Dynamic Risk Assessment

[Old legend]

I think I may have started something of a controversy folks but I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of my source and between 1987 and 1997, 17 firefighters are listed as Operational Fatalities which tragically occurred at 14 separate incidents.  From 1997 to date there are 9 fatalities relating to 7 incidents.  

To answer Kurnals inquiry, in total 20 have sustained fatal injuries at fires, 3 at SSC's. two at undisclosed 'explosions' and I now know that one of the more recent 'operational' fatalities is described as a heart attack.  I hope this helps but I have to emphasise that I cannot provide anything further until my work is complete, and then only 'by kind permission' etc....sorry folks.  

I must admit I do find it difficult to talk about such a truly emotive subject in such a dispassionate way.  As Mike Buckley signs off, "they sould be remembered", I wonder if there's a firefighters section at the new National Monument at Alrewas?

I've found the direction you've taken my DRA inquiry so far has informed yet more research, sufficiently so to encourage me to maybe submit a paper for conferencing to promote debate on whether DRA is broke and where the fix may be.

[kurnal]

Yes there is a memorial dedicated to firefighters, it has been rather controversial as it was based around a steel drill tower so typical of retained stations of the 1970s, whilst we in the job can recognise it for what it is it has been seen by others as something akin to a watchtower at a prison camp.

I believe there are plans to replace the drill tower but dont know what is being suggested.

[Mike Buckley]

The first thing to do is to establish what you mean by an operational incident where DRA would be implemented. I know about the heart attack the firefighter concerned was in the appliance en route to a call.

Do you include personnel who have died en route or just those actually killed at the incident and do you include retained who die as a result of an accident en route to the station?

I am not trying to denegrate their loss but if you are looking at the effect of DRA you need to look at incidents where it is in action.

Also remember there is the national memorial in London with a list of firefighters lost but this does not include how they died.

[jokar]

How do you justify your existance if you do not do the job that you are paid to do.  There is and will always be risk of injury or death from fire by firefighters taking risks to save life and property.  At some stage surely the public will question the necessity of an operational response team that does not save life or property but costs them money  through the Council tax that could be better spent on good warning and detection and residential sprinkler systems with an insurance company back up.  ( sounds like fire marks I know).  Any opinions?

[nearlythere]

Jokar. It is not encumbant on any firefighter to risk his/her life to save anybody but on many ocassions they do ignore health and safety policies to try and save savable life. Usually it comes off and no more is said about the matter. There is and always will be risk of injury or death, as you say, but there doesn't have to be if firefighter did their jobs as per health and safety guidance. It is only when individuals take a calculated risk, not take a chance, that injuries can occur. If a firefighter did not want to take a chance he/she would not make an entry into a seemingly impossible situation to try and effect a rescue of someone who has been trapped. Those willing to take a calculated risk will, and hence many members of the public have been and always will be rescued and firefighter have been and always will be injured or killed.

PS. Firefighters are not buried from public funds.

[Mike Buckley]

I think you have the wording the wrong way round. I don't believe that firefighters should take chances, however they should take a calculated risk which is where the dynamic risk assessment comes in.

There used to be guidance from the HSE on training for hazardous work which basically said that if it could be envisaged that a person could be asked to carry out a hazardous job then they needed to be gradually trained to do it with the exposure to the hazard increasing during the training. Hence if it is expected that a firefighter operates on a slated roof to sheet it down then they should have had experience of operating up there starting from the cotton wool stage but introducing more realism as they gained experience.

It is only through realistic training that firefighters can gain the experience to give them the knowledge to make the correct judgement.

I was involved in arranging Brigade exercises where we made an effort to make the situation as real as possible. We had an agreed set of rules beforehand i.e. if there is a band of tape across a doorway that door does not exist and we won't hide a dummy beyond it to catch you out. There were risks involved but they were the risks firefighters should be able to identify and deal with.

Noone should say a firefighter must go in it is up to the judgement at the time. On the same basis noone should criticise a firefighter who comes out because they think it is too hazardous.

Safety comes down to the correct training and procedures. But there are times when the saying that "rules are for the obediance of fools and the guidance of wise men" comes into play.

[nearlythere]

I think you have the wording the wrong way round. I don't believe that firefighters should take chances, however they should take a calculated risk which is where the dynamic risk assessment comes in.

There used to be guidance from the HSE on training for hazardous work which basically said that if it could be envisaged that a person could be asked to carry out a hazardous job then they needed to be gradually trained to do it with the exposure to the hazard increasing during the training. Hence if it is expected that a firefighter operates on a slated roof to sheet it down then they should have had experience of operating up there starting from the cotton wool stage but introducing more realism as they gained experience.

It is only through realistic training that firefighters can gain the experience to give them the knowledge to make the correct judgement.

I was involved in arranging Brigade exercises where we made an effort to make the situation as real as possible. We had an agreed set of rules beforehand i.e. if there is a band of tape across a doorway that door does not exist and we won't hide a dummy beyond it to catch you out. There were risks involved but they were the risks firefighters should be able to identify and deal with.

Noone should say a firefighter must go in it is up to the judgement at the time. On the same basis noone should criticise a firefighter who comes out because they think it is too hazardous.

Safety comes down to the correct training and procedures. But there are times when the saying that "rules are for the obediance of fools and the guidance of wise men" comes into play.

Every hazardous job has guidance to be followed to ensure safe working practices.
Life saving jobs are somewhat different in that, at times, people abandon elements of the guidance and take a risk, not a chance, in order to try and save the saveable. The expectation of life savers is to safe life regardless and they know it. We are a highly trained, professional and proud organisation but we are by no means death proof.

If we wanted to ensure total personal safety then we should stay outside and do nothing.
If we want to take a calculated risk, outside of the laid down procedures, and enter the unknown then we have to expect the possibility of an injury.
If we take a chance then we cannot expect to come out at all.

