Firefighting & Rescue Social / Professional Network
Baptism By Fire Or Death By Diversity?
January 12, 2009, I wanted to give those discussing this a second perspective. At www.iacoj.com, the same blog was posted. There is good discussion there as well with some diffent perspectives. You may have to sign up to view it. It is under the Voice of Reason section. I'll post the link, http://www.iacoj.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=8151
Author's Note: Happy New Year to all of my star studded friends. You know who you are. But there is business to attend to. I'm starting off the new year with more food for thought. As always, I welcome comments and different perspectives. Art
On January 3, 2009, the BCFD internal report commissioned by the mayor was added to the article. It provides more detail that is not found in the NIOSH LODD report. This is the report with acknowledgement paid to FirefighterCloseCalls: http://www.firefighterclosecalls.com/pdf/BaltimoreTrainingLODDFinal...
We use the term “baptism by fire” in the fire service to measure that milestone that we achieve with our first big fire; our first true test as a firefighter. The “baptism” welcomes us into a world where ranks are closed very tightly and bonds are never to be broken. And when one dies, the aggrieved mourns the loss, but it is the fire department that captures all of the attention.
This blog is done with respect to and in honor of Fire Paramedic Apprentice (FPA) Rachel Wilson of the Baltimore City Fire Department, who died during a training exercise on February 9, 2007.
The intent of this blog is to examine pre-incident issues, post-incident issues, recommendations that were made post-incident and corrective measures taken to date. Comments are welcome, but they will be respectful, thoughtful and most of all, civil. I expect there to be differences of opinions, but again; they will be respectful replies.
Because of the many issues involved, I believe that it is important that a dissection of available information takes place and we intake them as lessons learned.
First of all, I know very little about the “inner” workings of one of our storied fire departments in this country; Balitmore City Fire Department. After all, they were the backdrop for the feature film “Ladder 49”.
However; though I may not know how BCFD fulfills their mission statement, I know how it should work at ANY fire department, because firefighters are NOT supposed to die during their training. They are supposed to be learning the skills that will keep them alive!
I will tell you that, based on the information circulated after the death of FPA Rachel Wilson and since, it appears that this tragic incident has become a political football and though inappropriate, it is the exclamation point to a series of decisions that may have been made for the wrong reasons that culminated in the death of a 29 year old mother of two small children.
After I read the NIOSH report for this LODD, I was reminded of a training death that occurred on September 25, 2001. Bradley Golden died during a training exercise in Lairdsville, NY.
I was reminded because, in my opinion in both cases, leadership failed. Those who were charged with protecting these new probationary firefighters, failed to do so. Make no mistake; that “protection” begins from the selection process through the rest of their tenure with the fire department.
They are similar incidents because, in both cases, national standards that could have protected them were either violated or ignored. They certainly were not followed. As an example; in both cases, more than ONE fire was set and materials containing petro-chemical components were used as fuel for the training fires.
The other, obvious similarity between the two was that; post-incident, no one was willing to accept responsibility for their actions/inactions. Baltimore Mayor Dixon wasn’t accepting responsibility for Rachel Wilson’s death, even though she pushed for diversity for city employees.
BCFD Chief Goodwin fired three officers because he wasn’t accepting responsibility for Wilson’s training death, even though it was his personal pick heading up the training academy.
In the Lairdsville, NY case, at least the person who refused to take responsibility for his actions was arrested, charged, tried and convicted of contributing to the death of Bradley Golden.
FPA Rachel Wilson was described in the NIOSH report as a 29 year old female, who stood 5’ 4” tall and weighed 192 pounds. According to the CDC Body Mass Index Calculator, Wilson’s BMI was 33; considered to be “obese”. A weight of 110 – 140 pounds for that height would produce a “normal” range BMI stat. This could have been a factor with Wilson’s inability to self-evacuate through a window with a 41” high sill.
Furthermore, there were accusations made early on in the investigation that diversity was a key consideration in Wilson’s hiring. In addition, at the time of FPA Wilson’s training death, the fire department did not have any physical fitness requirements. In other words, NO CPAT (Candidate Physical Ability Test)!
