Nine firefighters in Charleston, S.C., died June 18 in a tragic furniture warehouse fire. This incident marks the single greatest line-of-duty loss of American firefighters since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

That fire thrust the department and Fire Chief Rusty Thomas into the international spotlight. Thomas has been with the department for 31 years and its chief since 1992. His father served the department for 40 years, and there has been a member of the family in the department since 1914. In fact, Charleston's last line-of-duty death was Thomas' great-uncle, who died in 1965.

Thomas oversees 241 sworn personnel serving out of 16 fire stations to an average of 5,600 calls annually. The department does not run emergency medical services.

Within weeks of the fire, Mayor Joseph Riley Jr. hired a team of six fire service professionals to review and assess the Charleston Fire Department. The task force included: Gordon Routley, a retired chief with experience in fatal fire investigations; Brian Crawford, assistant to the fire chief and resident instructor at the National Fire Academy with a master's degree in industrial psychology; Kevin Roche, assistant fire marshal and assistant to the fire chief who is expert on firefighting equipment and research; Tim Sendelbach, former chief of training and president of the International Society of Fire Service Instructors; Mike Chiaramonte, former fire chief and fire inspector with expertise in fire prevention and fire codes; and Pete Piringer, a public information officer with expertise in media relations.

After an initial review of fire department operations and the circumstances surrounding the deaths, the Fire Review and Assessment Task Force made 27 recommendations for immediate implementation in the areas of personnel, command and on-scene accountability, firefighter safety, fire and rescue training, emergency response resources, standardized dispatch and communications, and water supply resources. Nineteen of those recommendations already have been implemented.

Personnel recommendations include creating assistant to the chief, safety officer and public-information officer positions. The task force also recommended at all times a minimum of two dispatchers and minimum staffing of three on-duty firefighters on all existing engine and ladder companies to increase the efficiency of emergency dispatch and provide adequate on-scene operational safety and support for first responders.

Command and on-scene accountability recommendations include applying incident command procedures on all incidents. The first-arriving officer should assume command, perform size-up and provide direction for all others, while the first-arriving chief should establish and remain at the exterior command post.

Firefighter safety recommendations include reinforcing appropriate use of personal protective clothing and SCBA, reinforcing the use of seatbelts and standard emergency response vehicular operations, following the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's two-in/two-out standard, and reinforcing management procedures for off-duty firefighter response to emergencies.

Fire and rescue training recommendations include initiating and completing Incident Command and tactical operations training for all officers and additional training for all members, providing incident safety officer training to selected personnel, and ensuring that all new firefighters are trained and certified to South Carolina standards and NFPA Firefighter II before assignment to emergency duty.

Response and communications recommendations include increasing initial structure fire response to three engines and one ladder, using the third engine as the rapid-intervention team and dispatching an assistant chief, second battalion chief, fourth engine company and an EMS unit, using the second-arriving battalion chief as the incident safety officer unless the staff safety officer is on scene. Communications changes also include the elimination of 10 codes and the use of the tactical radio channel for responses

Water supply recommendations include changing standard operating procedures with near-term transition to large-diameter supply hose and using of 1H-inch or larger hose for interior attack and vehicle fires.

FIRE CHIEF recently spoke with Thomas who, citing legal restrictions, woud not discuss the June 18 tragedy.

What were your first impressions of the task force brought in by the mayor?

The mayor set up a group of Police Chief [Greg] Mullen, him and myself to find a group, and [we] found some good people through the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. I first met the group when they came into Charleston. I knew nothing about any of the task force people before, never heard of any of them. Not Pete [Piringer], Tim [Sendelbach], Mike [Chiaramonte] or Gordon [Routely], never seen any of them.

How were the first recommendations implemented?

The first group of recommendations was some stuff that we had to reinforce like wearing seatbelts. I think we've done 19 of the 27 recommendations, and all of them had to do with safety.

