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Glendale Fire & Rescue News Glendale Fire & Rescue News Glendale City Council 2nd Quarter- 2013 Dave Weaver, Mayor Laura Friedman A Note From the Fire Chief Ara Najarian Frank Quintero Community First Zareh Sinanyan City Manager On June 22, we held our annual retiree luncheon at Fire Station 21; we had over 65 retirees in attend- Scott Ochoa ance for this year’s luncheon. It was nice for many of our retirees to get together here at the GFD and Assistant City Manager share a few stories of the past and catch up on what Yasmin Beers is currently going on here in the department. Thank you to Captain Lynch, Engineer Frazier and Truck & Engine 21 A/B who took the lead in preparing a great smoke tri-tip lunch this year. Please refer to the fol- lowing link to view a short year in review video that was played at this year’s luncheon 2013 GFD Retiree Luncheon Video (https://docs.google.com/file/ d/0B7mlearBxefNeVo3TGxNSHBWeEE/edit?pli=1). This past week the City Council approved our FY 13/14 budget. Over the past five years the GFD, just like many other organizations, have become accus- tomed to doing more with less. The coming year will be no different, as an Harold Scoggins organization we will have to continue to prioritize our resource deployment and Fire Chief use them where we can have the most impact for the community. This has become more challenging with our emergency incident call load increasing, Robert Doyle training schedules, prevention responsibilities and many projects and programs Deputy Chief that our personnel manage. We are tasked with many responsibilities and it can become overwhelming very fast if we lose focus on our mission. Our mission, Thomas Marchant “to protect life and property by providing the highest level of service to the com- Battalion Chief – A Platoon munity” provides the clarity that we need to prioritize our days when the load seems too heavy. As our profession sees drastic changes as it relates to our staff- Ron Gulli ing and our workload distribution, the decisions that were routine in the past have Battalion Chief – B Platoon become critical today. I am confident that as long as we continue to make deci- sions based on our mission, we will be successful in the future just as we have Vince Rifino been in the past. Battalion Chief – C Platoon As EMS and the Affordable Health Care Act (AHCA) gets closer and closer Thomas Propst to an intersection, the fire service is still trying to figure out how that new rela- Training & Safety Chief tionship will affect our call load. As we watch our EMS calls continue to sky- rocket, we also have to ask ourselves if it is time to look at other ways to stabilize Greg Fish our responses by providing different levels of service. Here locally, we have an EMS Battalion Chief aging population and that generally means that we will be called out more often than we were in the past. This becomes problematic when we are called out to basic life support calls that occupy our limited advanced life support re- sources. Today, we see this happening more and more, this may be due to the evolution of EMS in the fire service over the past 40 year. The public is 1 2nd Quarter- 2013 completely aware that firefighter paramedics are highly trained, calm and focused individuals, and there is a comfort level when the 911 call is made and our personnel show up. Locally, we will start the conversation on what that intersection looks like and possible solutions to the ever increasing EMS response call load. Our goal will be to come up with solutions to stabilize and/or reduce our EMS call load, stay tuned… This past quarter has been filled with many types of significant emergencies. We kicked off the brush fire season early this year when we launched three strike teams to Ventura in early May. During that same time period, we battled a 75 acre brush fire here locally. The weathers lack of precipitation has really created a significant issue for the region and the state this year. Our rainfall totals in the area have been about 8” this season, but only 2” since December; to keep it in perspective our normal rain fall range is about 15” annually. The message is small fires may spread at a faster rate than normal due to the conditions and our actions should be adjusted accordingly. The fire weather experts are compar- ing conditions to the 2008 fire season. Many of you may remember that season when dry lightning strikes started many small and large fires throughout the state. Let’s focus on preparing our local dis- tricts with our vegetation management programs and public education. outreach We have also had several notable incidents like the Brand structure fire and the over side rescue off of the 2 freeway and in Chevy Chase Canyon. These types of events remind us that our threats are many and we have to continue to make sure our personnel are prepared for the variety of incidents that we may face. This all starts with a commitment to training! We have to treat each day as if we would be faced with the most significant event we would face in our career and prepare ourselves and our per- sonnel by putting in the work before the alarm goes off. We have to remember that nothing replaces training! On June 30, 2013 the fire service suffered the loss of 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots while they were battling the Yarnell Hill Fire. This is the worst loss the fire service has suffered since 9/11 and the most tragic wildland incident since 1933. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots, their families and the Prescott Fire Department. May they all rest in peace. - Harold Scoggins Fire Chief “Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.” - Joseph Campbell 2 2nd Quarter- 2013 Message From the Deputy Fire Chief The hastened arrival of improve fire ground operations and multi‑agen- fire season has put us all on cy coordination for the annual wild land fire notice on what lies ahead. I problem. cannot recall a year where The status of major wildland fires and the we have had so many large large amounts of apparatus committed to them fires this early in the season. As has already are tracked through the Operations Coordination been demonstrated, we will surely be sharing Center (South Ops), which is located in River- resources throughout the State in the coming side, California. This is done much in the same months. fashion as our own resources are managed through Verdugo. During such a high activity It is amazing to observe how far we have period, representatives from Region I will aug- come as a profession during my tenure in terms ment South Ops to assist and be in place should of working seamlessly together. It was not all large fire activity emerge in our region. that long ago that we could not even talk to our neighboring fire departments – that would be Mutual Aid hard for a layperson to understand if they ob- served the interoperability that existed on the The possibility of fire and disasters that ex- recent fire we hosted in Chevy Chase and Glen- ceed the capacity of the local fire fighting forces oaks Canyon’s a few weeks ago. Although there must always be considered. For this reason, is more work to do, we are light years ahead of most fire departments traditionally have rendered where we began. assistance to other departments in times of need. Mutual Aid plans establish procedures so that The tragic 1970 wildland fire season in each party will know what is expected of the oth- Southern California shared a similar WX pattern er in that time of need. as this season; it burned 500,000 acres, claimed over 700 homes, and 16 lives were lost in a 13- Mutual Aid agreements also should include day period. As a result, the FIRESCOPE project provisions for standard operating procedures, was developed. inter-departmental communications and com- mand responsibility for the participating depart- ments. It must be realized that the parties plan to The United States Congress chartered the render assistance only to the extent that can be FIRESCOPE project in 1972 and directed the done without reducing the local protection. Forest Service to assist Southern California fire agencies in its development. The original acro- The Glendale Fire Department has numerous nym stood for Firefighting Resources of South- assistance agreements, initial action zone agree- ern California Organized for Potential Emergen- ments, memorandum of understanding, automat- cies. It's purpose was to deal with major prob- ic aid agreements, and verbal agreements to ei- lems that related to mutual aid, incident manage- ther provide or receive fire or medical resources ment, communications and multi‑agency coordi- from other agencies. nation that surfaced during the 1970 fire season. When speaking about Mutual Aid, the most In 1986 a new acronym for FIRESCOPE was vexing part of the relationship is to give up re- approved, Firefighting Resources of California sources to others during extreme fire weather Organized for Potential Emergencies. conditions. The Area C Coordinator has to make that call and it is no easy task. The Forest Service was directed to assist the Southern California fire agencies in a program to 3 2nd Quarter- 2013 The dispatch policy for Area C states that we more agencies in the form of a letter of will dispatch up to 10 engine companies, in the intent.
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