After fire report

[Captain1]

We recently had a fire where 3 children were saved in a dwelling fire. Our new chief wishes for an "after fire report" to be completed soon. Does anyone have a such form at their station? I believe he wants documented the actual fire, as well as mention of the f/f's who made the saves. Can anyone help me with this. If so, maybe you could fax me this form. Thanks so much!

[jmichael]

Cap An AFR should contain the facts about the fire, Conditions upon arrival, color, location & volume of smoke, color of flame & location, entry forced, where & by whom. Utilities disconnected condition of main electrical panel noting any breakers tripped. Areas of difficult extinguishment. Search locations, conditions of locations where victims were found, smoke detector operation, what victim was doing at the time of the fire, occupant or visitor of the structure. Ventilation type, natural ppv and such. direction of fire travel Investigators notified.
While all of this may be beyond your immediate knowledge request this information from the Truck officer and other engine officers. e-mail me your fax number and I will fax our form to you.

[BFD196]

I`m surprised you guys don`t already have a report system. We have to make a report every time the tones drop, even if we are cancelled before the rig starts(which happened to me last week, it sucks). We use the Firehouse softwear, it`s confusing, but if you can get someone to teach it to you, it`ll be a great tool for any kind of report you ever need to do.

What`s included in ours are: Times, apparatus responding, people on the machines, people back at the firehouse, type of incident plus a lot more. Then we print it out on the back of our roster. On the roster we circle everyone`s name if they were there for the incident, and write a few sentences about the action taken. After that everything is documented perfectly. We recently had the cops call us about something, we sent them one of those reports and that was it, all their questions were answered.

[DeputyChiefGonzo]

What you are calling an "after fire report" is what we call a narrative.

Our department has been computerized since 1991; our incident report system is FireServer from Pamet Systems.

After the MFIRS (Massachusetts Fire Incident Report, the same as NFIRS) report is done, the personnel screen comes up, in which we list the personnel on the call and the apparatus they were assigned to.

The next screen that comes up is the incident narrative, where we document what happened on the call. Some fire officers keep it simple, others write the "great fire novel" (I am in the latter category! ) Ara structure fire, I have the other company officers write a narrative about their crew's operations. The Fire Cause and Origin team members also write their own narratives pertaining to the investigation.

There's an expression: If it isn't documented, it isn't done. It is important to throughly document what you did on a call. We once responded to a call at a group home for troubled youth where a 16 year old male died after being restrained. I did what I thought at the time to be a complete narrative of what happened at the incident and had the Rescue's personnel do likewise, becuase I had the feeling that it would end up in court. A month after the incident, there was an inquiry into the incdient to determine if charges of wrongful death would be filed against the staff of the group home. I thought that I had all the I's dotted and T's crossed. As the fire officer on the call, I was called up to the stand to testify. Both The attorneys for both parties had copies of the incident report and narratives and they were circling like a couple of hungry barracudas! In my narrative, I mentioned that a cervical collar was applied to the patient due to the possiblity of a neck injury from the restraint. The attorney for the family of the young man wanted to know who held traction, who applied the collar and asked why the names of the fire/rescue personnel were not listed in the narrative. In the same breath, he asked if our actions could have been the cause of death! FYI...the answer was a firm no...the patient was was in cardiac arrest when we arrived, (as per the narrative) therefore, being pulseless and breathless he was clinically dead.

Document everything you can. If you remember something later on, file a addendum to the narrative and don't forget to use "spell check"!

[jmichael]

We too, use the computer for the fire reports. The NFIRS doesn't allow for the things I mentioned except in the narrative section. We use the AFR also called the observation report along with the NFIRS. Much quicker retrival of this system when you use AFR. As a B/C I keep a hard copy of the AFR for all fires. Easier to spot trouble areas in our fire tactics and effect solutions.
Again this may not work for all but is effective and efficient for me.