During the post-incident investigation, all fire department officers interviewed, stated that the “city had removed physical fitness requirements” some years before, in an “attempt to recruit a more diversified work force”. The fire department had a physical agility test that lacked national consensus and it relied on “self-elimination” of candidates. The environment at the fire academy was to pressure the less qualified recruits to drop out,” according to interviews.
So; if a candidate made a poor decision to apply, what are the chances that they will make the decision to “self-eliminate”? It is common during the agility portion of a CPAT certified course to FAIL. This tells that applicant: (a) better luck next time and (b) go get into better physical shape and come back. BUT; you don’t get hired until you can pass and damn the diversity initiatives, because being fit for the job has NOTHING to do with race, gender or religion.
Without knowing BCFD’s complete testing process, reports stated that FPA Wilson experienced “mask claustrophobia” during previous training evolutions. Additionally, Wilson had not met the minimum time of the physical agility test. It was reported that Wilson tested again just prior to the live burn and produced a slower time than her initial test time.
So; it is clear that FPA Rachel Wilson’s firefighter skill sets were being brought into question, but only after her death.
Reports were saying that certified fire instructors in Maryland were in short supply. Plus, it was costly to schedule and hire them for training, so, under the watchful eye of Chief Goodwin, the fire department was going to save money by hiring “adjunct” instructors and pay them with more time off, which simply means that he was going to use HIS people and instead of paying them overtime, they would be given more Kelly days. But, wouldn’t someone have to cover them in the rotation and wouldn’t they be paid overtime to do it?
It was reported that, on the day of Wilson’s death, none of the adjunct instructors participating had any training as a fire instructor. Also reported was that the adjunct instructor in FPA Wilson’s squad was doing so for the FIRST time.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is a very important component to personal safety and especially to a firefighter. Turnout gear is literally their barrier to extreme heat and death. According to reports, turnout gear was replaced on the “front lines” and the throwaways were taken to the fire academy, where cadets would select their “gear” for training. On February 9, 2007, FPA Wilson was wearing a coat that was 5 years old and was dirty, but within compliance. Her pants, on the other hand, were 10 years old and well past their useful life and beyond repair. The crotch area shows extreme wear and tear and it was reported that the moisture barrier was no longer effective.
Radios, flashlights and SCBAs were provided on an “as needed” basis. Through interviews, it was noted that some of the participants did not have Personal Alert Safety System (PASS) devices and some instructors did not have radios.
One could suppose that poor communication caused NINE (9) fires to be set, with seven (7) of those fires set underneath the “fire floor”; in this case, the third floor, where Wilson’s crew was to extinguish a training fire (s).
For the training fires, according to NIOSH, a mixture of excelsior, wooden pallets, tree branches, an automotive tire, bed mattresses and foam rubber from a chair were used. Anyone with even a tacit knowledge of NFPA 1403 knows that you only use material with “known burn characteristics”.
The fires were arranged in “teepee” and “lean-to” fashion, both acceptable; however, stuffing excelsior into voids and vent areas are not.
Reports (NIOSH) state that FPA Wilson had difficulty controlling the hose line. As the fire that stood in their way on the second floor grew, her instructor took the hose, knocked down the fire on the second floor and then they advanced to the top floor, where conditions soon deteriorated.
Their exit was a window that led to a second story roof top. The window was approximately 28” wide and the window sill was 41” from the floor (see report). FPA Wilson could not self-evacuate through the window with the rest of her crew. It took a valiant effort for crews to push through the second floor and up to the third floor in order to assist with the rescue of FPA Wilson. She was in serious condition, quickly transported to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead from her injuries.
Mayor Dixon expressed outrage in a press release. Chief Goodwin stated that, if policies were violated, people would be held responsible. His recommendations were sent to the mayor for her press release.
An interesting termination occurred with the officer who was in charge of RIT. According to reports, the RIT officer was on “light duty” and could not actively participate. Had NFPA 1403 been followed, the likelihood of activating the team would have been highly unlikely.
