have been set aside for future expansion. The building houses classrooms, an auditorium, a gymnasium, dorms for males and females, a lounge, kitchen and laundry facilities.

The props on the fire field are numerous, including a training tower for both live burns and high angle rescue, an airplane prop and a wing prop for ARFF, and a prop for the extinguishment of airplane wheel well fires.
“We don’t want to make it easy for anyone,” Alarcon said. “All (airport) firefighters are very well-trained in order to do what they need to do (to extinguish airplane fires quickly).”
The Laredo International Fire & Law Enforcement Training Center is located at 26911 Pinto Valle Drive, Laredo, Texas 78045, their phone number is 956-417-5884 and the fax number is 956-417-5886.

Other fire departments can send personnel to their classes or contract to bring groups to the training facility for specific classes. Individuals interested in becoming certified for a career in fire fighting may enroll in classes that are also recognized by Laredo Community College for continuing education credits. To learn more about your options for using this state of the art facility and its bilingual training staff, contact Deputy Chief David H. Piton, EMS/Training Division at (956)415-2158 or Joseph Mayers, Internation/Training (HazMat) at (956) 417-5884. For more information on courses offered check their web site at
http://www.cityoflaredo.com/Fire-Fighters/Training_Facility/PriceEnglish.htm or the Spanish language site at http://www.cityoflaredo.com/FireFighter/Training_Facility/PriceSpanish.htm.

Historic Paddleboat Fire Kills Hundreds

In June, 1904, 1,350 children, women and men boarded the General Slocum, an excursion boat on New York City’s East River, for a picnic sponsored by the local Lutheran church.

The General Slocum was one of the river’s most colorful and familiar sights, but it was a deathtrap.

Fresh paint had been applied over tinder-dry wood, the life preservers were rotten and the fire hose was the cheapest the owner could buy.

It is not really known what sparked the fire, but within 30 minutes, over 1,000 of the picnickers were dead - either burned to death or drowned while trying to escape the fast-moving flames.

News Briefs

El Paso Receives Class 1 From ISO

El Paso has had its public protection classification upgraded from Class 2 to Class 1 as a result of a recent PPC survey done by Insurance Services Office, Inc. of Austin.
ISO is a leading supplier of statistical, underwriting and actuarial information for the property/casualty insurance industry.
Most insurers use the PPC classifications for underwriting and calculating premiums for residential, commercial and industrial properties.
“That means your community’s (El Paso) fire suppression services are improving in the face of the demands of a changing environment,” according to a statement from ISO.

Hawaii May Ban Toxic Fire Retardant

Hawaii may become the first state in the nation to ban flame-retardant chemicals under a bill moving toward approval in the Legislature. The chemicals are known to accumulate in the blood of mothers and nursing babies.
The bill would ban products such as clothing, sleepwear, furniture, electronics, plastic and foam that are coated with polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs.
California was the first state to institute a ban last year, but it doesn’t take effect until Jan. 1, 2008. Hawaii’s ban would take effect on Jan. 1, 2006.
Environmentalists began advocating the ban of PBDEs more than two years ago.

Brayton Fire Field has Upgrade
The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents has approved a $21.2 million infrastructure upgrade for the Brayton Fire Training Field, the first major construction project at the fire field since the Sept. 2000 completion of the Emergency Operations Training Center, which is part of NERRTC.
Each year more than 45,000 firefighters and emergency responders from all 50 states and 45 countries come to College Station and Brayton Fire Training Field for the latest training and instruction in fire fighting and rescue operations. The 120-acre site, recognized as the largest live-fueled firefighter training facility in the world, is home to 132 “props” or specific training stations, including 21 fueled live-fire props. None of the construction projects are expected to impact or disrupt training activities at the Brayton Fire Training Field.
The new structural burn building will replicate hotel rooms and offices, conveyer belt rooms, garages, residential areas, open rooms, a laboratory and computer control room.
The new classroom facility will include three large classrooms, an assembly area, and a communication center/scenario observation area.

Smokey the Bear Turns 60 in August

Smokey the Bear will celebrate his 60th birthday on August 9.
Although Smokey himself has changed a bit over time, his message remains the same, “Only you can prevent forest fires.”
A national team of interagency personnel has created a campaign that each state can use for its local celebration. The slogan for the 2004 celebration is, “60 Years of Vigilance, Only You Can Prevent Wildfires.”
The original Smokey was found after a forest fire in the Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico in 1950. Firefighters rescued a small, badly burned bear cub and a local veterinarian nursed it back to health.

The cub was flown to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. where he lived out his life.
For information about national and local celebrations, visit www.smokeybear.com.

