Worcester Firefighters: It’s Safety Before Risk

Friday, June 15, 2012

The Worcester Fire Department has had just one on-the-job fatality in almost 12 years, when the national average is over 100. Fires like the recent multi-building blaze that started on one street and spread to another shine a spotlight on firefighter safety – and serve as a reminder that tragedy can occur at any moment.

“It’s a dangerous job, you know that when you sign up for it,” Deputy Chief Geoffrey Gardell told GoLocalWorcester.

Change of Tactics

That makes safety and a plan of attack on the scene paramount, he said. With the fire on Merrick Street, the department’s typical approach had to be adjusted on the fly. Flames quickly spread from one building to the next and when firefighters arrived there were several active and separate fires.

“Obviously, having three structures in progress upon arrival is going to change our tactics immediately,” Gardell said. “We need to cut it off and we need to stop it from spreading.”

In that instance, he said, the department abandoned its typical mode of attack.

“There are basically two ways you can battle a fire,” Gardell said. “There’s an interior attack and exterior attack. We’re predominantly an interior-type fire department.”

The reason for that, he said, is because many of the city's fires are residential dwellings that can be fought from inside. That was not the case with the Merrick Street fire.

“With a fire of this magnitude, we have to combat the exposures and hold the fire to a minimum of streets,” Gardell said. “So we went at it with an exterior attack first, then we switched over to interior. Most fires need to be put out from an interior attack, from the unburned side to the burned side. If there’s a fire at the rear, you enter from the front and push it out the rear. We couldn’t do that on Merrick Street. We approached the bulk of the fire on the exterior.”

Risk, Reward

And while things may look chaotic to bystanders watching things unfold, it is anything but, according to Gardell.

“When we pull up to a scene of that magnitude, it may look hectic and chaotic,” Gardell said. “It’s really well-orchestrated on the Worcester Fire Department’s part.”

How firefighters judge their approach to a fire also makes a huge difference, the deputy chief said.

“It is all about risk and reward,” Gardell said. “Is the risk worth the reward? If there is a potential life hazard, we’re going to take the risk. If there isn’t, we’re not going to take the risk. You just go on instinct and experience.”

Death in the Department

It was precisely because he took the risk to save the life of someone he thought was inside a burning apartment building that firefighter John Davies was killed in December. The father of three went into an Arlington Street apartment after one of the residents said someone else was still inside. Ironically, Davies was one of the firefighters who responded to the deadly Worcester Cold Storage Warehouse fire in 1999, a blaze that claimed the lives of six firefighters.

Not one has died since, which is reflective of the overall national trend in on-duty firefighter deaths. According to the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) the numbers of firefighter casualties at the scene of a fire have decreased in each of the four years. In 2008 there were 120 fatalities at a fire. One year later, in 2009, that number plummeted to 91. It has been a much slower decline since, but the numbers continue to go down – from 91 in ’09 to 87 in 2010 and 83 last year.

As the numbers indicate, Worcester is not alone in becoming a safer department. Still, it isn’t just that have been no firefighters who died at the scene of a fire in 12 years, the last firefighter killed in action before the Cold Storage Fire perished in about 1963, according to District Chief Kevin Maloney.

“I think that’s a pretty darn good record,” Maloney said, noting that a lot changed after that fateful night in 1999. “There’s just a much greater emphasis on safety and survival since that fire. And the types of fires we attack generally are family residences.”

Worcester is, of course, known as the city of triple-deckers, which are the fire department’s “bread and butter,” according to Gardell.

Training for the Worst

In addition to being well-versed in handling fires at triple-deckers, “We did a ton of training since that fire,” Maloney said. “I think that’s had a lot to do with (WFD) not having a fatality for that long.”

Technological advances have also had a positive impact, although Maloney acknowledged not every firefighter is in agreement. With so much more protection, some believe it actually makes it harder for firefighters to know when it’s getting too hot to be inside a building.

“I don’t subscribe to that theory,” Maloney said. “I think with good training and awareness of fire conditions … the new technology has enhanced our safety. But that is an opinion that you can hear in quite a few (departments). I’ve heard it here as well.”

While the benefits of new technology might be debated, nothing can beat the proper training, Maloney stressed, saying, “That’s the key. The training, the knowing how a fire behaves, knowing when to say when, when to go and when not to go. It’s all a function of the training everybody gets.”

There is one other element as well – luck.

“Luck? Of course,” said Maloney. “I think you can attribute just about anything that doesn’t go wrong to a little luck. But without the training, luck doesn’t matter.”