On the day of the incident and during the press conference afterwards, Chief Goodwin praised everyone involved for their “valiant efforts” to rescue FPA Rachel Wilson. So; why would the officer in charge of RIT be one of the three terminated from the department? How was this reward for a “valiant effort”?
Why would anyone on “light duty” be involved beyond the planning stage of a live burn exercise? Who made the decision to place a person on light duty at the scene of a live burn and be put in charge of RIT?
Who made the decision to use this three story, dilapidated piece of crap as a live burn training exercise?
Who made the decision to set more than one training fire at a time during the training evolution?
Who allowed materials with known petro-chemical properties to be used as fuel for the training exercise?
And at the very beginning that led to a very sad ending: who made the decision to hire FPA Rachel Wilson?
Was the decision to hire Rachel Wilson made by city hall to achieve diversity? If so, then the mayor should be held accountable.
If Chief Goodwin allowed the culture that ultimately led to the death of Rachel Wilson, then he needed to be held accountable.
Who was accountable for Rachel Wilson on the day she was hired and on the day that she died?
How can the fire service be the face of compassion, if we show little, if any for our own? It becomes increasingly harder to save lives if we kill the ones hired to do that.
And at the end, there is a hypocrisy that allows for a middle aged, out of shape, paperweight to decree CPAT for everyone…else!
That same hypocrisy allows us to spin our information. I applaud BCFD for implementing the corrective actions to the ten (10) NIOSH recommendations. Note that I didn’t say “changes” as Chief Clack did. “Change” is what will occur within the department AFTER the recommendations are implemented.
And if anyone is looking for “justice” out of all of this?
Let’s just say that there must be a “sliding” scale, because in New York, you can go to jail if you don’t protect your people’s safety, but in Maryland? You just move on to bigger and better things.
Here are the links that I promised:
http://www.abc2news.com/news/local/story/Final-Report-On-Firefighte...
http://www.emsnetwork.org/artman/publish/article_25310.shtml
http://www.baltimoresun2.com/talk/showthread.php?t=112618
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/fire/reports/face200709.html
http://wjz.com/topstories/firefighter.injured.west.2.425362.html
http://www.baltimorecity.gov/news/press/02-22-07StatementonWilsonIn...
http://www.ci.baltimore.md.us/government/fire/downloads/1208/121908...
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/adult_B...
http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=13835
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/fire/reports/face200138.html
http://media.www.loyolagreyhound.com/media/storage/paper665/news/20...
http://www.cwhms.com/news.php?id=1
http://www.firefighterclosecalls.com/pdf/BaltimoreTrainingLODDFinal...
TCSS.
Art
This article is protected by federal copyright under The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie© umbrella. It cannot be re-produced in any form without the expressed permission of the original author.
Author's Note: Happy New Year to all of my star studded friends. You know who you are. But there is business to attend to. I'm starting off the new year with more food for thought. As always, I welcome comments and different perspectives. Art
On January 3, 2009, the BCFD internal report commissioned by the mayor was added to the article. It provides more detail that is not found in the NIOSH LODD report. This is the report with acknowledgement paid to FirefighterCloseCalls: http://www.firefighterclosecalls.com/pdf/BaltimoreTrainingLODDFinal...
We use the term “baptism by fire” in the fire service to measure that milestone that we achieve with our first big fire; our first true test as a firefighter. The “baptism” welcomes us into a world where ranks are closed very tightly and bonds are never to be broken. And when one dies, the aggrieved mourns the loss, but it is the fire department that captures all of the attention.
This blog is done with respect to and in honor of Fire Paramedic Apprentice (FPA) Rachel Wilson of the Baltimore City Fire Department, who died during a training exercise on February 9, 2007.
The intent of this blog is to examine pre-incident issues, post-incident issues, recommendations that were made post-incident and corrective measures taken to date. Comments are welcome, but they will be respectful, thoughtful and most of all, civil. I expect there to be differences of opinions, but again; they will be respectful replies.
Because of the many issues involved, I believe that it is important that a dissection of available information takes place and we intake them as lessons learned.
First of all, I know very little about the “inner” workings of one of our storied fire departments in this country; Balitmore City Fire Department. After all, they were the backdrop for the feature film “Ladder 49”.
