It was 3 o'clock in the morning and the local volunteer fire station had been long secured for the evening when the dispatcher received a call notifying her of a house fire. Members quickly responded to the station and the first engine rolled with three firefighters, a qualified engineer and newly elected lieutenant. When they got to the scene they reported visible flames coming out of every window on the second floor. It was decision time for the new lieutenant: enter or don't enter.

Various degrees of risk constantly are presented to fire officers. Wouldn't it have been easier for the lieutenant to answer to that challenging question if his department had a clear operational guideline? Shouldn't any risks faced by personnel be minimized through sound risk management practices and safety procedures?

In 2007 there were 115 firefighter fatalities; 19 firefighters were caught or trapped. Are firefighters going into places they shouldn't? Do officers really teach risk benefit? Do both truly understand what risk a lot to save a lot, risk a little to save a little and risk nothing to save nothing really mean? Do they understand what qualifies as an acceptable risk?

Officers and members need true guidelines for a practical and safe action plan. They must understand this plan and be well drilled in it. Firefighters should be considered the first lives to be protected. Company officers need to be taught to make decisions based on a true survivability profile.

East Pierce Fire Rescue in Bonney Lake, Wash., has approached this survivability profile by defining what they feel is a “known occupant.” To meet this definition, the occupant must have been seen or heard by fire department personnel or there must be a reliable report from someone else in the structure. And there must be high likelihood that even if someone is there, he or she can survive the environment.

It is unacceptable to assume that all structures are occupied and that all people in buildings can be saved. Most often firefighters' lives are the only ones threatened. Depending on the extent of the fire damage, sometimes it doesn't pay to save any further property. Most likely, what is saved will be bulldozed anyway. To support this thinking, reward firefighters for having the courage to be safe and making decisions that keep fellow firefighters safe. Departments should adopt guidelines that give firefighters and officers the power to go defensive.

East Pierce's risk-management procedure states that: “Risk management (risk vs. value analysis) shall be utilized by the Incident Commander when formulating the incident action plan. The objective is to save lives and save property in as safe a manner as possible, as dictated by the incident.… The acceptable level of risk is directly related to the potential to save lives or property. Where there is no potential to save lives, the risk to fire department members must be evaluated in proportion to the ability to save property of value. When there is no ability to save lives or property, there is no justification to expose fire department members to any avoidable risk, and defensive suppression operations or other non-aggressive action is the appropriate strategy.”

The entire document is available at the Volunteer & Combination Officers Section's Web site, www.vcos.org, under online resources/policies and procedures.

Important elements such as rapid intervention teams and rehab always must be considered and policies to employ well established. For example, a good policy would state that a RIT shall be established on all structure fires that have grown beyond the incipient stage, at incidents where personnel are subject to hazardous environments, or when the incident commander deems it necessary. When writing such a policy, it is necessary to clearly define terms such as incipient stage, initial stage, known life hazard, mayday, positive communications, rapid intervention team, standby firefighter, standby mode, suppression personnel and risk management so as not to leave anything to interpretation. Examples of these definitions can be found in East Pierce's risk-management procedure.

Fire service members at all levels need to discuss establishing a good risk management procedure and have sufficient training on these procedures. They must seriously develop further strategies that will reduce firefighter death and injury dramatically.

This starts with a simple truth: today's fire officers need to be more educated than ever. The lives and well-beings of the firefighters under their command depend on their knowledge. Firefighting is complex. A firefighter today is involved in hazmat operations, trench and high-angle rescue, and EMS, just to name a few, on top of modern structural firefighting. Add terrorism response to the mix, and officers have a hodgepodge of skills and information to cram into their memory banks. Risk is common to all these elements. A good risk-management procedure is the common thread of safety that binds these activities together.

Leaders who make an all-out effort to get as much information as they can in areas such as risk management, building construction, fire behavior and accountability systems are needed. The fire service needs leaders who have the courage to be safe. It is essential to have leaders who will enforce these sensible risk-management procedures. These leaders must be able to evaluate change objectively and must be willing to promote and implement that change if it's beneficial to their departments, even if the idea might not be very popular.

Education truly is the key to firefighter safety. The more education firefighters and officers have, the less often the flags at the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial will fly at half-mast.

I would like to thank Training Capt. Patrick Beers and East Pierce Fire Rescue for their contributions. I also would like to congratulate them for their progressive thinking. They truly know the meaning of the courage to be safe and are committed to making sure that everyone goes home.

Chief Mike Chiaramonte, CFO, is a 40-year member of the Lynbrook (N.Y.) Fire Department and its former chief. Chiaramonte is a past chairman and board member of the IAFC Volunteer and Combination Officers Section Board and past president of the IAFC Eastern Division. He's also a National Fire Academy Instructor and on the advisory board to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. Chiaramonte is a state EMT-B. He has a bachelor's degree from the University of Houston and a master's degree from Hofstra University, both in communications education.