8 slide power point on fire department - media relations

Unit VII Background Information As the Washington Fire Department (WFD) fire and emergency services (FES) administrator, you

continually requested grants to restore funding to the department to increase the level of staffing in order

to attain a more effective level of response and a safer incident scene. The highest priority for the grant is

to comply with national standards promulgated by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1710,

which states that a minimum of four firefighters should be on the first arriving engine (or vehicle capable

of initiating suppression activities). This increase of staffing levels to four per fire suppression apparatus

would improve automatic and/or mutual aid to surrounding fire departments. However, you have not been

successful in obtaining the grant and still respond with two firefighters on the first due engine.

While working on the 1-year timeline, you recognized the need for a special unit to respond to the rising

numbers of hazardous materials (HAZMAT) incidents in Washington and the surrounding communities.

You are working on steps to make sure WFD complies with the Occupational Safety and Health

Administration (OSHA) regulations for HAZMAT response. Personnel have completed the awareness

level of training.

As you were formulating your plan, a train derailment occurred on a hill between the Washington River

and a main road leading to the nursing home. Over the years, the nursing home has flooded several

times when flash floods occurred, and sheets of water ran down the hill through the front doors of the

nursing home. The river is approximately four blocks west of the nursing home.

During the derailment, several rail cars containing sodium hydroxide (NaOH) as a fluid solution were

extensively damaged with caustic soda leaking. The nursing home has approximately 120 residents with

many of them confined to their beds. Many of the local residents in homes near the incident have already

evacuated their homes. Firefighters were notified of the concerns of the chemicals reaching inside the

nursing home based on past experience from the water with flash flooding.

Firefighters have not been trained to initiate any mitigation efforts, and they entered the hot zone without

proper protective ensembles. Firefighters diked and channeled the caustic soda runoff away from the

nursing home toward the river, which caused an environmental disaster, killing different species of fish.

This action saved multiple lives in the nursing home because it could not be evacuated in a timely

manner. A watchdog in the community who has been extremely critical of the fire department and its

members immediately ran to the news media after one of your firefighters notified him of the fish kill and

the lack of training for hazardous material incidents.