However; though I may not know how BCFD fulfills their mission statement, I know how it should work at ANY fire department, because firefighters are NOT supposed to die during their training. They are supposed to be learning the skills that will keep them alive!
I will tell you that, based on the information circulated after the death of FPA Rachel Wilson and since, it appears that this tragic incident has become a political football and though inappropriate, it is the exclamation point to a series of decisions that may have been made for the wrong reasons that culminated in the death of a 29 year old mother of two small children.
After I read the NIOSH report for this LODD, I was reminded of a training death that occurred on September 25, 2001. Bradley Golden died during a training exercise in Lairdsville, NY.
I was reminded because, in my opinion in both cases, leadership failed. Those who were charged with protecting these new probationary firefighters, failed to do so. Make no mistake; that “protection” begins from the selection process through the rest of their tenure with the fire department.
They are similar incidents because, in both cases, national standards that could have protected them were either violated or ignored. They certainly were not followed. As an example; in both cases, more than ONE fire was set and materials containing petro-chemical components were used as fuel for the training fires.
The other, obvious similarity between the two was that; post-incident, no one was willing to accept responsibility for their actions/inactions. Baltimore Mayor Dixon wasn’t accepting responsibility for Rachel Wilson’s death, even though she pushed for diversity for city employees.
BCFD Chief Goodwin fired three officers because he wasn’t accepting responsibility for Wilson’s training death, even though it was his personal pick heading up the training academy.
In the Lairdsville, NY case, at least the person who refused to take responsibility for his actions was arrested, charged, tried and convicted of contributing to the death of Bradley Golden.
FPA Rachel Wilson was described in the NIOSH report as a 29 year old female, who stood 5’ 4” tall and weighed 192 pounds. According to the CDC Body Mass Index Calculator, Wilson’s BMI was 33; considered to be “obese”. A weight of 110 – 140 pounds for that height would produce a “normal” range BMI stat. This could have been a factor with Wilson’s inability to self-evacuate through a window with a 41” high sill.
Furthermore, there were accusations made early on in the investigation that diversity was a key consideration in Wilson’s hiring. In addition, at the time of FPA Wilson’s training death, the fire department did not have any physical fitness requirements. In other words, NO CPAT (Candidate Physical Ability Test)!
During the post-incident investigation, all fire department officers interviewed, stated that the “city had removed physical fitness requirements” some years before, in an “attempt to recruit a more diversified work force”. The fire department had a physical agility test that lacked national consensus and it relied on “self-elimination” of candidates. The environment at the fire academy was to pressure the less qualified recruits to drop out,” according to interviews.
So; if a candidate made a poor decision to apply, what are the chances that they will make the decision to “self-eliminate”? It is common during the agility portion of a CPAT certified course to FAIL. This tells that applicant: (a) better luck next time and (b) go get into better physical shape and come back. BUT; you don’t get hired until you can pass and damn the diversity initiatives, because being fit for the job has NOTHING to do with race, gender or religion.
Without knowing BCFD’s complete testing process, reports stated that FPA Wilson experienced “mask claustrophobia” during previous training evolutions. Additionally, Wilson had not met the minimum time of the physical agility test. It was reported that Wilson tested again just prior to the live burn and produced a slower time than her initial test time.
So; it is clear that FPA Rachel Wilson’s firefighter skill sets were being brought into question, but only after her death.
Reports were saying that certified fire instructors in Maryland were in short supply. Plus, it was costly to schedule and hire them for training, so, under the watchful eye of Chief Goodwin, the fire department was going to save money by hiring “adjunct” instructors and pay them with more time off, which simply means that he was going to use HIS people and instead of paying them overtime, they would be given more Kelly days. But, wouldn’t someone have to cover them in the rotation and wouldn’t they be paid overtime to do it?
