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Fire/EMS/HazMat, oh my!
Yeah I watch it every Wed.
Not bad, but.......
I know guys who have: gambling probs, drinking probs, marrige probs, etc
I dont know anybody who see's or talks to dead people. and if they do they are not telling anybody.
Some of the fire and rescue scene's are OK , much better than Backdraft
I know alot of guys who don't like the show. They say it puts us in a bad light. I tell them, 'Truth hurts, don't it?'
[QUOTE=rossthefireman]Obviously I am a firefighter.
If you have any questions about: Fire, Emergency Medicine, Hazardous Materials or any thing you think of let me know.[/QUOTE]
how long have you worked as a firefighter? what size community? what sort of contact have you already had with each of these fields of firefighting (fire, emergency medicine, hazardous materials)? what sort of education/training have you had to become a firefighter?
I have been a firefighter for 8 years total. 3 1/2 as a volunteer and 4 years as a full time paid professional.
The communities I work in cover roughly 100,000 people. There are 6 small cities and towns in the district I work in.
Before I was a full time firefighter I worked as a volunteer while going to school. I went to paramedic school and firefighting school.
Let me back up. I work for a grocery store as a checker for years while trying to figure out what I was going to do. I went to a JC with full intentions of transfering to Cal Berkley to become an archeaologist. That never happened.
I decide to check out the firefighting class because a) my father is a firefighter and he seemed to like his job, b) I didnt have anything to lose.
I liked the first class and took the rest of the cirriculum.But to be a firefighter these days you have to be a paramedic. So I got a job as a volunteer firefighter while I was going to school. I wanted to get the experience, looks good on resumes.
After i finished medic school I went to the fire academy and completed that.
I then quit the grocery business and went to work as a paramedic on an ambulance in Contra Costa County, CA.
All the while I was taking tests for fire dept's up and down the west coast. I just so happened that the fire dept that offered me my first job happened to be in the town I went to high school in. Ahh how life comes full circle.
I also became a state certified Hazardous Materials Technician, which involves how to test chemicals and mitigate releases.
All in all I took 6 fire classes plus a full 6 month fire academy. Paramedic school took 2 1/2 years.
But my education never stops. unknown to most people, most firefighters take some sort of classes throughout their careers. Right now I am trying to finish my fire officer certification.
Paramedic school involves emergency medicine. I can start IV's, give certain drugs, intubate patients, and other sorts of skills.
I also teach HazMat to rookie firefighters in the academy, and firefighter rescue to my dept.
The contact Ive had is ongoing and never stops. I have been to HazMat spills of drug making chemicals,pesticides etc.
As a medic I have seen some of the craziest shit you could not even think of.
I have also been burned at fires.
I have had many experiences that will stick with me for the rest of my life. I have seen 3 houses burning at the same time. I have seen burnt bodies stuck in a car after a bad vehicle accident and I had to help the coroner pull them out. I have seen dead children and live births. Ive been punched, kicked, spit at and called every name in the book.
I wouldn't have it any other way.
[QUOTE=rossthefireman]Obviously I am a firefighter.
If you have any questions about: Fire, Emergency Medicine, Hazardous Materials or any thing you think of let me know.[/QUOTE]
I can't believe my luck: I have a firefighter character who commits arson (in the course of a bank robbery caper). The novel deals with themes of violation of trust (public and private), the thin veneer of civilization, etc.
I do NOT want to make it a manual for arsonists or bank robbers, but I'm going for believable. I figured a firefighter setting fire to a house would avoid obviously traced accellerants like gasoline. So, I'd heard that dryer sheets were a popular tool, daisy-chained onto curtains, sometimes with the windows painted to keep the fire from being visible prior to the windows blowing out.
Being a curious guy, I started fiddling with the things (in my driveway, on the grill of my Weber, not on a house!) and they didn't impress me as being flammable either new or used. And the new ones did not want to come out of the box in a chain like Kleenex sometimes seem to, even with the box fully open to the edges. Am I missing someting? Do they pin them together or something (and doesn't THAT leave evidence?). The characters goal is to set fire to an unoccupied house (it's a model house for a crooked developer) as a distraction, and they'd just as soon have some official doubt about whether the fire was set, at least initially.
