11/23/2021
https://larryklodtphotos.smugmug.com/FIREFIGHTING-PHOTOS/Cedar-Falls-IA-Fire-Rescue-/CEDAR-FALLS-PUBLIC-SAFETY-DEPARTMENT/3112-Boulder-Dr-November-04-2021/i-F8HQFSD/A
This is a video taken by Larry Klodt of Cedar Falls Public Safety responding to an apartment fire on November 4th, 2021. If you watch the video you might think that it shows police and fire working together to raise a 3 section ladder. But to the trained professional firefighter eye it screams out that these individuals are horribly trained and leadership from their Supervisors is all but nonexistent.
One might think, why does it matter how a ladder is set up? It is because it shows all the areas that are lacking and how those can lead to accidents, injuries, and and even worse on an emergency scene.
Here is what a professional firefighter sees. Here it is taking 5 individuals to set up this ladder. Professional firefighters are trained to do this safely with either 2 or 3 firefighters and a highly trained professional firefighter can do it safely alone if needed. This frees up other firefighters to perform critical tasks like search and rescue and fire suppression.
Secondly, raising a ladder is one of the most basic tasks taught in the firefighter 1 curriculum. In the Firefighter 1 instruction manual firefighters are taught that your hands and fingers are always on the outside of the beam prior to pulling on the rope to raise the top section(s) of the ladder. This is clearly shown in both print and pictures in the firefighter 1 instruction manual. This is so important because if the hooks that keep the sections from sliding do not engage the upper sections can come sliding down and slice, cut, or break you hands, fingers, or wrists. In the video you can watch the female firefighter on the left pull her hand back rapidly as this exact thing happens. That female firefighter is a Public Safety Supervisor above the rank of a Professional Fire Captain. She should know all the techniques of raising a ladder and should be addressing all deficiencies in safely doing this ladder raise but she herself does not even know how to it properly.
Secondly you will see a firefighter dressed all in his work blue uniform, devoid of any fire gear. He is holding onto the rungs of the ladder as the rope is pulled. His wrists could be shattered. That individual is most likely a driver of one of the apparatus. He should be highly trained in all firefighter techniques, as well as how to run all the equipment on his firetruck, including his ladders. He clearly is also devoid of any knowledge on how to simply raise a ladder properly.
Thirdly the placement of the ladder far below the window gives the ladder no useful function. The ladder should have went right up to bottom of the window sill, in the window, or beside the window. Where it was placed provides no possible function on the fireground.
Lastly, all individuals, less one, in the video are devoid of proper fire gear to be operating on the fireground directly under a window where the fire is/was located. Proper head, eye, upper body, lower body, feet, and hand protection is needed. This is the very first thing you are taught in firefighting, to have you protective gear on while operating on an emergency scene. This shows that even the most basic lesson is firefighting has not been learned, or at least definitely not enforced.
Just think for a minute what an injury investigator, like an OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) investigator would think while watching this video. Picture if one of the residents of the apartment would have gotten hurt or worse and sued the City. How do you think the City would fare in court. Remember the City Administration took the firefighter helmet cameras away from the professional firefighters when it started to document this very same failures that the professional firefighters started to point out to the public. Here a civilian captured this "debotchery" of a ladder raise.
The City Administration, City Council (less Dave Sires), and the Mayor Green all have boasted about the Public Safety officers firefighting capabilities. However, to the true professional firefighters the PSOs are just "posing" as firefighters and nothing more. Citizens you have been duped long enough. Eliminate Public Safety in its entirety. You have been given all the evidence you need. The ability is in you hands, all you need to do now is vote your conscious.
Commercial Building Fire - 3112 Boulder Dr. Cedar Falls, IA. November 04, 2021.