We never had a safety officer in the Charleston Fire Department. The first battalion chief or assistant chief has always been the safety officer, but we never had a separate safety officer, and that was put into effect. I have three assistant chiefs who run their shifts. Each one of those assistant chiefs has four battalion chiefs every day and they run their shifts and they take care of all the daily operations of the fire department — fight fires, manpower and the whole nine yards. The assistant chiefs work directly for me. I never had an assistant [to the chief] myself.

In October the whole fire department is going to get incident safety officer training. Some had already had it, but we're going to go through it from the battalion chiefs to the assistant chiefs to get safety officer training.

One of the recommendations is plain talk. We were still using the 10-codes and that's been changed…. Another recommendation was on responding. The way we used to do it was five stories and below, we would send two pumpers, a ladder truck and a battalion chief or an assistant chief. Their recommendation was to send three pumpers, a ladder truck and a battalion chief to every call.

We have a set rapid-intervention team now. We used to call the standby company. The company coming in was always the stand by company instead of calling it RIT. Now we just changed it from two pumpers to three pumpers; the third pumper there is automatically the RIT. If a fourth pumper is called for a working fire, the safety officer automatically responds, [so does] another battalion chief and assistant chief and an EMS unit.

In the Charleston Fire Department we have assigned four people to each apparatus. On two ladder trucks — we have three ladder trucks [in the department] — we just have three people assigned now. We never rode a pumper with less than three people, never. What we've done on two ladder trucks, if someone was out sick or on vacation, we'd just run those ladder trucks with two people. Now, we have a minimum staffing on everything every day of four assigned. We are in the process of hiring six more people, which our next recruit class will have.

Another recommendation that came down was no more booster lines on the inside of a structure fire or a car fire. Everything inch-and-a-half or two-and-a-half, that's the recommendation they came out with and it was put into effect. And we always wore protective clothing in a fire.…

What about firefighters responding off duty?

When they come in they have to turn in their ID card to the incident commander and wait to get an assignment from the incident commander. [Those are] just some of the recommendations that came down that we put in quick.

Which of these recommendations has been a challenge for you?

My management style is different from a lot of people…. Putting three engines into effect, putting the RIT in effect and doing the training, that's doesn't bother me. I have to learn, not so much to take a step back, but I have to learn to let my people do; I've done that [for a] long time before the fire. I don't micro-manage, but I am a hands-on chief. I know a lot about my equipment. I do all the hiring right up here in this office. My secretary or assistant, they pick the applications out. I do the hiring. I pick the people I want to hire. I do all the promotions, OK? As far as engineer, assistant engineer, battalion chief, assistant chief, I do it all. What I've learned is that I am going to get some help [from] my assistant chiefs and battalion chiefs in my department.

If I had to say something that was the hardest recommendation to come down, it didn't come down that the chief needs to take a step back, it came down that getting more people involved in the fire department. We set up an apparatus committee. Where my three mechanics and myself used to do all the specifications on the apparatus, instead I'm going to get one of my battalion chiefs who worked with Kevin Roche and my mechanic and I'm going to let them be the apparatus committee. Even though ultimately I have the last decision, they'll bring it to me.…

Do you know where I'm going? Last week I sat in my office all week long and interviewed 17 people. Now we don't have that many openings, but that's how many people we interviewed. That's the hardest thing for me was that's the way I've done it since 1992 and so I have to take, not a step back.… Do I trust my people? Yes, I do, because I promoted every single one of them and every single battalion chief, assistant chief and anyone that's ever been promoted till now…. It's my job now to give them the responsibility. [We] asked human resources to implement a test and I'll ask four of my battalion chiefs to interview the people for different positions in the department and give me a list of what they find.

It's all I've ever done. You have to understand this is all I've ever done. We went from being a Class 3 department in 1992 and my goal … was to get everybody to help us get to Class 1. In 1995 we went to Class 2 and Class 1 in 1998, and you don't do that by yourself.

How are your officers handling the changes in your department? Have any quit or retired?