If you feel like I'm entering territory that you're not comfortable with posting on an internet forum, I dig completely. As I say, I'm going for plausible, not a handbook for criminals.
Dryer sheets dont work that well.
Painting the windows really dosent do anything because the smoke is what peole always see or smell first. But to seal up a house prior to starting a fire is usually not plausable.
The best fires that I have seen that are untraceable are the ones that have burned the hottest ie: total destruction.
Also remember arson in court is really hard to prove. Many arsonists who have been caught never do a day in jail because its so hard to prove without eye witnesses.
At a fire when we think its 'suspicious' we look for things out of the ordinary. If we suspect accelerants we call in an arson dog to sniff them out.
If the house is unoccupied in the novel, try to have the firefighter set up some sort of faulty wiring.
Light bulbs half filled with gasoline is another option.
Also lit cigarettes in wastebaskets next to couches do the trick. But you didnt hear that from me ;].
Any questions you have just hit me up and I'll answer them.
I know how fast the curtains went up in my own house fire a few years back, a fire I put out with an extinguisher, started by a candle. I just figured a firefighter wouldn't commit OBVIOUS arson, and in the bigger picture of the caper, they are disguised and in a stolen car ready to rob the banks at the point they set the fire. They're exploiting the weakness of a small town DPS system that uses the same personel for fire and police work, so while DPS is putting on their turnouts and hooking up to a hydrant, they are waltzing into a bank vault. So they want the fire seen, but they also have a vested interest in it keeping the DPS busy for a half hour or so.
They just don't have the advantage of having Presidential candidates in town...
Okay I get it now.
I have taken some classes with guys who work in a DPS system and that is a question that always comes up. The thing is their dirty little secert is something like you are writing could really happen in palces with DPS systems.
Other FF's I have talked to dont think dryer sheets are the best way to go.
I will hit you again later when I have more time to explain arson type things.
What type of buildings do you want them to set ablaze?
If you dont want it to be obvious arson then you might run into some problems.
Fires just dont start by themselves and like I said anything out of the ordinary raises arson suspicion ie; a lit candle in the summer, a cigarette in a waste basket whae no one smokes.
An idea is to light up abandoned buildings but ones with heavy fire load. Like abandoned storage warehouses that still have a lot of things left in them. Or old manufacturing plants. Those are things that can look like arson but know one will ever know who did it because there would be so many possiblities and supect ie; homless people, former owners for insurance reasons etc....
But its your story, feed me some ideas and Ill let you know if its plausable.
Hi Ross!
In the last place I worked at, it contained a variety of dangerous chemicals and solutions. The one time fire broke out, and when the fire department arrived, they stood across the road, helped us to get the hell away and then quarantined the area. They did not attempt to put out the blaze due to these chemicals. The internal EMS teams eventually put the blaze out, as they were trained to do. The fire department stayed to ensure that everything was out, and only came in once the area was clear.
So some of my questions are:
How much training does an average fighter get in respect to dangerous chemicals/solutions?
Are there special groups of trained fighters for these types of fires?
What happens when the fire department isn’t informed of dangerous chemicals and they discover them?
Also:
When I was younger, my parents put these reflective red butterfly stickers on my bedroom window to indicate to the fire department that at child was in the room. Is there something like this in the cities you’ve worked in, and has this worked to help save lives?
How many of the house fires you’ve been to could have been prevented if they had properly working/installed smoke detectors?
[QUOTE=rossthefireman]What type of buildings do you want them to set ablaze?
If you dont want it to be obvious arson then you might run into some problems.
Fires just dont start by themselves and like I said anything out of the ordinary raises arson suspicion ie; a lit candle in the summer, a cigarette in a waste basket whae no one smokes.
An idea is to light up abandoned buildings but ones with heavy fire load. Like abandoned storage warehouses that still have a lot of things left in them. Or old manufacturing plants. Those are things that can look like arson but know one will ever know who did it because there would be so many possiblities and supect ie; homless people, former owners for insurance reasons etc....
But its your story, feed me some ideas and Ill let you know if its plausable.[/QUOTE]
Mmmkay...
My three central characters include a firefighter. That's why I didn't want them to commit an obviously amateur arson job, because who would know better than a firefighter how to commit good arson?
