We are on a sad course for line of duty fire deaths this year. Oddly, with a higher than normal "true line of duty death" count, the ratio of civilian fire deaths are running at about 34:1 Civilian to firefighter ratio. This number is higher than a more normal 25:1. The difference is disproportionately skewed again, because most all civilian deaths are entirely accurate, where as firefighter line of duty deaths have sharp defining criteria, which negate there real accuracy which typically hovers at about 100 per year. Accuracy? All civilians who are subcontracted by the fire service for operations in fire zones are firefighter line of duty deaths, which is absurd. This includes logistical support and filming personnel who are on water tanker aircraft that crash. LODD also are effected by the shift schedule of the deceased, another absurdity. A 64 year old person watching TV at the fire station after having had a large meal, may very well be a line of duty death, which might just as likely have occurred at home if he was riding a lawn mower. There has been a big emphasis on getting the number below 100, so in a typical maneuvering, I suspect we will see a rewriting of the rules which will go into effect this year in order to artificially drop the numbers from what they will be if we continue on the same trend for this year. Another anomaly is that the "True Line of Duty Deaths".. my term, for actual firefighters, who actually die on the scene, while doing firefighting duties, is disproportionately higher this year. If you see numbers coming in at the years end at around 99, you might want to do some research, if these tragedies, and avoiding their recurrence is of interest to you. They certainly should be, out of respect for the trade, the fallen, and the families left behind. Meanwhile, I hope fire administrators and bean counters will put aside these transgressions in order to have real meaningful numbers that can be used for statistical analysis, apples to apples, year for year. In this way we can accurately track trends and measure progress of initiatives to increase fire service safety issues, define real and relevant causes for real line of duty deaths.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 03:03:30 +0000
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