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The Roto-Ray: Beauty or Beast?

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The Roto-RayAhhhh, the Roto-Ray.  For those of us who grew up in or around East Coast fire companies as children, they are something we cherish dearly, a unique spinning tornado of light on the front of a shiny engine or truck.  The department I work for, in a reach toward tradition and including a touch of modern technology, specified LED Roto-Rays on the fronts of our new fleet of engines and our future tractor-drawn aerial (minor refurb of Truck 7′s  trailer with a new prime mover).

When I posted some pictures of our new quints on Facebook the other day, I was surprised to hear that some people aren’t fans of this fancy warning light.  In response, I searched for similar feelings and found that there are, in fact, quite a few who don’t like them, and quite a few who do.  So I guess, Roto-Rays are the Philadelphia Flyers of warning devices: You either love them or you hate them.

A write-up I found on them came from the Fenton Fire Apparatus website, from which I have paraphrased:

Roto-Ray Warning Lights have been used on fire and rescue apparatus for over 65 years.  Roto-Rays are three sealed beam lights rotating @ 200 RPM in a horizontal plane that still commands attention in today’s traffic. The Roto-Ray Model 200 has three red sealed beam lights; the Roto-Ray Model 200W, available where permitted by state law, has one white and two red sealed beam lights.

Both models draw @ 10 amperes at 12.8 volts D.C. current [Since I'm not a technical guy, I don't know if this is for the new LED version or not]. Both models are available in four different mounting applications. Roto-Rays have an all spur gear drive train with all-driven components using ball bearings. The lamp spider is made of aluminum or polished chrome. All housings are made of 16 gauge steel.  All Roto-Rays except the hidden mount are available in an all-chrome version. Roto-Ray Warning lights have been tested by an independent testing laboratory for compliance with applicable California and Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) standards.

I also found the patent information on the Roto-Ray, which was issued in 1930 to Edward Rumsey.  So that’s a little about them.  Anecdotally, I think they work great.  A few weeks ago I was driving down the road in daylight hours and I caught in my rear-view mirror this visible circle of red and white behind me.  It was our Engine 6, pulling out onto the main drag about 3/4 of a mile behind me.  Between the reflective chevron striping of the front bumper and the Roto-Ray, it was pretty visible.  Scientifically, I have no proof (sounds like an Executive Fire Officer research paper to me).

I have found a few threads where these devices have been debated like at NassauFDRant and of course, at the ol’ Firehouse Forums.  There are also dozens of pictures and videos of them online, like this beautiful Hyattsville rig.

So what say you?  What’s the controversy, other than cost (which seems like some of the issue)?  Or tell us your special Roto-Ray story.  In the meanwhile, I’ll do some deep Internet searching to see if I can find more history (like where the first one was used) and I’ll post it if I find it.  Stay safe and thanks for reading.

[Editor's Note: I have also added a picture of the front of one of our rigs so you can see it; I'll find the night shot at some point]

Two HHIFR engines with Roto-Rays and chevrons.

Posted by truck6alpha on July 14, 2010 • Filed under: Fire Rescue Topics, Firefighter Safety & Health, Vehicle Operations & Apparatus, safety, technology • Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

Science Is Your Friend

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While taking Honora to school a few days ago, Bob Edwards was speaking on NPR Radio with Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, the authors of the book, “Unscientific America”.  While the book apparently discusses “scientific illiteracy”, some of the commentary seemed applicable to what we currently endure in the fire service; clinging to tradition for tradition’s sake and the global ignorance of scientific findings that can improve our efficiency and safety.

The authors, in discussing their premise, suggested that the general populace isn’t stupid when it comes to science, they’re just disengaged.  The idea that they put forth is essentially that science needs to discover a way to get people to re-engage on the issues, which is not as easy as it might seem.  While the scientific community as a whole might not necessarily agree upon the ways to communicate their issues, for scientists and supporters of science to simply dismiss the “emotional side” (my quote) of others when it comes to scientific issues is turning their back on the problem.