It was reported that, on the day of Wilson’s death, none of the adjunct instructors participating had any training as a fire instructor. Also reported was that the adjunct instructor in FPA Wilson’s squad was doing so for the FIRST time.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is a very important component to personal safety and especially to a firefighter. Turnout gear is literally their barrier to extreme heat and death. According to reports, turnout gear was replaced on the “front lines” and the throwaways were taken to the fire academy, where cadets would select their “gear” for training. On February 9, 2007, FPA Wilson was wearing a coat that was 5 years old and was dirty, but within compliance. Her pants, on the other hand, were 10 years old and well past their useful life and beyond repair. The crotch area shows extreme wear and tear and it was reported that the moisture barrier was no longer effective.
Radios, flashlights and SCBAs were provided on an “as needed” basis. Through interviews, it was noted that some of the participants did not have Personal Alert Safety System (PASS) devices and some instructors did not have radios.
One could suppose that poor communication caused NINE (9) fires to be set, with seven (7) of those fires set underneath the “fire floor”; in this case, the third floor, where Wilson’s crew was to extinguish a training fire (s).
For the training fires, according to NIOSH, a mixture of excelsior, wooden pallets, tree branches, an automotive tire, bed mattresses and foam rubber from a chair were used. Anyone with even a tacit knowledge of NFPA 1403 knows that you only use material with “known burn characteristics”.
The fires were arranged in “teepee” and “lean-to” fashion, both acceptable; however, stuffing excelsior into voids and vent areas are not.
Reports (NIOSH) state that FPA Wilson had difficulty controlling the hose line. As the fire that stood in their way on the second floor grew, her instructor took the hose, knocked down the fire on the second floor and then they advanced to the top floor, where conditions soon deteriorated.
Their exit was a window that led to a second story roof top. The window was approximately 28” wide and the window sill was 41” from the floor (see report). FPA Wilson could not self-evacuate through the window with the rest of her crew. It took a valiant effort for crews to push through the second floor and up to the third floor in order to assist with the rescue of FPA Wilson. She was in serious condition, quickly transported to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead from her injuries.
Mayor Dixon expressed outrage in a press release. Chief Goodwin stated that, if policies were violated, people would be held responsible. His recommendations were sent to the mayor for her press release.
An interesting termination occurred with the officer who was in charge of RIT. According to reports, the RIT officer was on “light duty” and could not actively participate. Had NFPA 1403 been followed, the likelihood of activating the team would have been highly unlikely.
On the day of the incident and during the press conference afterwards, Chief Goodwin praised everyone involved for their “valiant efforts” to rescue FPA Rachel Wilson. So; why would the officer in charge of RIT be one of the three terminated from the department? How was this reward for a “valiant effort”?
Why would anyone on “light duty” be involved beyond the planning stage of a live burn exercise? Who made the decision to place a person on light duty at the scene of a live burn and be put in charge of RIT?
Who made the decision to use this three story, dilapidated piece of crap as a live burn training exercise?
Who made the decision to set more than one training fire at a time during the training evolution?
Who allowed materials with known petro-chemical properties to be used as fuel for the training exercise?
And at the very beginning that led to a very sad ending: who made the decision to hire FPA Rachel Wilson?
Was the decision to hire Rachel Wilson made by city hall to achieve diversity? If so, then the mayor should be held accountable.
If Chief Goodwin allowed the culture that ultimately led to the death of Rachel Wilson, then he needed to be held accountable.
Who was accountable for Rachel Wilson on the day she was hired and on the day that she died?
How can the fire service be the face of compassion, if we show little, if any for our own? It becomes increasingly harder to save lives if we kill the ones hired to do that.
And at the end, there is a hypocrisy that allows for a middle aged, out of shape, paperweight to decree CPAT for everyone…else!
That same hypocrisy allows us to spin our information. I applaud BCFD for implementing the corrective actions to the ten (10) NIOSH recommendations. Note that I didn’t say “changes” as Chief Clack did. “Change” is what will occur within the department AFTER the recommendations are implemented.
And if anyone is looking for “justice” out of all of this?
Let’s just say that there must be a “sliding” scale, because in New York, you can go to jail if you don’t protect your people’s safety, but in Maryland? You just move on to bigger and better things.
