Ohio fire department confronted about response to double fatal fire

[u/The_Road_is_Calling]

https://chroniclet.com/news/411559/wakeman-fire-board-meeting-ends-in-shouting-match-over-fatal-fire/

[u/PerrinAyybara]

What's the actual issue here? Neither article had enough information to even understand the problem.

[u/[deleted] → u/PerrinAyybara]

Sounds like the family is unhappy they didn’t go inside initially due to the progression of the fire, I’m sure staffing didn’t help either

[u/PerrinAyybara → u/[deleted]]

Could be that or time of response but it's hard to sus out.

[u/Rhino676971 → u/PerrinAyybara]

They are volunteers. It took 3.5 minutes for a volunteer department to be on the scene, and it was super fast; I wonder how many firefighters were on the first engine. If it was only a driver, there is not much they could do, and everyone else responded to the fire in POVs or additional apparatus.

[u/Indiancockburn → u/Rhino676971]

You assume that's not just the chief's vehicle...

[u/Rhino676971 → u/Indiancockburn]

That could have been what happened as well

[u/[deleted] → u/PerrinAyybara]

Sounds like it was around 3.5 minutes from dispatch, but either way there’s no making the family happy. People are oblivious as to how public safety works

[u/PerrinAyybara → u/[deleted]]

That was I thought based on the neighbor's being on the phone, it's a bit sloppy in the writing. I highly doubt volly response was that quick if there were complaints about it, unless someone untrained said fully involved when it wasn't. The whole thing is weird without more info

[u/[deleted] → u/PerrinAyybara]

It’s entirely possible if it’s a smaller community, it was also around 8 am so people were up. There could have been delay getting the dispatch to them. So it could be 3 min from dispatch it all depends.

FWIW the public never think you’re there fast enough in my experience. In the city adjacent to mine, a safety officer literally on-sited a building fire less than a block from the first due engine and ladders station, and the neighbors were complaining that it took them forever to get there. They were there as fast as humanly possible 🤷🏻‍♂️

It’s also a pretty touchy thing when shit like this happens and you don’t have full time employees, or the department is full time but not adequate in size.

[u/cderka → u/[deleted]]

I don't know what happened here but I've witnessed in the past a lot of volunteer fire departments will show up with one or two guys and an engine and the rest just respond to the scene directly. Could be that they didn't initially have enough people to be more aggressive at the start. Just a possibility based on first hand experience.

[u/BnaditCorps → u/cderka]

Can we please let this mentality that limited staffing means you can't be aggressive. Where I work every single engine has two person staffing, a couple of engines are 3 person. These are all career fire departments, one of the departments has more structure fires per capita then Stockton. Rarely do structure fires ever go beyond the initial four to five engines dispatched. 

Being aggressive has nothing to do with staffing and everything to do with mentality. A two-person staffed engine arriving on scene quickly and taking action swiftly will do more to mitigate the fire then a four-person staffed engine that arrives on scene and takes forever to stretch hose. Making an aggressive push without 2 out is dangerous, however sometimes that's what you need to do to mitigate the emergency and you have to balance that risk with the reward. 

And don't say that no where should have two person staffed engines because where I work there's not enough tax base for any more staffing, and it is pulling teeth to maintain current staffing.

[u/RaptorTraumaShears → u/PerrinAyybara]

If you read some other articles, the reason family is upset is because a primary search was never performed.