In the early to middle parts of the last century, scientists were looked at as heroes.  Science brought us protection against disease; it brought us innovative fabrics and materials.  Science ushered in a nuclear age and took us to the Moon.  Science, however became pedestrian or became background noise.  Although Mooney and Kirshenbaum didn’t suggest it, I suggest that maybe we all began to take these accomplishments for granted.  Consider that every other time I upgrade my computer it becomes a third smaller and four times faster (and I seem to have to upgrade these bad boys about every two or three years).  While the laptop I am typing this on has 500 GB of storage, my first work computer back in 1988 had MAYBE a 120 megabyte hard drive.  Since I wasn’t so computer literate back then, I couldn’t even begin to tell you how much RAM it had.

While these technological miracles happen almost daily, maybe they’ve become a little too commonplace.  And of course, the unintentional wall established between science and the rest of us (maybe I’m a bad example) doesn’t afford any converts.  In fact, the authors discussed that Carl Sagan suffered considerable stigma from the scientific community because of his efforts to put science in a context others could understand.  The result was that he was considered to have “populist” (their quote) views and was somehow, not worthy of inclusion into the supporters of science.

What has happened is that science just isn’t as popular a subject.  Mooney stated that if you read the newspaper, “Science doesn’t beat the horoscope or the sports pages” among most people.  Along with the theory that your political view influences your perspective on science (I’d agree with that), especially in this day of deeply divided emotions about our nation and the people who run it, I’d bet that the thought of discussing some of these scientific endeavors (stem cell research, evolution, etc.) with some of your friends or family probably makes you uncomfortable, regardless of where you stand.  So it’s no question that science in many circles, isn’t exactly a hot topic of conversation.  In fact, unless you are surrounded by a bunch of like-thinkers, you might well avoid scientific discussion altogether.

So just as goes science as a discussion for us all, so goes the fire service for those of us within it.  Go to any firehouse and you’ll see some strong feelings on certain fire service topics.  For any of us to discuss deeply held beliefs about our fire service brings up some pretty raw emotion.  Depending where you sit on many of these issues, sometimes it is better to sit it out and watch the fighting than it is to engage.  Why is that?  Well, I know personally, while I don’t shy away from conflict, I am not interested in engaging in an all-out battle with anyone who just can’t see any side of the issues except the one they are on.  If I choose to remain open-minded and civil, so must you.  That doesn’t seem to prevent people from acting like assholes though (yeah, I said it).

Blogging and posting is a little unique.  The anonymity of being online seems to permit some of the less enlightened individuals to pipe up when they should probably just stick a sock in it and slink back to their corner.  Especially when I’m being lectured by some moron who has two or three years under his (or her) belt and all of a sudden, they are the subject matter expert du jour.  Since the privacy of the internet protects cowards and psychos from getting popped in the mouth if they cross the line, I’d just as soon focus on positive discussion, but it doesn’t seem to stop some of them.

The emergency service industry, as does the scientific community, must remain objective while considering the deeply held beliefs and traditions of those who came before us.  While it seems that logic should overturn any voodoo, the scientific community can’t be dismissive of the emotion attached to these beliefs, because they can be equally as powerful, and no scientist has really been able to explain that.

I’ve said before that I love the traditions of the fire service.  I come from four generations of firefighters and I am proud of that heritage.  But just as my grandfather and my father were renegades and agitating for change and improvement, so do I.  I’m happy to keep a roto-ray on the front of my engine, but I’m not so keen on rushing so quickly to a fire alarm that I flip a rig.  I guess that’s a tradition that seemed to occur a lot in the past that I’d just as soon leave behind.  And yes, there are some who still think that this is acceptable behavior, as do those who think risk/benefit analysis is for sissies.

If we really want change, we have to understand that it scares some people.  Being dismissive of their fears or their preconceived beliefs doesn’t bring them to us in harmony, it creates division.  Understanding how and why things do the things they do is just as important as understanding who we are and where we came from and how we got here.  Since most of you reading this already get “IT”, I’m probably preaching to the choir, but perhaps we can do a better job of reaching out to the dinosaurs and conveying our respect for the way things were done, as well as educating them on safe and effective practices.