Not one.… I had a meeting with them after we had our first assessment paper come down, Monday morning at 9 at the training tower. I went over every single thing that we were going to do. I told them upfront, “I'm onboard with it and we're going to do it. If you don't want to be onboard with it or you don't think you want to be onboard with it … then if you have your time to retire — I'm not going to force you to retire.” I went around the room and spoke with every single one of them and every single one of them said “whatever we need to do, we will do, but we're not retiring.”

None of them have come through the door in the four weeks after the first recommendations. We started the next day and that's when I realized that I got my safety officer … I got him and my assistant for implementation. We met every single morning. They met with every single battalion chief every morning and every afternoon before an order would go out on what we were going to start working on. The safety officer and assistant to myself would meet more than once every single day.…

What changes have been made in training?

The people who would normally go to the fire together would normally train together. Now we're mixing teams to train together. Tim Sendelbach gave us a new perspective on it. The incident command system and the two-in/two out will work wherever you go, and that's what we're doing.

For three weeks, we've sent assistant and battalion chiefs to Montgomery County for training, and they've brought back some stuff that we've already used in our incident command system, and [the county has] picked up something from us that they like.

Our radio shop came up with an idea for our walkie talkies. When you're in a lot of smoke and someone says go to a different channel, you can't see the thing. Our city radio shop put my voice on the radio so if you turn the radio on, my voice says “Channel 1.” If the battalion chief at the fire says we need everybody to go to Channel 2, instead of you trying to find it, listen for the channel number. Montgomery County liked that idea and picked it up from us.

I'm going to Montgomery County [Md.] for a week of training and time with Chief Tom Carr and I'm sure I'll pick up some training and management stuff.

What about interacting with your surrounding departments and mutual aid?

We mutual aid train a lot, especially on our night drills. Everybody is required to have six hours of night training in a year, so we get together with St. Andrews, James Island and North Charleston…. They have different size hose and they have different styles. James Island doesn't have a ladder truck and if they need to borrow [one], we want them to know what to do, so we mutual aid train a lot with them.

Have any of your officers been involved with the Chief Fire Officer Designation or the Executive Fire Officer programs?

Yes. Some of our officers have and [others] will be. We got the incident safety officer class coming up and then we're going to, hopefully, get some people from Montgomery County to come down and do our Incident Command System [class]. Some of us have already had ICS [training] from the South Carolina Fire Academy, but we're going to go back and start with the assistant chiefs, battalion chiefs, captains and myself. Hopefully through our South Carolina Fire Academy [we'll] get somebody to do ICS.

You and your department have experienced a technology overload with the online media and this incident discussed in blogs.

There are a lot of people who second-guess. They weren't there. You have to use your experience, your people's experience in your department. You asked me what's been hard to change. We have a lot of people with good experience here, and you have to use that experience. You can't do it all by yourself. You have to use your people in your department. Use your people's experience, which we always did at fires.…

How are you personally coping with all of this?

I go back to what I told you that I told my people: I will make it happen and they will make it happen. I am fully onboard with the change that fits Charleston. All the safety stuff we've done, we just had to make sure it was being done. We didn't have to reinvent the wheel; some of the stuff they came down with, we were doing.

I will make this department better, if there's such a thing as a Class 1-A department, I will make it happen. I will lead this department with the help of everybody else, just like the mayor has said in the paper. We will be the model fire department. People will come here and will ask what did you do different? What have you done? We will show them. But I will make sure it gets done. That will be my job. I won't do it, but I will make sure it gets done.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

This is personal. I knew every single one of those nine guys personally and their families. Our fire department is not so far spread out that I probably wouldn't see those guys at least once a month or month and a half, either at work or at a store or a station because I'm that type of chief. I went to the stations and they knew me real well. I lost nine of my best friends. Like I said at the memorial, I could tell you a story about every single one of my people because that's how I knew them.

[That's] one part of my management style I won't get away from; I will know my people, just like I knew those nine. At the memorial service I didn't have to write down a thing about them; I knew them and this has been the hardest thing. Our community is so tight around here. You don't understand.

