Larger Fire Crews Have Better Chance of Saving Lives

From KAUZ News, Wichita Falls
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology published a report showing just how much of a difference there is between a four to five person fire crew verses a two to three person crew, and that could be the difference in saving a life.

They run into a burning house while you run out, a firefighters duty is never easy, and certainly not when their short-handed.

Fire chief of the Graham Texas Fire Department Dennie Covey says when they’re headed to a fire they have a minimum of three personnel on a truck, but just one more can make a difference.

“They could do a quicker search, they could do a better job of containing the fire,” Covey said.

According to the report if the Graham Fire Department added just one more firefighter to its three person truck crew, water could be delivered 6 percent faster and search and rescue operations would be 5 percent faster.

Every minute counts and Lieutenant Michael Reynolds realizes that. “We definitely believe that with more personnel you could have a better opportunity to save a life.”

Fire Chief Covey says they’re blessed to just have a total of 11 full-time firefighters.

“It wasn’t many years ago that we had like two personnel on each truck and I can remember when I first started there was only one person on the truck,” Covey said.

Graham is no exception to the fact that small fire crews are something small towns have to deal with, but there’s no denying these small crews take big risks.

The biggest effect the study showed was from a four person fire crew verses a two person crew. When completing search and rescue the four person crew is 30 percent faster.