A firefighter in the field without a functioning radio always adds up to one thing — frustration. A non-functioning radio also means higher risk on the line.

In 2003, reports to fire agencies began to trickle in from the field indicating that a certain model of handheld radio was experiencing a higher-than-usual failure rate. The reports, filed through SAFENET, the four-year old system designed to identify problems and share information about firefighter safety issues, caught the attention of safety managers at the National Interagency Fire Center.

Because more than a half-dozen SAFENET reports in several regions were received expressing concerns about the handhelds, it was clear that the problem was greater than just a single unit blinking out on a chance basis.

“Because of the SAFENETS, we identified it as a national trend or problem,” says Michelle Ryerson-Grett, the fire safety specialist at NIFC for the Bureau of Land Management. When the manufacturer was contacted, a design flaw was discovered that caused the radios to freeze. “The company replaced or fixed all of those radios, and changed how they manufactured them,” she says. In short, the problem was solved.

SWIFT RESOLVE

It undoubtedly would have taken much longer to identify and resolve the issue had the SAFENET reports not been filed, all of which illustrates the value of the reporting system: It can bring about changes, big and small, in a short time.

“Firefighters can make a difference in policy by what they write and sending in a SAFENET,” says John Gould, a safety specialist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. “There are a number of instances where communication and other problems have been solved throughout the fire community because of a SAFENET.”

In simplest terms, SAFENET provides another way for frontline firefighters and other incident personnel to be heard. Safety officers serving on an incident management team will have hard copies of the SAFENET form, and they're also available at http://safenet.nifc.gov. If you can't get in touch with the safety officer and don't have access to a computer, document the incident in whatever way possible and file the SAFENET later. A late SAFENET is better than no SAFENET at all, the experts agree. A toll-free telephone number, 888-670-3938, may also be used to file an oral SAFENET, or you can send one via the mail.

In most cases, a SAFENET takes 10 minutes or less to fill out and submit. And you don't need to be a firefighter to submit one. For that matter, you don't even need to be assigned to a fire.

“Anyone can file a SAFENET, regardless of their position or duties,” Ryerson-Grett says. “You can be a supply truck driver who comes across a safety issue and file one. And we're receiving more SAFENETS on all-risk incidents, too.”

If you file a SAFENET, be assured that it will receive the attention it warrants, says Ed Hollenshead, the USDA Forest Service's national safety officer at NIFC. “We've achieved great success by following up on every SAFENET submitted, and forwarding them to the safety operations folks within the regions or areas where they originated,” he says.

ACT LOCAL

Another advantage of SAFENET is that problems are first addressed at the local level. If a SAFENET is submitted in fire camp, for example, that's where the initial attempt to resolve the issue will occur. One of the precepts of SAFENET is that corrective action is most effective when it is taken quickly at the ground level. Ultimately, all SAFENET reports end up at NIFC, where the information is entered into a database, making it easier for safety experts to identify regional or national trends, as was the case with the handheld-radio problem.

Hollenshead says that SAFENET reports are used not only to address specific problems and spot national or regional trends, but “to de-bunk some of the ‘issues’ that surface.”

The SAFENET system was suggested in the mid-1990s by firefighters and field fire managers who felt that communication channels were not as open as they should be. “It was not a top-down initiative, but came from the field, up,” says Ryerson-Grett. Field employees were consulted regularly during development of the program. It was field-tested for a year in the Pacific Northwest to gain feedback about what worked well and what just plain needed more work.

SAFENET is endorsed by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group and is available to every federal, state and local wildfire-fighting organization. It is not a quick fix for all problems, and it should never be substituted for one-on-one communication, an agency's specific accident reporting system, or the need to take immediate action when something poses an obvious threat. But SAFENET fills a valuable niche in the once-gray area between taking immediate action and letting a concern fade and perhaps never reporting it.

“It's a good process. It doesn't come without some extra effort, but we're seeing that it is paying dividends,” says Hollenshead.

Good, but not perfect, the safety experts acknowledge.

“We haven't had the explosive growth we hoped for,” acknowledges Gould. “People still don't always see the benefits of it, and we haven't explained them as thoroughly as we should.”

The number of SAFENET reports rose in each of the first three years, topping out at 110 in 2002. In 2003, the number dropped slightly, a cause for mild concern among those who oversee the program.

“It's a remarkably powerful tool that people just don't utilize,” Gould says. He recalls the Biscuit Fire of 2002, which burned almost 500,000 acres in northern California and southern Oregon. “Everyone in the world was on that fire at one time, but we got just two SAFENETS from it. Now, it's all history. We can't go back and identify the problems. The opportunity has come and gone.”

One potential barrier is the perception that SAFENETS will be used as a basis for reprimands. Not so, says Gould.

“You can't use a SAFENET as a reason for a reprimand. It's against the SAFENET code, and also illegal,” he points out. “People might think they're tattling on someone by filing a SAFENET, but that's not the case. We don't look at SAFENETS that way.”

PERSONAL GUARANTEE

If you're still unsure about filing a SAFENET, Ryerson-Grett says they can be submitted anonymously. Confidentiality is protected. Equal consideration is given to signed and unsigned SAFENET report. But if you sign your name to a SAFENET, you'll receive a personal answer addressing your comment.

Gould would like to see more encouragement from managers. “They're one of the keys to greater acceptance.” When managers take an interest and back the program, acceptance among field personnel rises.

Those responsible for SAFENET also recognize that any new effort within the wildland fire community takes time to catch on. What they fear most is that the number of SAFENETS will dwindle over the next few years.

“We need people to tell us what they see. It's a big deal with us,” Gould says. “We know there are problems in the field, but we won't have anything more than anecdotal evidence unless we get a SAFENET.”

Ultimately, the decision to put to work or not comes down to the individual. “Silence is consent. If you want to keep the status quo, you don't want to fix something, then don't file,” Gould says.

While adoption of SAFENET throughout the wildland fire community has been slightly less-than-hoped-for to this point, the safety experts at NIFC and elsewhere haven't lost their vision of what they hope the program will become.

“In 10 years, I'd like to see it as how SAFECOM has evolved in the aviation community, to where it's an automatic,” Ryerson-Grett says, referring to the popular method for reporting aviation incidents and mishaps. “You don't even have to think about what to do in an unsafe aviation situation. I'd like to see SAFENETS at that level in our culture.”

“We're trying to make it a part of a firefighter's everyday life,” Gould says.

Don Smurthwaite currently serves in the Bureau of Land Management's Montana State Office in Billings. Prior to that, he worked for BLM at the National Interagency Fire Center.

For more information about SAFENET, visit http://safenet.nifc.gov.