Procedures and policies are really only a stick to beat you with if things go belly up.

[Nearlybaldandgrey]

Nearlythere .... I disagree with two of your last  statements at the end of your post.

There are times when we have to stay outside and adopt defensive techniques, although we will not stand and do nothing, we will do something, such as get jets to work, arrange hydrant feeds etc etc. An example of this tactic would be a large retail unit such as B & Q Warehouse ..... half brick, half lightweight cladding around a steel frame.  Rapid fire growth and spread means these building collapse quickly, so to commit personnel into them is, in my opinion not an option.

Procedures and policies are there to provide a framework for dealing with incidents, the Standard Operating Procedure. They are not a stick to be beaten with, they are there to be adhered to and as a manager, if I have operated outside the procedure and something goes wrong, I would expect to take the full rap for it ....... I would also expect a visit from the HSE!

[nearlythere]

The only time that people should and will take the calculated risks I am thinking of is when there is a life risk, not property. Firefighters nowadays have adopted the ethos that building can be replaced quite easily.
I do however stand by my beating stick allegation. You are quite right in that it should not be so but it is. When firefighters enter the building you as a manager have effectively lost control of them. They are then guided by SOPs and their own initiatives. Only they can see the conditions that confront them and your only hope is that any dynamic risk assessments they make are the correct ones.

[Mike Buckley]

I don't like the idea of catagorising the risks. The whole thing is a balance between the perceived risks and the perceived benefits and the balance will shift dependant on the circumstances. You would not apply the same ethos to a B&Q warehouse as you would to Windsor Castle.

The problem with standard operating procedures is that they tend to grow in size and number so it is too easy for the whole thing to get out of hand. They do become a stick and can be used to hide other deficiencies. It is easy to blame a manager and discipline for not following a SOP and forget about asking why the SOP was not followed. This then leads down the line that nobody uses their initiative which is what really needed. In one Brigade I served in there was a witchhunt if there was a reignition and full discplinary action tended to follow. The result was that pumps kept on returning to check even a small fire over an extended period and the reverse also happened that the crews concentrated so much on the initial fire that they missed heat damage elsewhere that led to a reignition.

[jokar]

Okay, whilst I understand where you are coming from but surely, the reactive side of a fire brigade is there to undertake certain tasks.  If those tasks are not to be completed such as in Baldyman's post about watching B&Q burn down and create a car park, how do you justify the reactive job you do?  The other bits, CFS and the like can be done by anyone given a little background info and knowledge at a much lower cost.  In the end the oublic pay for an FRS that doesn't do much and the insurance costs as they rise to rebuild buildings that individuals may have watched burn down.  You would not expect the armed forces not to go to war, can a soldier undertake a DRA to say whether they will go out on patrol or not or a fighter pilot to say taking off is too risky!

What about the other services, you do not see the RNLI saying the seas are to rough to send out the volunteers to save a live at sea, yet their record of lives lost is far greater.

[Old legend]

I think there are a lot of semantics being used which all come down to the same thing, knowing what I know about risk and hazard, do I fight or take flight?

Probabilities:  If I do I could get hurt, if I don't the victim gets hurt.
Chance: Chances are I could get hurt if I do. chances are somebody else gets hurt if I don't.
Benefit:  If I do............etc

Baldyman is only working to the maxim firefighters will not take risks to save a proprty already lost, the B & Q case is a good example, there's enough in the description to recognise that the building construction will quickly fail therefore the building is not saveable.  As for recogniton primed decision making, wasn't Fleur Lombard claimed from us in a DIY warehouse?

The eye blink that passes in reaching that moment in time I choose to break a door down, whether or not my Incident Commander  has been part of the decision making loop is when my knowledge of risk and hazard, systems of work, available controls and recognition of past experience all comes to one thing: I'm dammed if I do and dammed if i don't!

P.S.  The count of fatalities is authentic to incident activity, if we add travelling to; and travelling from incidents as well as on duty and any others the count exceeds 60 in the 20 year period 1987 -2007.

[Mike Buckley]

I agree with jokar. The public pay for the reactive side of the work, they want a big red lorry arriving when they are in trouble and they expect to be helped. I always disagreed with the policy of charging for special services like flooding on the grounds that that was what the public paid for.

There is a difference between the assessment on arrival that the building is lost don't commit, to the idea that as no life is at risk don't commit. The knock on effect in hardship, loss of jobs and personal distress needs to be taken into account.

I would agree that if a life is at risk the boundaries are pushed harder but at the end of the day it is a dangerous job.

I have always been amazed not at how many fatalities there are but in fact how few. If you look at the construction trade that is killing 2-3 hundred a year and they are working in a controlled environment. The fire service is working in an uncontrolled high risk environment and the losses are 1 or 2 a year.

I would agree that every job needs to be debriefed to see where improvements can be made, but that is a far cry from a witch hunt to find  a scape goat.

[BB]

I'm aware of operational personnel and OIC with very little operational experience even less being a sector commander on the fireground responsible for the safety of personnel within thier sector.

They have not got the basic understanding of building construction and signs of collaspe.
Large cracks in brickwork and external walls bulging out. In both instances completely unaware they were exposed to a dangerous sitution.

New entrants into the fire service are not even taught the basics on training school. Worrying times, who will be held accountable god forbid if anybody is serious injured or dies through the lack of basic training and/or understanding of building construction.

The OIC who has not done the DRA or the fire authority for not giving suitable training on recruitment.!!!!!!!!!

[Old legend]

Given the tragic circumstances that have occurred overnight in Warwickshire I would like to draw a line under this discussion thread and thank those who have both informed and directed my unfortunate studies.

Many thanks for your candor.