If it wasn't for our community, I don't know if I would have made it. I knew all of them. No one in the Charleston Fire Department has a badge number. Everybody has the same badge and I didn't need a nameplate to call you by name. I give everybody the same badge. I swear you in and I give you that badge. If they can't walk through that door and I can't call their name, I don't need to be chief. That's my personal part of this fire department that I will never give up.

The rest of the stuff, I know what I got to do now is I got to get some help. Thanks to the assessment team [for helping] me realize what I need to do and to my human resources director.

I told you, and promise you, when I leave, this place will be better than it ever was before. If Class 1-A is such a thing, it will be better.

South Carolina Fines CFD

On Sept. 20, the South Carolina Office of Occupational Safety and Health completed its investigation of the June 18 Sofa Super Store fire. Both the CFD and Sofa Super Store were fined for serious and willful violations.

A serious violation is one that could cause death or serious physical harm, and the employer knew or should have known of the hazard. Willful violations are committed with conscious or voluntary disregard of the requirements of the SC OSHA Act or with plain indifference to employee safety or health.

Charleston Fire Department

Willful Violation: Employer knew or should have known that the command system does not provide for the overall safety of emergency personnel and their activities. Penalty: $7,000

Serious Violation 1: SOPs were not developed to cover the special hazards associated with firefighting and attacking a fire involving a metal-truss roof. Penalty: $1,000, reduced to $900 based on regulatory history.

Serious Violation 2: Body protection was not required to be worn by nine firefighters involved in interior structural firefighting. Penalty: $1,000, reduced to $900 based on regulatory history.

Serious Violation 3: SCBA was not required to be worn at all times by four firefighters exposed to smoke and toxic substances. Penalty: $1,000, reduced to $525 due to regulatory history and good faith.

Sofa Super Store

Willful Violation: Exit doors on the front and rear of the warehouse were padlocked; two sets of double-hung exit doors on the left side of the casual showroom were locked with sliding bolts on the top and bottom of the doors; and an exit door on the right side of décor showroom was padlocked. Penalty: $49,000, reduced to $29,400 due to the size of the employer.

Serious Violation 1: Three fire doors located on the wall between the main showroom and the décor showroom were not in proper working order. Penalty: $7,000, reduced to $2,500 due to size of the employer and regulatory history.

Serious Violation 2: Emergency action plan was not implemented for employees. Penalty: $7,000, reduced to $875 due to size of the employer, regulatory history and good faith.

Mayor Commits to Chief, Change

Joseph Riley Jr. has been mayor of Charleston for 32 years and is up for re-election this year.

Other fire chiefs in a similar situation or less have lost their jobs, while you staunchly support Chief Thomas.

… My job as chief executive officer of the city is to hire good people and support good people and if the people should be replaced, I'll replace them. He deserves it. It was obviously a very, very tragic fire and we will learn everything that there is to learn from it and we're committed to that. It's our duty and responsibility. I was there that night and received all the information that there is available so far. Chief Thomas deserves my and the community's support.

What we are doing is making sure that everything that can be learned from the fire is learned. We are using this opportunity to have a full and complete post-incident assessment review. It's the equivalent of a performance and management analysis or audit … to look at every component of our fire service.…

You have committed to additional staff and equipment. Where will you find the money?

We will find the money. The money will come from our budget and we're on a calendar year and we'll be addressing this on the January 1 calendar budget. We will find the money. I've always made public safety our first priority. Forty-seven percent of our general operating budget goes for public safety.…

To go from four assigned to four on-duty will take a few years to fully implement. We're quickly adding the six [firefighters] so we're always rolling … but to go to four always on duty, which is more than four assigned with sick leave and vacation, training, that will take a couple years to do and hire and phase it, but we'll find the money.…

The Fire Assessment and Review Task Force has a contract of one year. That's quite a commitment.

We're serious about this. They come up with their recommendations, they're made public and we'll act on them. I knew it was so important to our citizens, our firefighters and to the families of our fallen firefighters that this process be transparent.