! ! A TRIBUTE TO THE WORK OF ANDY FREDERICKS ! (COMPILED BY: GARY LANE) ! ! "FIGHTING FIRE WITH WATER" ! ! Fire Nuggets Bio !Andy Fredericks ! The late ANDREW FREDERICKS was a firefighter in the City of New York (NY) Fire Department (FDNY) assigned to Squad Company 18 in Manhattan, one of five squad companies high inside the First World Trade Center tower rescuing people when it collapsed on September 11, 2001. A member of the fire service for 21 years, Mr. Fredericks was a New York State certified fire instructor (Level II) at the Rockland County Fire Training Center in Pomona, NY, an adjunct instructor at the New York State Academy of Fire Science, a field instructor for the Illinois Fire Service Institute, an instructor for the New York State Association of Fire Chief's, and an adjunct lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Mr. Fredericks was co-author of FDNY's engine company operations manual. He was a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Fire Engineering and the FDIC Educational Advisory Board. He was president of Andrew A. Fredericks & Associates, Inc., a firm specializing in municipal fire service training and consulting. Mr. Fredericks held a bachelor of arts in political science, a bachelor of science in public safety/fire science, and a master's degree in fire protection !management. ! !May We Never Forget You ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !Fire Nuggets !ANDY'S AMBASSADOR'S !BY DAVE McGRAIL For the past several months, I have been thinking and searching for a meaningful topic to submit to my brothers at Fire Nuggets. Ted Corporandy and Paul Schuller have been very patient with me, but have remained tenacious with their requests of me, as I continue to procrastinate and miss deadline after deadline for submission. I always say that I will get an article ready for the next issue, but then I seem to get involved with another house project, fire department project, or whatever happens to be the current demand in my life. Then it just puts me that many more months in debt to my brothers at !Fire Nuggets. So here goes, finally. As I reach the completion of my first year as a district chief on the Denver Fire Department, my mind is continually swimming with thoughts and “firenuggets” which I would like to share. However, I place most of these on the back burner, in an effort to !first share those items that always seem to rise to the top of my list. Like many of my brothers out there, I am still, frequently thinking of the events of September 11, 2001. Specifically, I think of my friend and brother Andy Fredericks and the positive impact he had on my career and my life as both a friend and fire service brother. Many of our brothers have written articles in regard to nozzles and made dedications to Andy regardless of the subject. My intention here is not to repeat what you have already heard or read, but to build on what other brothers have said, specifically the recent Fire Nuggets article by my brother and friend Captain Tim Adams, !Sacramento City Fire Department, Engine Co. 6. Consider this a story about my friendship with Andy and our continued work to carry on Andy’s work by teaching and spreading a most critical message to our brothers !throughout the American fire service. Like several generations of firefighters over the past twenty to thirty years, I was initially raised and taught to fight fires with combination fog nozzles. In fact, as a brand new firefighter in a 1982, I had no idea there was any other type of nozzle out there other than the combination fog. I was taught to use a wide 60-degree fog pattern for fire attack, with a very strong emphasis on preventing any and all water damage. I was also taught to use the fog stream as a water curtain to protect exposures, and furthermore, I !was taught to use a fog pattern to protect myself from the fire in front of me. I remember my first experience with the propane Christmas Tree. What a fantastic and exhilarating training experience that was for a young firefighter, especially during a night-training drill. Twenty years later, I am still anxiously waiting to be dispatched to a Propane Christmas Tree on fire. ! In the mid-Eighties, after taking several major beatings at various different structure fires, I was finally taught a very valuable, but hard, lesson. While using water fog (the way I was taught), I sustained serious steam burns to my ears and neck. I wasn’t injured seriously enough to warrant a hospital stay, rehabilitation, or skin graphs, Thank God, but nevertheless, it was a painful and embarrassing experience. It was also the beginning of my quality education regarding fire streams, fire attack, and overall fire !ground operations. My most important mentor throughout my life, both personally and professionally has always been my father. Pat McGrail is a retired division chief of the Denver Fire Department, who worked 42 years before he retired. He never missed a shift in that entire 42 years. He never called in sick and always worked on the busiest fire !companies in the city. While trying for several years to get hired by the Denver Fire Department, I was fortunate enough to get hired on a smaller suburban fire department in the Denver metropolitan area. My father allowed me to find my own way and make mistakes along the way in order to gain my own experience. However, he was always available to !answer questions and give advice. With a bright red neck, blistered and swollen ears, I felt and probably looked a little like “Spock” from StarTrek. It was certainly impossible to hide the mistake of my inexperience from anyone, especially my father. His questions were not to belittle or poke fun at me, but rather designed to help me gain knowledge. “What size line were you using?” he asked. Followed up by “what type nozzle was at the end of that line?” These simple questions were the keys to solving what I would later learn to be a significant problem throughout the American fire service, but also a problem with a very !common sense and simple solution. It’s been many years ago, but it seems like yesterday that I learned how dangerous it was to trust a 1!-inch attack handline, with a 95 gpm 100 psi combination fog nozzle between me and a much more formidable opponent. It was after that experience that I decided to dedicate my career to the study of fire streams, nozzles, handlines, and the !various other critical components of the engine company. Little did I know that at the same time a young firefighter by the name of Andy Fredericks was making his way into our great profession. Andy’s dream was to become a New York City fireman. Like me, Andy had to work for many years to achieve his dream, working in both the volunteer sector as well as a medium-sized fire department !in Virginia before his appointment to the FDNY. Over the years, I gained as much knowledge as possible from my mentors, classes, seminars, books, videos, and my own personal firefighting experiences. I was also a dedicated reader of the periodicals, including Fire Engineering magazine. After working at a serious high-rise fire in 1991, I submitted what would become my first article to Fire Engineering. Thanks to Bill Manning, I was able to get into the loop, which would lead to !many great opportunities including my association with Andy Fredericks. I felt that my knowledge and experience base in regard to engine company operations, handlines, and nozzles was strong; but there was always room for improvement. In 1995, I was quickly thumbing through the latest edition of Fire Engineering when I came across an article entitled “Return of the Solid Stream.” Needless to say, I stopped at that page, sat down, and for the next half-hour I read all of the information that I wished I could put down on paper and express to others. This guy, Andy Fredericks, was saying everything I believed but could never quite express in such an awesome and !professional manner. I thought, "Who is this guy and where is he from?" Andrew A. Fredericks, from FDNY Engine Co. 48, the bio read. With some additional research, I quickly found out that FDNY Engine Co. 48 was a very busy Bronx engine company that worked many serious fires on a regular basis. Fredericks was obviously a man with a strong formal education who could eloquently express his message and had the down-and-dirty firefighting background gained in the hallways of many a Bronx !tenement to backup every word. I was so moved by the article that I immediately got on the phone in an effort to express my thanks to Andy Fredericks and hopefully learn more from him. I reached Bill Manning and got a phone number. I called and got Andy’s wife at home, and she was kind enough to give me the telephone number to Engine Co. 48. We talked for quite some time. It was a great conversation, and, at the end, I knew that I had a new friend and ally in the effort to move the American fire service and my own fire department forward with regard to fire streams and fire attack. At that time, I had no idea how powerful Andy Fredericks’s message would become and how many men he would !eventually reach.