Understand that although scientific exploration may bear out an idea and that idea is as right as rain, that same idea will remain locked up in your head somewhere if you’re unable or unwilling to frame the idea into something everyone can understand and eventually, embrace.  If I had the universal answer to all of our problems, I wouldn’t be sitting here asking you open-ended questions.  But it seems that the questions keep getting asked and we aren’t hitting on the answers.

As a brotherhood, we need to band together and discover what others have found before us.  That together we can work toward improving public safety while striving for our own safety as well.  That tradition is important, but it doesn’t supplant common sense.  And that science, in reaching out to find answers to our questions, has achieved a method of achieving logical approaches to many problems, but we have to sometimes choke back emotion and realize that improvement sometimes means walking away from the treasured, but flawed, reasoning of our past.

Posted by truck6alpha on October 1, 2009 • Filed under: Firefighter Nation, change, command, customer service, education, fire service, firefighting, leadership, motivation, officership, planning, politics, professionalism, rebellion, revolution, technology • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I Had A Vision

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IMG_0631I woke up this morning with an idea for emergency services that is already a reality.  It’s funny about technology in our business; innovation driven by the private sector and the military is implemented and has probably run through four or five revisions, then we look at it and say, “Wow, this is amazing technology!” while the others have likely moved on.

I was thinking about the use of RFID, or “radio frequency identification” for you non-geeks out there.  Now while we have discussed the use of RFID for personnel accountability (which you could embed in your credential we have been beating on about over the last month and I have decided to let rest for a bit), where as you pass through a checkpoint at an incident, the RFID chip would log you in, plus pertinent data, and make it much easier to manage the locations of your valuable assets (that would be your people).

But another application that private industry and the military have used RFID for is for logistics management.  For a while I have gone on in our department about the use of bar coding to produce a reliable determination of asset location (if you can’t scan the code, the item is obviously not there).  But in the case of RFID, what I was thinking is that you could have a portal- like at the bay doors- that would scan your vehicle, with all of the RFID-chipped tools and assorted equipment, and tell you what was there and what wasn’t.  While you were at it, you could actually tell WHICH item it was; for example, the generator on your engine is Acme Fire Department Generator #3.  Well, Generator #3 is due for maintenance.  Or Generator #3 was swapped out at your last preventative maintenance cycle and you actually have Generator #21.  And your Maintenance/Logistics folks just happen to be looking for Generator #21 because it has to have a whatsit retrofitted.  You see where I’m going with this?  You could actually know if Engine 1 went out the door with everything on it or not.

If your department is anything like my department, and your firefighters anything like my firefighters, you are asking, “isn’t this going to be expensive to replace when we break the chip?”  You all know that if you put a firefighter in an empty locked room with two ball bearings he will break one and lose the other.  Well, if this stuff is ruggedized enough for the military, it’s likely that it will last at least a week in a fire station.

The sad part is, like I said, this is stuff that has been out there for a while.  But do YOU know about it?  Can you advocate for change and improvement if you don’t know what kind of change and improvement we are capable of?  What other ideas do you see being used in everyday life that have an application to our jobs?

Posted by truck6alpha on July 8, 2009 • Filed under: US&R, USAR, change, credentialing, fire service, firefighting, leadership, planning, revolution, technology • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Case for Credentialing – Opportunists and Profiteers

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SC-TF1 in Chalmette, LA during Katrina ops.

SC-TF1 in Chalmette, LA during Katrina ops.

And then, there are the profiteers.  My intent with Firehouse Zen is not to use it as a place to vent, but as a place to enlighten.  Venting may be entertaining for some, but for the most part, productive it isn’t.

So let’s talk about why opportunists would be against credentialing, which should probably be obvious.  The reason is because for most of them, it would require them to validate their claims of expertise, and thus exposed as not having the skills or knowledge, would blunt their mercenary motives for financial reward. 

