NIOSH Alert: Preventing Deaths and Injuries of Fire Fighters using Risk Management Principles at Structure Fires

摘要

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) requests assistance in preventing deaths and injuries of U.S. fire fighters working in or around burning structures. The mission of the U.S. fire service is to save lives and property. While it is recognized that fire fighting is an inherently hazardous occupation, established fire service risk management principles are based on the philosophy that greater risks will be assumed when there are lives to be saved and the level of acceptable risk to fire fighters is much lower when only property is at stake. Interior (inside a structure) offensive fire-fighting operations can increase the risk of traumatic injury and death to fire fighters from structural collapse, burns, and asphyxiation. Established risk management principles suggest that more caution should be exercised in abandoned, vacant, and unoccupied structures and in situations where there is no clear evidence indicating that people are trapped inside a structure and can be saved. When the incident commander (IC) has determined that there are no lives to save and the property can no longer be preserved through offensive operations, defensive tactics should be initiated in order to decrease the risk to fire fighters. This Alert describes 4 incidents that resulted in the deaths of 5 fire fighters and injuries to 10 others during operations in and around structures with considerable fire involvement where there were indications that the buildings were unoccupied.