USFS to Stop Using Lights/Siren

[castriketeam]

We have carefully considered the fine and thoughtful work produced by the Lights and Siren Committee chartered earlier this year to provide Regional recommendations on the use of lights and sirens.

As we shared with you recently at the RLT meeting, we do not believe our personnel, within the scope of our mission, require a need to have red lights and siren capabilities when responding to incidents. Therefore, we will not authorize training or use of existing equipment for this purpose on any of the Forests within the Region. If any units have authorized this use, I ask that you cease this use as soon as possible. We do concur wholeheartedly with the committee for the need for amber lighting or other approved industry standard lighting to maintain the highest level of equipment visibility for our personnel.

Since seventy-five percent of our fire fleet has been equipped with a full lighting and siren package and nearly all of our replacement fleet is on order, we agree with the committee to finish up the current fire fleet replacement program with the current lighting packages and accessories to ensure consistent fleet equipment packages within the Region. However, when this current fleet is up for replacement, we will need to begin equipping our vehicles with the appropriate lighting packages only to meet the needs of maintaining the highest level of visibility for our personnel, and no longer include red lights or siren equipment for those unauthorized uses.

Training for the use of this approved equipment will be incorporated into such regional venues as the annual Regional Engine Academy. You are also encouraged to provide this training locally on your Forests consistent with state licensing requirements for use of this equipment. The Region will assist if necessary in developing standard training.

A Regional supplement will be published this winter after your review outlining Regional policy for fire fleet equipment issues, and will incorporate my direction above. It will also include other committee recommendations, such as appropriate vehicles for lighting packages. We agree that direction is needed on this topic to ensure fleet consistency and sound fiscal expenditures.

We will also strongly consider your recommendations on designators and standardization in our regional supplement. We agree with the committee that we need to develop fleet management systems that encourage pooling and reducing our environmental footprint wherever we can.

As we stated earlier, we expect to have a Regional supplement that you will have an opportunity to review well ahead of the 2010 fire season. We will also pass this direction on to the engine academy cadre so they can include this information in their curriculum.

We sincerely thank the committee for their efforts in providing these recommendations. This provided the needed foundational guidance to develop a Regional policy.

CORBIN L. NEWMAN, JR.
Regional Forester

[afire87]

Is this a directive that is likely to adopted by other regions or the US Forest Service nationally?

[Sprague]

Originally Posted by afire87

Is this a directive that is likely to adopted by other regions or the US Forest Service nationally?

I don't know how well this would work somewhere like in R5 where the Forest Service engines are not only responding to wildland fires, but to medical calls, auto accidents, etc etc. In many of those responses, response time to the scene is a critical factor that could mean life or death for the citizens involved. Even with lights and sirens, in some areas it's rare that you ever see civilians pull over to give right away to an emergency fire vehicle anymore. I can understand the reasoning for removing lights and sirens/code 3 driving while responding to a wildland fire call, since many firefighter and public injuries/fatalities are a direct result of traffic accidents/driver error at increased speeds, and the fire will still be there if you slow down to safer speeds, but if they were to remove lights and sirens nation wide, it may be time to reassess all incident response policies.

[Cap66]

Originally Posted by Sprague

If they were to remove lights and sirens nation wide, it may be time to reassess all incident response policies.

Bingo.

[firedude]

Why would this be region specific directive only? Seems odd unless all were to follow. I see trouble on the horizon for such a directive personally.

[mtf_capt505]

I have mixed feelings about this issue.

On one hand: At least up here (CA-KNF), most USFS assignments seem to be planned need assignments, giving the need of reds/sirens to be minimal.

On the other: There are some areas in the forest where local government agencies or state agencies just arent available. But the USFS has stations in these areas and seem to be the only resource available. I believe this demonstrates a need to the "code 3" equipment to be on the engine.

Not sure if this is any help, but its a view from the rural of all rural areas.

505

[afire87]

One would think that the thought would be, emergency vehicles respond to emergencies. Is this directive addressing wildland fires as not being an emergency or redirecting thought that wildland fires are not or most likely won't be life threating?

[Sprague]

Originally Posted by afire87

One would think that the thought would be, emergency vehicles respond to emergencies. Is this directive addressing wildland fires as not being an emergency or redirecting thought that wildland fires are not or most likely won't be life threatening?

I don't think anyone would be foolish enough to believe that wildland fires can't/won't be life threatening, but maybe the current thinking process is centered around the idea that we shouldn't be endangering more firefighter and civilian lives by responding to a fire as quickly as possible code 3, when all it might really save is an extra 5-10 minutes in many cases. On most initial attack fire dispatches, is it really worth it to hit the lights and siren approaching a red light so you can go around stopped traffic. What happens when the engine hits a soccermom with a minivan full of kids that was distracted and didn't hear it coming, due to windows being up with radio on, and noisy distracting voices? How much time would code 3 save in that situation?

[fish01]

Where I live, if we did not ask for the right of way using code 3 protocal, response time to incidents could increase by an hour or more! Traffic in summer at resort areas with lots of traffic signals is legendary. Your first in engine may be stuck for a very long time. Using lights and sirens is a way of asking other drivers pull over to let you pass safely. This directive would spell real disaster in many urban areas.

[afire87]

I feel there is also an image issue here. The Forest Service is a top notch trained professional fire fighting agency and as such should be viewed as such by the public. Code 3 is not necessarily dangerous in the hands of well trained FAEs as Forest Service FAEs are. There must be a logical reason for this directive but I would hate to have it affect the Forest Service image negativity in any way!!! The Forest service has come a long way over the years to develop that image and have done a magnificent job.