These are not “buffs” or “whackers”.  I have heard some of my colleagues use the term “buff” when referring to these groups, but I feel that this gives the real fire buff community a bad name, since there are so many out there who genuinely have a deep interest in the fire service but are unable for whatever reason to gain membership, (or just don’t care to be IN the fire service) and many really do contribute in their own way either by helping operationally, or contributing to the body of knowledge about the history of the fire service.  And although I wonder if those who choose to call themselves “whackers” really get that we aren’t laughing with them, we are laughing at them, the “whacker” mindset might be annoying and mostly about self-esteem issues; they act on more of an emotional reward for their ego, and still don’t come close to the opportunists I am referring to.

Opportunists are those who profit financially from being associated with response to a disaster.  How does this work?  Those who attempt to profit by defrauding the response community do so either by direct effect or by diverting attention from legitimate organizations. 

Profiteering also comes in the form of using the event to establish credibility, despite the individuals questionable contribution toward the outcome (and again, detracting from the actual attempts to mitigate the event), which also often comes through self-deployment to an event.  In doing so, these groups divert attention from the real responders.  While they were taking short-cuts, the ones who did all the hard work of meeting requirements and responsibilities given to them by their legal authority were not able to get the legitimate message out.  Likewise, these individuals and groups intentionally or unintentionally siphon off donations and community support from groups that legitimately could use that support.

In one way or another, these opportunists find ways to profit from their involvement in the disaster, be it reinforcing their claims for injury or from “credibility”, despite their lack of official involvement.  It should really go without saying that credentialing will help keep these people away; if forced to produce a recognized credential, most of these people would have been stopped at the door.  In the case of others, it would allow us to at least force them to affiliate themselves with a legally authorized responder, hopefully requiring them to undergo some background check and examination of their reason for obtaining credentials (“Why do you want to be a disaster responder?”). But by requiring the credential it also causes them to be placed in a group of some sort for accountability and would keep them from wandering off to do their own thing.

I wrote an article in 2002 for withthecommand.com discussing even back then, accountability in regard to disaster resource management.  Accountability doesn’t stop at causing you to know where people are, as you know, it keeps people from freelancing and doing things outside of the operational plan, as well as eliminating the unauthorized from accessing the scene.  Control and command of an incident requires that you isolate and deny entry to anybody that doesn’t have the authority to be in that hot zone.  These types of people clearly have no business being where they are and the negative things they bring to this type of incident don’t even begin to scratch the surface against requiring credentials, in fact, they reinforce the argument. 

In the next installment, we’ll talk about the final area of concern with credentialing, which really isn’t a valid argument against credentialing, but the concern of who determines who gets credentials and how they go about measuring the KSAs of people who genuinely desire to help.  After that, we’ll talk about the pros and cons and discuss other initiatives that also benefit from credentialing.

Posted by truck6alpha on June 7, 2009 • Filed under: DHS, FEMA, NIMS, SAR, US&R, USAR, Uncategorized, change, command, credentialing, fire service, planning, politics, technology • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Past Will Continue To Haunt Us

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I’m supposed to be working on my final Executive Fire Officer paper but in doing some literature review, I came across a voice from the past.  I happened upon a copy of “The Fire Chief’s Handbook” from 1978.  Now to someone like me, 1978 doesn’t sound like too long ago.  But putting it into perspective, there were no CD or DVD players then.  As a matter of fact, the Walkman hadn’t even been out yet. 

1978 was 31 years ago. That’s a long time for a lot of things, my friends, much less for a book. But here I am, three decades later, reading this paragraph:

It is not difficult to convince a community that attention should be given to certain technical aspects of fire extinguishment.  It is much more difficult, however, to convince a municipality that increased knowledge and skill in management have now become necessary to insure the most efficient use of resources invested in protecting life and property against fire.