Here are the links that I promised:
http://www.abc2news.com/news/local/story/Final-Report-On-Firefighte...
http://www.emsnetwork.org/artman/publish/article_25310.shtml
http://www.baltimoresun2.com/talk/showthread.php?t=112618
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/fire/reports/face200709.html
http://wjz.com/topstories/firefighter.injured.west.2.425362.html
http://www.baltimorecity.gov/news/press/02-22-07StatementonWilsonIn...
http://www.ci.baltimore.md.us/government/fire/downloads/1208/121908...
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/adult_B...
http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=13835
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/fire/reports/face200138.html
http://media.www.loyolagreyhound.com/media/storage/paper665/news/20...
http://www.cwhms.com/news.php?id=1
http://www.firefighterclosecalls.com/pdf/BaltimoreTrainingLODDFinal...
TCSS.
Art
This article is protected by federal copyright under The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie© umbrella. It cannot be re-produced in any form without the expressed permission of the original author.
Tags: 2007, burn, chiefreason, diversity, fire, goodwin, live, niosh, report, training
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Comment by Rick on January 13, 2009 at 3:30am -
J kelley, Great second post!!
Rick
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Comment by Rick on January 13, 2009 at 2:39am
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Kali,
I,m glad to see that we are on the same page.I thought we were on the same page, but at times started to wonder if we would have to agree to disagree. Targeted recruitment is fine if you have the resources to do so in an unbiased fashion, meaning that your targeted audience meets the same standards of other recruits in the same scoring range. Lowering standards and selective recruitment based on race or gender is discrimination and a very real safety concern for all in the department concerned.
Having interacted with many individuals, in different geographical regions in this country, my experience has been that most moderate sized departments do a much better job of preformance based recruiting( PAT and written exam) than large or small departments do, considering nepotism, the GOB network and quotas or political agendas. It's my belief that a parallel playing field is imperative. Barring your personal beliefs based on this little debate, as an officer I could care less about someones race or gender if I can count on them during a real emergency ( box alarm,tech rescue, or EMS response). Being fairly close to the BCFD and having similar hiring standards, I assure you that their priorities were more along the lines of the # of minorities hired rather than hireing qualified recruits. Until issues like this are addressed at a legislative level we will have to voice our opionions in blogs like this one concerning avoidable tragedys.
Rick
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Comment by Joel C Kelley on January 12, 2009 at 2:06pm - In the Denver metro area, the average wait time to hire is seven years! Here in Hawaii, we have 500 plus candidates a year for less than ten positions in our county. It seems like there is no great lack of people who are motivated and qualified, so hire the best you can attract. Having been through the recruiting process in three states, I can attest that a LOT of people want to get these jobs. Failing any part of the testing process is a disqulification. BCFD failed when they put diversity standards before basic hiring standards. THAT is what got Ms Wilson into a bad situation. Nothing else.
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Comment by Joel C Kelley on January 12, 2009 at 1:47pm
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Two things:
First, If I had wanted to go through a military recruitment process, I would have enlisted. Many folks need a more humanistic form of recruitment, and do NOT want the name, rank and serial number type of recruitment. I don't give a whit for quotas, I just want to work with good people who are all dedicated to the same goal. This is not to say I don't believe CPAT should not be part of the process, but this brings me to my second point. CPAT should not an d cannot be the primary benchmark by which recruits are evaluated. Our industry needs intelligent, thoughtful people, and making the CPAT the high priority, the odds are higher that musclebound knuckle dragging troglodytes will be who get the jobs. I have worked with a few people who don't have the sense god gave toadstools, but boy could they force entry!
They are dumb as a bag of hammers, but they sure scored well on the CPAT. This could be disastrous for the safety record of our industry, as strong but not smart tries to think his way out of a critical situation where strength alone won't do the trick.
We HAVE to recruit a healthy blend of brains and brawn to be successful in our work.
Does that include the late Ms. Wilson? Probably not, but we cannot pretend she is the only LODD of a recruit in the last few years. Some young, strong and CPAT savvy folks have died in their academies.