There is a revenge element to their target. First of, they are trying to be as benign as possible because they are way too bourgois... The developer who built the tract houses they live in did a shit job and never makes good on warranty claims. Now he's developing a new subdivision, and the model house is their target. It's geographically suitable, and they figure an unoccupied model house put up by a crook that fucked them is a legit target. It needs to be a fire that would get DPS' attention, get them into their turnouts etc. If it's ruled arson, no big, they're disguised for the bank jobs anyway. In a newly stolen car too. But after my first draft where I had them use a jerry-can of gasoline, I figured it was too punk for a firefighter to even tacitly participate in, so I started thinking, what's clever? What would at least muddy the waters for a while? That sort of thing.
And while things don't necessarily turn out great for these three, I don't want to have them actually picked up on by the law. One of the ideas I want to bring across is that criminals often do worse things to themselves than the law is allowed to do to them. It's more than the 'money won't make you happy' idea, it's the fact that each of these three guys derail their lives despite the solution of what they perceive is their main problem: money. The only thing worse than losing big your first time in a casino is winning big. And like in 'Trainspotting' when Rents digs into the toilet for the lost supositories: what the hell are the cops going to do to him that's worse than what he does to himself for the sake of skag?
The reasons each of these guys would be better off without the winning lottery ticket differ. But I want the setup to be plausible. It doesn't have to be plucked from the headlines, but if you research it, there have been cops who robbed banks, firefighter sparks, etc. Violation of trust is another theme I try to incorporate, not just the violation of public trust: Nelson is a philanderer, Stu experiences a religious conversion/attack of conscience that unnerves his co-conspirators, etc.
I'm rambling. Sorry. I'm told that the reason my dryer sheets didn't work is that they weren't Bounce brand. I'll have to do another driveway experiment...Or have my guys use gasoline.
Decoy Robot;
1)It depends on the fire dept. Most big city fire depts have their own Haz Mat teams that would mitigate the incident. It sounds like your town is a little smaller. Running a Haz Mat program is very expensive and most mid to small size fire depts can not afford to have a program. However in the state of CA all firefighters by law are trained in First Responder Operations, which it sounds like your dept is.
FRO is a basic 24 hr course in Hazardous Materials. The main component is the S.I.N.;Saftey, Isolate and Deny Entry, and Notification.
All this means is that the FD can Isolate the area or chemical (we call it product), deny entry to all outsides and set a perimeter according to a DOT guide, shelter in place or evacuate victims , and notify the right people for the job.
If a firefighter is only trained to FRO this is all they can do.
2) There are special groups of FF's who can put out these fires or contain these spills. But like I stated earlier it is expensive. I am a CA state certified Haz Mat Technician.
I went through 160 hrs of school plus the 24 for FRO. In this school you learn how to test unknown chemcals and determine what they are. You learn to mitigate spills, releases and fires.And you get to learn the functions of commanding a large incident. Oh and I got to dress up in fully encapsulated suits. This 160 hr class cost $2000.
There are also Haz Mat Specialists. This is another 80 hrs of class on top of the 160 for Tech and 24 for FRO. This class is 2 staright weeks of scenarios and drills. There are also specialty classes for WMD and NBC terrorism.
3) When a chemical is unknown we SIN and use our DOT guide for unknowns. We isolte the area and call the right people for the job.
Let me break it down.
A properly functioning Haz Mat team has to have a vehicle with computers and weather stations. Thay need to have acces to online as well as book libraries. They need to have testing equipment like microscope and air monitors. They also have to have an aray of special chemical suits that range from $500 to $10,000. And constant training. Most FD's cant afford this so they leave it up to neighboring depts or County Health systems.
It sound like you fire dept did its job.
4)There are still some of these stickers around but they really dont matter. We treat all structure fires as having a rescue until proven otherwise. These stickers can sometimes be unreliable because people move or change rooms but leave the stickers on. But it cant hurt to have one.
5) I have lost count how many fires I have been to that would have been not as bad if people had properly working smoke detectors. ALWAYS check your detectors on the day of the time change. I cant stress enough how detectors save lives and property. Our fire district went so far as to haveing all new homes built have smoke detectors hard wired into the electrical system. Most people dont know that detectors can save property as well. It might clue the homeowner into something going on, like an attic fire, that they dont know about.