The discussion goes on to say that “until recently, fire protection in most of our communities had been a relatively simple and catch-as-catch can affair”.  Wow- so thirty years ago, you’re saying there was actually some discussion about increasing requirements and demands?  Sounds like a familiar argument.

So I guess when I hear someone balking at the needs for higher education and a new approach because our industry is evolving into a more complex environment, I guess we’re still talking about things we were talking about, well, when disco was popular.

I think I’ll make this short and sweet because I’ve got a lot to do, but isn’t it odd that what was considered the seminal book on fire service management was pointing out then what we still haven’t accepted now?  I’ve said several times before, that the fire service will go into the 21st Century, like it or not, kicking and screaming even, but as our world evolves around us and things change, if we continue to resist change, we ourselves will become an anachronism. As long as organizations and leaders think that the fire service will go on without turmoil by just sticking your head in the sand and hoping it will all go away, it won’t.  When you come up, the world will be telling you that if you don’t evolve, you may not survive.

Posted by truck6alpha on May 25, 2009 • Filed under: change, customer service, fire service, leadership, motivation, planning, professionalism, rebellion, revolution, technology • Tagged: , , , , ,

To The Easily Offended

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sctf1-tx-060aIn another post, I mentioned a great homily by Father Chris where he spoke about getting the message out (you know, THE Message).  I specifically discussed one of his points about how, when someone in today’s society doesn’t agree with you, the expectation is that they have a “right” to be offended.  How if you have decided you don’t want Christianity in your life, you have a right to be offended by the manger scene on the corner, or if someone says that they believe that ___ is a sin, people have a right to be offended that you are talking about religion.

I guess where I am going with this blog is that there are a lot of people who should pretty much lighten up about some things, but it seems to me there’s a few people who should also lighten up and get with the program about things like firefighter safety, or more accurately, accountability, use of IMS, and not sending people in to fight fires in “lost causes”.

It seems that whenever one of these subjects comes up, there are always one or two out there who say, “Hey, we’ve been doing it this way for years, and I’ve been fighting fires since you were in diapers, blah, blah, blah, blah.” (I wrote that because that’s about where I stopped listening).  I remember one particularly spirited discussion on NIMS and what a crock of crap it was and that members of the XYZ (read: big city) Fire Department, by God, have been doing it this way without that NIMS stuff and maybe you all shouldn’t be a bunch of sissies (that’s not the word he used), blah, blah, blah.

So I guess what you’re saying then, is that despite any meaningful adaptations there are from the way we did stuff to the way the rest of us are doing stuff (in the 21st century) all of it is pretty much useless and we should go back to fighting fires with buckets and grappling hooks.  That would be fine, except that building construction has changed significantly and you aren’t going to pull much thatch off the roofs in my neighborhood.  Or maybe using single 2 1/2-inch supply lines and booster lines is really okay, except that in my city, we have large properties with huge fire loads that give off mega-amounts of BTUs that you won’t overcome with that red garden hose.  And being grossly out of shape is okay, except that now we carry more equipment than we did before, including the fact that we are going to have to go up and down stairs wearing SCBA and the heat being produced by today’s burning couch and other contents far exceeds the heat output of fires in the 50′s and 60′s.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s time some of you dug some of the wax out of your ears and listened to the voices of today’s fire service, and if you can’t fathom why change can be good, consider maybe it’s you that needs to change (a change in profession, that is).  Learn more about where we are going by studying the traditions of our past, but realize that tradition is nice when it comes to parades and retirements, but it has absolutely no place in the field of modern combat we call the fireground.

Posted by truck6alpha on April 4, 2009 • Filed under: "accident prevention", change, education, fire service, firefighting, leadership, motivation, officership, professionalism, revolution, safety, seatbelts, technology • Tagged: , , , , , , ,

The Difference Between Fact and Fiction

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Hilton Head Island Truck 6 at Tabby Walk FireFirehouse.com has an article on the NIST study being conducted in Maryland and Virginia regarding fire company staffing and I am excited to see what the eventual findings are.  Why am I “excited”?  It seems like a pretty interesting feeling to have about a study that deals with something we already know to be true.  I mean, isn’t having four people on an engine always better than three?  Isn’t having five better than four?  Doesn’t this study seem to be a waste of time and money?