NIST Tests Confirm Modern Homes May Burn Faster

Today’s home smoke alarms consistently provide enough time for people to escape most fires. Immediate response to an alarm however, is critical - individuals caught in a flaming fire (as opposed to a smoldering fire) have only an average of three minutes to escape untenable or unsurvivable conditions. Those are the key conclusions of a two-year National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) study, the first comprehensive look at smoke alarms since NIST’s tests 25 years ago.
“The three-minute escape window for flaming fires differs from the 17 minutes NIST recorded in its seminal smoke alarm tests in the 1970s,” said NIST researcher Richard Bukowski. “(The study) confirms (that) fires today seem to burn faster and kill quicker because the contents of modern homes (such as furnishings) can burn faster and more intensely. Even with a three-minute warning, smoke alarms still offer enough time to save your life.
NIST found that ionization smoke detectors activate more quickly than photoelectric alarms for flaming fires; photoelectric alarms often provide faster response time to smoldering fires. To download the full report, visit http://smokealarm.nist.gov.

VCOS Available for Download

The IAFC’s Volunteer and Combination Officers Section has recently released the Blue Ribbon Report, A Call to Action, Preserving and Improving the Volunteer Fire Service is available as a pdf download at www.vcos.org. This document is focused on the issues associated with local, state amd federal needs to set the future for our nation’s volunteer and combination emergency service agencies.
The VCOS Annual Symposium will be held November 11-14, 2004 in Orlando, Florida. For more information, visit www.vcos.com.

Features

Groping Victim Settles Lawsuit

A woman who was molested by an EMT after collapsing at La Guardia Airport in 1998, has settled her lawsuit against the city for $300,000.
The woman claimed she was fondled in the ambulance by 40-year-old Angel Cabrera, a medic who was called to the scene.
She said his partner had been flirting with her, making her afraid to yell out when Cabrera touched her breasts and genitals. Cabrera was convicted of sexual abuse and sentenced to probation.
Her lawsuit claimed that the city was aware of Cabrera’s history of harassing women during emergency runs.

Woman Burned as Fire Ignites in Back of Ambulance

A dying woman was burned on the face as paramedics attempted to restart her heart with a defibrillator. The device sparked a fire that ignited the patient’s clothing.
Brenda Jewett, 47, was pronounced dead at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London, CT. Neither the paramedics nor other ambulance crew members were injured by the flames , which were doused with a fire extinguisher.
When the ambulance arrived at the victim’s house, she was not breathing, her husband said. The state medical examiner was

scheduled to perform an autopsy to determine the exact cause of death.

DHS Approves National Incident Management System

The U.S. Department opf Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has announced approval of the National Incident Management System, the nation’s first standardized management plan that creates a unified chain of command for federal state and local lines of government for incident response.
NIMS strengthens America’s response capabilities by identifying and integrating core elements and best practices for a responders and incident managers. Through a balance between flexibility and standardization, and use of common doctrine, terminology, concepts, principles and processes execution during a real incident will be consistent and seam less. Responders will be able to focus more on response, instead of organizing the response and teamwork and assignments among all authorities will be clearly enhanced. Key elements and features of NIMS include:
•Incident Command System (ICS) - NIMS outlines a standard incident management organization called ICS that establishes five functional areas - command, operations, planning, logistics, andfinance/administration.
• Preparedness - Responder readiness to manage and conduct incident actions is significantly enhanced if professionals have worked together before an incident.
• Communication and Information Management - Standardized communications during an incident are essential and NIMS prescribes interoperalbe communications systems for both incident and information management.
• Joint Information System - NIMS organizational measures further enhance the public communications effort.
• NIMS Integration Center - To ensure that NIMS remains an accurate and effective management tool, the NIMS NIC will be established by the Secretary of Homeland Security to assess proposed changes to NIMS, capture and evaluate lessons learned, and employ best practices.
NIMS is available at www.dhs.gov.

TFS Works to Expand Wildland Fire Fighting Training

Texas Forest Service hopes to integrate a wildland fire fighting certification program into current fire certification programs offered to municipal and volunteer firefighters. As urban housing developments overtake the rural landscapes outside of metropolitan areas, firefighters face new dangers associated with the urban wildland interface. Texas Forest
service recently added Bruce Woods in the newly created position, chief fire training coordinator, to build the capacity of Texas’ local first responders by improving the quality of and accesibility to emergency response training, especially wildfire response.
“With demographics and land use changing in Texas, we are seeing more acres of urban wildland interface that weren’t present before the rapid urban population growth in the 1990s,” Woods said. “Urban wildland interface issues in Texas have created a need for expanded wildland fire training.”
Woods is working with the State Firemen’s and Fire Marshal’s Asociation to include classes leading to a certificate in wildland firefighting.
The Texas Commission on Fire Protection mandates certification for paid firefighters, but not for volunteers. Though some rural continued below...

Texas Fire World
PO Box 9161, 540 Graham Road
College Station, TX 77842/45
Phone: 979-690-7559
Fax: 979-690-7562
E-mail: ind@fireworld.com

Publisher: David White davidw@fireworld.com
Editor: Teresa Riecher