Well i hope that answers it. Any more quetions, just give me a buzz.
[QUOTE=Chixulub]Mmmkay...
My three central characters include a firefighter. That's why I didn't want them to commit an obviously amateur arson job, because who would know better than a firefighter how to commit good arson?
There is a revenge element to their target. First of, they are trying to be as benign as possible because they are way too bourgois... The developer who built the tract houses they live in did a shit job and never makes good on warranty claims. Now he's developing a new subdivision, and the model house is their target. It's geographically suitable, and they figure an unoccupied model house put up by a crook that fucked them is a legit target. It needs to be a fire that would get DPS' attention, get them into their turnouts etc. If it's ruled arson, no big, they're disguised for the bank jobs anyway. In a newly stolen car too. But after my first draft where I had them use a jerry-can of gasoline, I figured it was too punk for a firefighter to even tacitly participate in, so I started thinking, what's clever? What would at least muddy the waters for a while? That sort of thing.
And while things don't necessarily turn out great for these three, I don't want to have them actually picked up on by the law. One of the ideas I want to bring across is that criminals often do worse things to themselves than the law is allowed to do to them. It's more than the 'money won't make you happy' idea, it's the fact that each of these three guys derail their lives despite the solution of what they perceive is their main problem: money. The only thing worse than losing big your first time in a casino is winning big. And like in 'Trainspotting' when Rents digs into the toilet for the lost supositories: what the hell are the cops going to do to him that's worse than what he does to himself for the sake of skag?
The reasons each of these guys would be better off without the winning lottery ticket differ. But I want the setup to be plausible. It doesn't have to be plucked from the headlines, but if you research it, there have been cops who robbed banks, firefighter sparks, etc. Violation of trust is another theme I try to incorporate, not just the violation of public trust: Nelson is a philanderer, Stu experiences a religious conversion/attack of conscience that unnerves his co-conspirators, etc.
I'm rambling. Sorry. I'm told that the reason my dryer sheets didn't work is that they weren't Bounce brand. I'll have to do another driveway experiment...Or have my guys use gasoline.[/QUOTE]
Im finally getting back to you.
I like the premise of your story, hope I get to read it some day.
From experience.........
Most FF's worked in trades before they became FF's, lots of electricians, carpenters, welders etc.
It is pretty easy to pull an electrical outlet from a wall, loosen the ground wires, and stick it back in.
By doing so when somebody plugs something in the wires will arc but not short or trip the breaker.
If the builder of the houses is an ass and does shitty work, this will seem plausable becasue of the shotty work.
To reall get the fire giog, stuff some news paper inside the wall when they pull the outlet. As the outlet heats up after the reinstall the paper will catch fire.
I went on a call once for a smell of smoke and we traced it ot an outlet. When we pulled the outlet my Captain got zapped because the ground was loose. It was also hotter than hell because they had a radio plugged into that outlet all day.
During the investigion ( if you have one) they will trace it to an outlet and loose wiring. And if the builder has a record of bad work, they will tend to blame it on him.
Hope this helps.
Dear Rossthefireman,
You’ve answered so many questions so far and been helpful, and I’m hoping to get a few more answers out of you if you don’t mind! I am writing a story where churches are being blown up. There are a string of them being blown up, all at different times. No one has been hurt (yet) in these explosions, it’s done when the buildings are empty at night. This particular one is done at night and is about 6 or 7 in a string of explosions that month.
I was wondering how the fire department would react when going to battle a blaze started by an explosion, when they know it’s be caused on purpose due to previous explosions such as this.
Do they handle the crowd any different than a normal fire?
When the cops show up, would they get between firefighters and the crowd to look for those who are suspicious?
Does the fire department even care about any of that, or is it left to the police department once the blaze is out?
How do people react when a building is on fire in their neighbourhood? Do people just pile in the streets and stare?
While fighting fires, is there anyone assigned to be watching for suspicious people in the area if it’s believed/confirmed the fire was started on purpose? What sort of thing would make someone suspicious?
When arriving on the scene, do you sometimes have to get people to snap out of staring at the fire and get the hell out of your way so you can put it out?