Well, I’m going to throw something out there that might shock you.  We really don’t know, do we?  We know from “experience” that it seems like it is better, but do we have statistical analysis proving our hypothesis to be true?

In the fire service, did you ever think you’d hear the term “hypothesis” uttered?  Did you think that once you left seventh-grade biology, that you were done with that term and the implications of proving something scientifically?

One of the biggest problems the fire service has is in the field of scientific credibility.  The EMS community has realized something that the medical community has shown to be beneficial for a long time; that proving your assumptions to be true via testing and analysis of a theory only ADDS credibility to your findings.  And you know what?  If you find those assumptions to be false, those findings should be published as well.

We in the fire service rely heavily on anecdotal evidence.  If we have experienced something and it works, than it must be true.  Unfortunately, that is not a correct assumption.  Just because something works twice or three times doesn’t mean that it will on the fourth attempt.  It MIGHT, but then, it MIGHT NOT.  The way we need to define these assumptions is through research and analysis.

One of the values of the National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Officer Program has been the development of its library of Applied Research Projects.  In doing four of these over the course of the program, each student learns about the importance of research and proving a theory rather than leaning on assumptions.  While these are being done, the NFA is also compiling a vast array of information that is available to every firefighter in the world.

Whatever the outcome, I hope we are able to get information that will definitively help firefighters work more safely and efficiently, but while giving us the tools (information) by which we can approach city managers and elected officials with facts and not emotion.  Accurate data only adds to our ammunition when we present our case, and armed with the right information, we can make a more positive impact in our profession.

Posted by truck6alpha on February 7, 2009 • Filed under: National Fire Academy, change, fire service, firefighting, politics, safety, technology

Things Are Not Always As They Seem

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Only 24 days of shopping left until Christmas. However, for something a little deeper, how about a discussion on keeping your head in the game. For my battalion’s quick training training today, I sent them a discussion on “sudden event” situations. Case in point: On Firefighterclosecalls.com, there was an article on a PA propane explosion that gave some interesting observations about the situation that unfolded after this sudden event. My question to my team was, “Are you prepared for a sudden ‘game-changing’ event during your operations?”

As responders, we go into so many calls with our own expectations as to how things are going to work. I am just as guilty of it as anyone else- it is human nature. We have to, however, shake loose some of our preconceived beliefs as to what we think is occurring vs. what is actually occurring. How do we do this? By getting facts through a proper size-up and maintaining good situational awareness. But even then, in the real world, the facts as we understand them may not be what is actually occurring.

Using a very real case in point from the other morning: While overhauling a fire the other shift, a number of us saw what looked to be an increasing smoke condition after we thought the fire was extinguished. Now there’s nothing wrong with that- the point in doing a complete overhaul is to uncover stuff like that (so we don’t have to come back later). If we had ignored the condition, or lied to ourselves about the situation and convinced ourselves that it was nothing, those decisions would have been wrong. But everything about the evidence led us to believe we had hidden fire someplace. We developed a plan to root it out, we had lines in place, but no matter what area we pulled, we found that the smoke continued.

Finally, we decided to increase the amount of ventilation in order to find out if we were dealing with pockets of smoke instead of a fire. This proved to be the case and the smoke ended. But it is a good example of seeing something you think is one thing and finding it to be something completely different.

It is almost contrary to human nature to see events unfold in a certain way 99 times, and not expect it to occur the same way for the next time. As a veteran firefighter, however, I know it will be on the 100th time that things go differently and Murphy will pay us a litle visit.

Like every other aspect of our job, we need to prepare ourselves mentally for how to overcome that complacency and act appropriately on the new evidence. This is appropriate not only for emergency response, but in our daily operations. Don’t assume for a minute that because you have seen something progress a certain way virtually every time that you have all of the facts.

