IAFC Updates Their Support of
NFPA 1710
By Chief William Goldfeder
Essentially, the current
proposal for 1710 Standard (Career Firefighter Standard) is as follows:
-
minimum engine and truck staffing
of 4 (5 or 6 in jurisdictions w/ tactical & high hazard occupancies).
-
staffing for BLS response at
two EMT-B's and staffing for ALS response at two EMT-P's.
-
Fire departments must be capable
of establishing a RIT/FAST team at all incidents.
-
Fire department's must staff
chiefs aide positions.
-
Response times of 4 minutes
for the first arriving fire unit and/or the arrival of the full alarm assignment
in 8 minutes.
-
Fire departments must be capable
of establishing incident command, water supply, attacks line(s), backup
line(s), search and rescue team(s), ventilation team(s) and RIT/FAST at
all structural fires... these "benchmark" requirements are based upon a
2000 square foot detached single family dwelling. Urban FD's will have
to increase the requirements according to the occupancies & hazards
in their community.
-
minimum requirements for health
and safety, incident management, training, communications and pre-incident
planning.
-
Fire departments must inform
the public about their response capabilities and the consequences of not
meeting this specified deployment criteria.
If this is the first opportunity
you have had to learn about 1710, it seems like quite a change for some.
It is! I have been a long time advocate regarding appropriate staffing
and am glad to see 1710. Of course, most of
the "nay saying" is the
cost of meeting the standard.
 |
There are solutions,
as they say "where there's a will, there's a way"... simply put,
you CANNOT accomplish all the necessary tasks at a fire with 4-5
people so there needs to be a way and this is the way.
Remember... you need the
staffing WHEN YOU ARRIVE, as a part of the first alarm dispatched
assignment, not after you get there (with poor staffing) and determine
you are going to lose-it's too late then. |
If a community cannot afford
this, (and you are told that's the bottom line) then automatic mutual
aid is the solution. One way or the other, ya need to have the right
amount of people to do "the job" and 1710 (and
1720-the Volunteer Standard)
is a tool to help us get that.
Chief
William Goldfeder is a Battalion Chief/Director of Planning and Development
for the Loveland-Symmes Fire Department in
southwestern Ohio.
|
|