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Comment by Rick on January 11, 2009 at 9:16pm
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Kali,
I think that using the Navy Seals as a recruiting example is wonderful, we could expand that a little to include any military special forces unit and professional sports. I'm not going to pretend that I know where the Seals go to do their recruiting but I do know that very few graduate from their program, their wash out rate is very high. Having quite a few friends in the military or being ex military I feel confident in saying that the aforementioned organizations do preformance based recruiting with little if any reguard for race or gender, you meet the standards and pass or you fail. In my perfect world and it sounds like possibly yours also, the fire service would recruit in the same manner. The question is why dont they?? The answer goes back to politics. The military leaders and professional sports team owners want the very best in their units or on their teams, there not chasing votes, not concerned with quotas and they dont fear the EEO complaint.
Ideally the fire service "should" have very high recruitment and entry standards that are race and gender blind, reality however is very disappointing. I work in a large very diverse department, in a very diverse city. In 17 years I have watched our PAT go from one that mirrored the combat challange to one with a seperate pass/ fail score for males and females(grievance ended that) to the current "modified CPAT" that allowes approximately three times the national average of time to fail. When we advertise for a hiring list, we have thousands of people competing to get on a list of about 1000 candidates of which maybe 200 will potentially be hired.That scenario is common in the northeast so its safe to say that "idealistic" recruitment methods are not a reailty.With that said I have to stand by my statement that having to go and recruit anyone for the fire service is absurd and discriminatory to the individuals of any race or gender that have worked hard to be a qualified candidate. If standards were not lowered, and selective recruitment methods not utilized, Ms. Wilson would have not been subject to the operational deficiencies at the BCFD and this tragedy would not have happened.
Rick
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Comment by Rick on January 10, 2009 at 2:16pm
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I believe that LA has tried recruiting from universities as well as holding mini training camps for minorities. They still have not reached satisfactory numbers with those recruitment efforts. I personally think that having to go and recruit people is absurd. The consenses so far has been that there are far more potiential recruits than there are positions for them to fill. In the northeast every major department that advertises for vacancies has thousands of people competing for a very few positions. So if having to go and recruit people for the fire service is the answer to diversity , then I dont care where you recruit them from , just find qualified, motivated individuals.
To elaborate on my previous post. The unfortunate reality of lowering standards to achieve any quota is that once the standards are lowered, they are lowered for EVERYONE. I dont have the time to elaborate on that one now.
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Comment by Ron Graner on January 10, 2009 at 11:52am -
Kali has hit the nail on the head. Why not recruit the brightest and the best at your local colleges. The colleges have already spent fortunes getting them to come to their colleges.
I have seen the results of this recruiting in my travels to many great departments and it does work.
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Comment by emodfd on January 10, 2009 at 11:45am - In response to an earlier posting about waning numbers of qualified recruit candidates, here in the Southwest we have an excess of overqualified personnel.The competition is tough and you are going up against a lot of really good and bright candidates. In the medium to large depts. hundreds of people show up for 5 to 20 spots Great work histories, more and more college education, many are willing to go to great lengths financially and time investment wise to be trained on there own at various medic schools and fire academies to give them an edge. Many of these folks wait extraordinary lengths of time to be hired.
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Comment by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on January 9, 2009 at 12:39pm
- Had there not been a push on at Baltimore for more diversity, would FPA Rachel Wilson have died at this training fire on February 9, 2007?
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Comment by Mary Ellen Shea on January 9, 2009 at 1:27am -
Let's look at perhaps what might be the bigger picture here...waning numbers of qualified recruits for the fire service, both paid and volunteer. "Desperate times call for desperate measures" ....are we so desperate for (wo)manpower that we're willing to fill quotas, diversity-based or otherwise, in order to cover our response times?
Have we reached the point that we gloss over serious and life threatening deficiencies in our recruits in order to bolster our rosters? Just today I read about a firefighter who didn't know how to address the fact that a fellow recruit abandoned him AND the "two-in, two-out" principle during the heat (literally) of a live burn training.
What's the answer? Honestly, I don't know. I'm deferring to Tiger on that one. He's the Recruitment and Retention guy.
And one more thing.... I simply can not wrap my mind around the fact that live burn trainings in abandoned or derelict buildings, despite the mortality and injury rate, are still happening.
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I couldn't pick between them. They are both great. If it's about firefighters, it has to be good, right?
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