Camas city officials will continue their appeals process against the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries’ decision to uphold violations against the city and Camas-Washougal Fire Department because they say they fear the decision could have harmful impacts on fire departments around the state.
The issue in Camas started with a Valentine’s Day fire at a house on Prune Hill.
A fire engine with two firefighters responded to a house alarm. When they arrived, they saw smoke, and one firefighter started to walk around the house. He heard a man inside an attached garage banging and yelling for help. The two firefighters had to decide whether to try to rescue the man or wait for more help. They broke through the garage door and rescued the man and his dog.
“We would not want to restrict firefighters taking minimal risk to save a savable life,” said Wayne Senter, executive director for the Washington Fire Chiefs. “This is a perfect storm that happened in Camas.”
State law requires at least three fire personnel on scene when responding to a fire. Washington Administrative Code states that if “responders find a known rescue situation where immediate action could prevent the loss of life or serious injury, such action shall only be permitted when no less than three personnel (two-in, one-out) are present and equipped to provide emergency assistance or rescue of the team entering the hot zone.”
In May, Labor & Industries handed down three violations to the city, totaling $4,800 in fines, for having two firefighters enter the building without enough personnel on scene, failing to utilize certain personal protective equipment in the smoke-filled atmosphere and having turnouts that are considered too old for use.
The city appealed the decision, and it was upheld earlier this month. City officials then had 15 days to decide if they wanted to continue their appeals process to potentially go in front of the Washington State Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals, an independent review board, to make their case. That board could then uphold the original findings and fines, reduce them or eliminate them.
City officials decided to keep their appeal going, according to Camas City Administrator Pete Capell, who said the city is only appealing the violation for having two firefighters enter the building without enough personnel on scene.
“Our desire out of this is to get those rules altered,” Capell said. “When you’re the first responder and you don’t have those resources and it’s going to be maybe five minutes before the next resources arrive, maybe that person inside doesn’t have five minutes.”
Nick Swinhart, chief of the Camas-Washougal Fire Department, said he wants the city to press the issue “to try and get a little more direction from the state in how they want us to treat these situations in the future.”
Swinhart said he’s heard from chiefs around the state regarding the issue, specifically on whether their departments will need to hire more firefighters. Swinhart said that in the last appeal process, the examiner noted that the directive from the state is not to hire more people.
“The only way we can meet the agency’s definition of the (Washington Administrative Code) is to hire more people,” Swinhart said.
Swinhart is also chief of East County Fire & Rescue, a department that struggles with staffing, he said. He’s heard concerns from smaller and more rural departments about the decision, he said, and they have offered to testify during the appeals process if needed.
The city’s attorney will work with Labor & Industries to see if a settlement can be reached before going to court, Swinhart said.
Firefighter safety
East Clark Professional Firefighters President Adam Brice said the appeals process isn’t focusing on the real issue.
“We’re disappointed the city is putting in so much effort to appeal the decision that was produced by Labor & Industries, and upheld by Labor & Industries,” he said. “Those resources could be better used to address the real issue, which is community safety and the number of firefighters we have on our engines.”
Brice said the appeal is creating more of a hurdle.
“This deviation from established safety standards is the real threat,” Brice said. “There is no real threat to putting an appropriate number of firefighters on engines.”
Since the Valentine’s Day fire, Brice and union members have been vocal in their desire for the city to hire more firefighters. That could happen in the coming weeks, as city officials are preparing the 2019-2020 budget in which the fire department will get funding to add four firefighters and one deputy fire marshal.
“Four new firefighters is not enough to change our operational capability at all,” Brice said.
Fire engine crews in the department are made up of two people, though state law requires at least three when responding to a fire. The United States Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires four people on scene to respond, two-in and two-out. There’s also a note in those requirements that states “nothing in this section is meant to preclude firefighters from performing emergency rescue activities before an entire team has assembled.”
The Washington code has no such language in it, but Senter said his interpretation of the law is that is was written intentionally vague to allow for some leeway when it comes to lifesaving.
“It appears Labor & Industries is redefining what options fire departments have to save a life,” he said. “This is about firefighter safety, not citizen safety.”
Senter said the Washington code was rewritten in the last decade because of the “rural nature of Washington state,” and how some departments don’t have staffing to require two-in, two-out.
“What it looks like to me is our firefighter safety rules are getting in the way of common sense to save a life,” he said. “(Other) firefighters in Washington state would have done the exact same thing those two Camas firefighters did, because that’s what they’re trained to do — save lives.”
