Fire Critic An Unadulterated View of the Fire Service
Firehouse.com ran an article on the training lesson from a Sacramento house fire the other day (link). Firehouse magazine will follow up with more commentary on the fire in the August and September issues. However, what you really need to know is already on the Internet.
On October 7, 2008, at approximately 0929 hours, the Sacramento Fire Department responded to a structure fire located at 17 Stilt Court. A first alarm structure response was dispatched and Engine 15 was first to arrive at 0935 hours reporting “heavy dark smoke coming from the second floor.” Engine 15 initiated an offensive attack and an attack line was moved into position onto the second floor.
…The Captain, who suffered burns to his hands and neck was transported to the University of California Davis Medical Center for treatment. All three firefighters were transported as well with less severe injuries.
In the wake of this incident, the Sacramento FD has put together a website to teach the lessons learned from the fire. The website is StiltCourtFire.info.
First of all, I commend the SFD for taking the time, energy, and dedication to providing such a useful learning tool for Firefighters everywhere. I checked out all of the information on the site and found it to be very useful.
The SFD utilized youtube’s bandwidth to host the videos. This has a two-fold benefit. 1) they don’t have to host the large files on their servers, and 2) firefighters will find the videos without having to visit the website directly. Although visiting the site is a must.
The site is a great tool for Company officers to sit their firefighters down in front of the computer and go through the powerpoint presentations, lectures, and other information on the site.
The site also offers a first person point of view through the use of a helmet camera. While the helmet camera footage and the actions of the firefighter which has the helmet camera could easily be scrutinized, let us not lose focus on the lesson being learned.
Sacramento FD Chief Lloyd Ogan does a great job at presenting the information in its entirety. The Chief examines several issues with the fire as well as issues which have surfaced within the department because of the fire. Needless to say that the SFD has learned a lot and will be able to grow due to the lessons learned from the incident.
You can visit the website here. I recommend everyone go there now and watch all of the videos.
The site includes:
- Helmet Camera footage of the fire
- Post Fire tour of the house
- 6 powerpoint presentations in video format
- A closing statement in 4 parts (also video)
- SFD Green Sheet on the fire (.pdf file)
- SFD Incident Report (not yet online)
The website is still under construction so look for more soon.
If you just feel like checking out the videos on youtube click here.
