BY DON DOYLE
The opening minutes of a long-term incident involving a marine vessel may be the most critical-and the most productive-of the event. As at almost any large-scale incident, fire service agencies conduct a size-up, establish command, and commit resources. Over the next several hours, they call for extra resources and make decisions that will affect the course of the incident. With a large-scale incident involving a marine vessel, however, fire personnel could be involved with people who would have to perform tasks and roles we never knew existed.
Below is my account of how the 12 fire agencies comprising the Fire Protection Agencies Advisory Council (F-PAAC), working under the umbrella of the Maritime Fire and Safety Association (MFSA), created a training program that has reduced costs and improved the quality of training for the firefighters, company officers, and chief officers along the Lower Columbia River from the Portland-Vancouver area to Astoria, Oregon. This multilayered training program allows for improvements and growth. In addition, it creates a response plan that emphasizes those opening minutes of a potentially long-term incident and controls the direction of the fire agency’s reaction until more help arrives from other F-PAAC agencies.
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