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer if you get a chance,
DecoyRobot
I was wondering how the fire department would react when going to battle a blaze started by an explosion, when they know it’s be caused on purpose due to previous explosions such as this.
[B]if we knew it was started by an explosion and had a recent rash of the same type of fires, we do everything in our power to protect and secure the scene and not try to destroy any evidence so the arson investigators have a chance at finding something.[/B]
Do they handle the crowd any different than a normal fire?
[B]Yes we would. There are two types of arsonists. The first type does it for money and insurance. They dont want to hurt anyone but the are usually in debt or are hired by someone. The second type are the most dangerous. They are the pyromaniacs and the grops with agendas. They want to make a point be it political or otherwise.
Now a true pyromaniac starts fires for the sheer joy of seeing fire. They get off on it. There are actual documented case of people masterbating to fires. These type of people are always somewhere in the crowd or in the distance. They like to watch their work.
There are also fire buffs who dont necessarily like fire but the love fire engines and firefighters and would do anything to see them in action. These people are equally as dangerous.
When something like this keeps happening, the firefighters and cops begin to look for similar faces in the crowds at fires.[/B]
When the cops show up, would they get between firefighters and the crowd to look for those who are suspicious?
[B]Yes but in a fashion not to be too obvious that they are looking for arsonists[/B].
Does the fire department even care about any of that, or is it left to the police department once the blaze is out?
[B]No, we do care because it could jepordize our llives and the lives of others. we do everything in our power to help everyone investigating the scene. Cops and arson investigators, most of which carry guns themselves.[/B]
How do people react when a building is on fire in their neighbourhood? Do people just pile in the streets and stare?
[B]Oh it like free entertainment! We get crowds like you wouldnt believe! Everyone knows its tragic but they cant stop starting.[/B]
While fighting fires, is there anyone assigned to be watching for suspicious people in the area if it’s believed/confirmed the fire was started on purpose? What sort of thing would make someone suspicious?
[B]We wouldnt assign anyone but when something like this happens, the command staff and investigators start showing up to the fires and they start looking for these people. Also the cops begin looking for the same faces in the crowd. That is a normal pattern for arsonists who love their work, they show up in the crowd. When we start seeing the same person, they become suspect number one.Also the firefighters begin to pay more attention to everyone around the fire scene.[/B]
When arriving on the scene, do you sometimes have to get people to snap out of staring at the fire and get the hell out of your way so you can put it out?
[B]All the time. Either that or they think they can help with their garden hose.
FYI a normal 1 1/2" hose line at a fire puts out 125gpm.[/B]
Ive got a question on the hazardous materials end of things. Mostly in the case of meth lab explosion. How would one go about putting out that fire? Or would one just wait it out? Then, how would the hazardous materials be collected from the scene? These questions are hard for me to ask cause I really dont know what Im talking about. Like... okay. What would be more important: putting out the fire or preserving evidence? Id think itd be putting out the fire... I dont know. Okay. So what would you do if there was a meth lab explosion?
I'm speaking from relative ignorance, but these topics come up sometimes with my cop and firefighter friends. It's pretty rare to have a fire they'll just let burn out, as far as I've heard. Big chemical plant, everyone's out and accounted for, they'll let that go. Nothing would be saved by the effort, and lots of firefighters can lose their lives when barrels of stuff explode.
A house fire, I think they'd put it out no matter what. And firefighters would care fuckall for evidence. Theyr'e trained to worry about saving lives and property. They might worry some about explosions of volatile chemicals in a drug house, but if it's already blown, I'm not sure they'd figure it'd blow twice. Maybe.
[QUOTE=TheJudasCow;954723]Ive got a question on the hazardous materials end of things. Mostly in the case of meth lab explosion. How would one go about putting out that fire? Or would one just wait it out? Then, how would the hazardous materials be collected from the scene? These questions are hard for me to ask cause I really dont know what Im talking about. Like... okay. What would be more important: putting out the fire or preserving evidence? Id think itd be putting out the fire... I dont know. Okay. So what would you do if there was a meth lab explosion?[/QUOTE]
A fair few CSI episodes deal with meth-labs. If you really desperately need to know, try and find a CSI forum and ask about the episodes in question, then rent them or try and find them online.
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