Whenver you are working on solving a problem, use a good basic plan of action, know the strengths of the people who are working with you and challenge them to use those strengths, and most of all, don’t be afraid to roll with a revised plan. After all, situations change and if you fail to adjust, you are likely going to end up as part of the problem.

Posted by truck6alpha on December 2, 2008 • Filed under: "accident prevention", change, firefighting, leadership, officership, technology

Opening Salvo

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For the reader’s sake, because these first thoughts on this blog are all going to come across as hit-or-miss (because they are in no particular order), I am copying over some of my blog entries from other areas where I contribute, because they seem to be geting lost in the static by challenging issues like “What Lights Look Better On My POV”.

My intent is that this blog will be more about the essence and issues of leading and motivating and creating change and improvement. I don’t have problems with the “popular” issues; they are obviously popular for a reason. I just have different questions and a different vision.

I also wanted to do something different from the “hard” solutions and tactics and the kind of stuff that seems to be what a lot of others are writing about. And I definitely don’t want this to be about problems; more like about solutions and ways to encourage thinking and solving for X.

So in a nutshell, I wanted to do something different (I think I made the point that it’s different).

So for the next few says, expect to see some old stuff you may have seen before, or new stuff I’m hitting as I see some of the old stuff.

And as always, feel free to jump in at any time.

Posted by truck6alpha on November 26, 2008 • Filed under: firefighting, leadership, officership, technology

What Changes Are In Store Today?

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Do you wonder what technological advances will come down the line in the next five, ten, or fifteen years that will change the way we do business? I never thought I’d see computers being essential for my job when I started years ago, nor did we ever imagine some of the other things (like search-cams, thermal imagers, and that kind of stuff) that are part of our everyday existence. Here’s a link to an article on an item I am hearing more and more about each day: a firefighting “grenade”. Who knows where something like this could take us? Fast response units in cars or motorcycles that could get there first and make a knock-down before the bigger units come in and mop up? The ultimate elimination or re-engineering of the fire engine as we know it now? What problem, if we could solve it today, would make our job much easier?

I was sent a National Institute of Justice report on US&R that imagined things like a “robo-cop”-like outer garment we could put on to enable us to lift heavy objects, which I thought was pretty far out there, but some of the other innovations we thought were pipe dreams that are now being used like a “life detector”; a device that will pick up the frequency produced by a human heartbeat and amplify it so we can look into rubble piles and see if we can find someone alive in there.

What problems in our department can we solve if we work together to find a solution? Sometimes it’s a matter of looking past the conventional solutions and having some vision that could make all of our jobs easier or even better yet, safer. Buckle up and pay attention to the details- they could save your life.

Posted by truck6alpha on November 25, 2008 • Filed under: USAR, firefighting, safety, technology

Cars That Go Boom and Other Stuff

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Here’s a twist on a relatively old technology being used for new purposes; cars that go “boom”. If you’ve ever been annoyed by extremely loud bass in the car four blocks away from you and wondered what that was all about, now you too can have it in your emergency vehicle and the concept is actually being put to good use. The point I want to make about it here, however is that sometimes drivers have a tendency to over-rely on their emergency warning devices, and in particular, sirens. A siren is only effective if the person it is intended to alert can hear it. With so many “tight” cars and loud sound systems, as well as air conditioning and road noise, you have less and less of an opportunity to get that driver’s attention. Add in the elderly or drivers who are distracted (read: cell phone), and you have virtually no chance of pointing out that you need to get through. As emergency vehicle drivers, we have the responsibility of insuring that we drive with due regard; don’t assume that the drivers know or even care that you are responding (in some cases, they don’t). Avoid causing panic stops, don’t overdrive your siren, and always try to look the other driver in the eyes when you approach an intersection.

Many of these drivers can’t drive well on a good day; don’t believe for a second that they’ll all do what they are supposed to on a bad one. Buckle up, drive defensively, and let’s all go home in the morning.

Posted by truck6alpha on November 25, 2008 • Filed under: firefighting, safety, siren, technology, warning