'Kansas City Star' Finds 'Preventable Mistakes' Lead To Firefighter Deaths

"Firefighters continue to die from preventable mistakes," concludes a new investigation in the Kansas City Star. The newspaper dug into the data behind on-duty deaths of firefighters and found significant gaps in departments' training. NPR's Robert Siegel talks to Mike Hendricks, a reporter with the Star.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

America's firefighters continue to die from preventable mistakes. That's the conclusion of a new investigation in the Kansas City Star newspaper. The reporters there examined 20 years of government reports generated when firefighters died in the line of duty. They found gaps in training around the country and crucial lessons that departments ignored. Mike Hendricks is a reporter with the Kansas City Star and joins us. Welcome to the program.

MIKE HENDRICKS: Thanks for having me.

SIEGEL: Now, you went back and examined government reports on fatal incidents involving firefighters that go back two decades. One thing you found again and again was that departments keep making the same mistakes. What are those mistakes, and why?

HENDRICKS: Mistakes such as failing to size up or do a proper risk assessment before rushing into a burning building, failure to carry a hose with water in it despite the fact that the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, which has been investigating these deaths for 20 years, keeps making recommendations saying that you should, A, size up a fire before entering and, B, make sure you have water in your hose. But there are no regulations to require fire departments to carry out those recommendations.

SIEGEL: You have to explain. Why would a firefighter enter a structure that's on fire without a hose?

HENDRICKS: Well, they will have a hose. Well, sometimes they might not have a hose. But there would be kinks in the line, or for whatever reason, it didn't have a water supply. And yet they would rush in on the assumption that one would be forthcoming. But by the time the water started to flow, it might be too late.

SIEGEL: You tell the story of a firefighter in Fresno, Calif., who had taken a position on the roof of a burning garage, fell through the roof and was severely injured. Just five years earlier, the firefighters in Modesto not far from Fresno had experienced just about the same thing. I mean do fire departments exchange information routinely? Do they see reports of what's happening?

HENDRICKS: Well, indeed the ironic part of that story is that a member of the Fresno Fire Department had been on the investigation team for the Modesto incident and had helped write the report that said firefighters should beware of being on top of garage roofs in a fire because there's no buffer between the flames and the supports 'cause there's no drywall in the ceiling. And yet despite writing - or helping write that report, those lessons weren't transmitted to the Fresno Fire Department's policies.

SIEGEL: When the death of a firefighter in a fire is investigated and reported on, is that information then distributed to all the fire departments around the country? Is it something that everybody would see the way you might see news of an airplane crash somewhere?

HENDRICKS: Those reports are all published online. You can go online and see every single report they've written in the last 20 years. And fire departments are free to make that part of their training materials, or they can ignore them. And many do.

SIEGEL: What did you hear from current and former fire chiefs about the needs to change and the implications of your reporting?

HENDRICKS: Fire chiefs and many others - leaders in the fire service wish that fire departments would take safety more seriously than they do. There are a number of firefighters out there who believe that they should risk their lives to save property, and the fire departments say that's not acceptable.

SIEGEL: Does that raise a cultural question for firefighters as to exactly what is worth putting your life on the line for?

HENDRICKS: Well, according to the leaders in the fire service, a building is not worth putting your life on the line. There's a slogan in the fire service that goes like this. Risk a lot to save a lot; risk a little to save a little; risk nothing to save nothing. No building is worth a firefighter's life.

SIEGEL: Mike Hendricks - a reporter for the Kansas City Star - thanks for talking with us.

HENDRICKS: Thanks a lot.

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