Outside help essential to swift response to fires
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NORTHAMPTON - Planning paid off when city firefighters battled a string of arson fires around the city Dec. 27.
The relative calm heard in recordings of the voices of dispatchers and first responders that morning is attributable to at least one fact - they were going by the book.
Northampton fire commanders followed their department's own regional mutual aid plan, as well as a long-standing state contingency plan, to call on help from two dozen outside fire companies during the incident.
Mutual aid among fire departments dates back to Colonial times, said state Fire Marshal Stephen Coan. But over the years, and especially within the last half-century, he said, it has evolved from an informal "come if you can" practice to a highly systematic procedure.
Coan credited Northampton Fire Chief Brian Duggan with helping to refine the plan over the last 20 years, during which time he has served as western Massachusetts regional coordinator for the program.
"Mutual aid is used every day of the week multiple times," said Coan, referring to the ways neighboring communities help each other during even fairly small blazes.
"But when situations develop and expand, such as the Northampton fires," Coan said, "the chief has that option (of calling on state resources)."
National standards call for a minimum of 14 to 17 firefighters to attack any fire, including an incident commander, crew to set up and operate fire hoses, a two-person search and rescue team and personnel to handle other tasks.
"The bottom line is no fire department is staffed to deal with a worst case," said Amherst's interim fire chief, Lindsay Stromgren. "Nobody is staffed to deal with that many fires and cover the rest of the town at the same time."
At any given time there are about 12 firefighters on duty in Northampton, Duggan said. That means mutual aid is needed for virtually every structure fire.
And with 15 structure and vehicle fires reported within a 75-minute span Dec. 27, the city needed even more firefighters than mutual aid could bring in. In the end, more than 250 firefighters and nearly 50 pieces of equipment responded, Duggan said.
Mutual aid
In some other states, communities that send fire units out of town on mutual aid calls are reimbursed. But in Massachusetts, each community bears its own costs.
"There's no exchange of money," Duggan said. "It's all in-kind services ... It's like we're part of each other's fire department."
Northampton, like many communities, follows a "run card" when bringing in firefighters and equipment from neighboring towns. Essentially, the run card spells out who to call depending on the size of a fire.
According to Duggan, here's how it works in Northampton:
Whenever a fire is reported, all on-duty personnel respond. If it's a real fire and not a false alarm, the incident commander immediately calls a "second alarm" to bring in off-duty Northampton firefighters as well as mutual aid units.
The commander can keep sounding additional alarms depending on the seriousness of the fire and the amount of personnel and equipment he or she thinks it will take to fight it.
Each additional alarm brings in another ladder truck and two more fire engines. Some of the units respond to the fire in progress, while others go to the station in case separate incidents, like other fires or auto accidents, are reported.
Even with backup pouring into the city Dec. 27 - when a total of seven alarms were sounded - Northampton firefighters were stretched thin.
Several outside departments were initially called to one fire scene, then, as other fires were reported, diverted to a different site while en route. Amherst, for instance, was first called to a house fire at 26 Union St., but ended up responding to 17 Fair St.
Northampton Fire Capt. John Garriepy told the City Council recently he and his team of eight firefighters "broke a lot of rules that night," including going through as many as three to four air packs without taking a break while fighting the Union Street fire. Normally, a break is required after one bottle runs out.
One member of the Union Street team suffered smoke inhalation and exhaustion, and was treated by paramedics at the scene, according to Duggan.
"It was a very stressful night," Garriepy said. "I'll be honest, I didn't sleep good the next night either. I was just waiting to hear those bells go off again."
State mobilization
In Northampton, if an incident escalates beyond the five-alarm stage - as it did in Northampton Dec. 27 - it's time to call in the cavalry through the state Fire Mobilization Plan.
"One thing we don't want to do is strip the outer area," Duggan said.
Because sending backup through mutual aid drains a community of its on-duty firefighters, off-duty personnel are called in to replace them. Sometimes the mutual aid communities must pool resources to protect each other. Duggan said at one point Huntington firefighters were asked to hold down the fort in Westhampton, and later Easthampton took over fire coverage for both Westhampton and Southampton.
Sharing resources regionally like this works up to a point. But when an incident reaches a certain size, surrounding communities can't send more people without leaving themselves unprotected.
The state Fire Mobilization Plan brings in units from well outside the mutual aid area. Once the plan is activated, each additional alarm triggers the formation of a task force.
Each task forces usually consists of six fire engines, two ladder trucks, an ambulance, a commander officer and a mechanic. Two task forces responded to Northampton Dec. 27.
Duggan said a total of 25 fire departments responded to the Northampton fires - 14 from nearby towns through mutual aid and 11 from farther away through the state mobilization plan.
The mutual aid companies were Amherst, Chesterfield, Easthampton, Goshen, Greenfield, Hatfield, Hadley, Holyoke, Montague, both of South Hadley's fire districts, Westhampton, Whately and Williamsburg.
Units responding through the state mobilization plan included Athol, Belchertown, Deerfield, Montague, Orange and Ware.
Not all of the fire companies were actively fighting fires, Duggan said. Some provided station coverage or helped investigators look for clues after the fires were extinguished.
In addition to all of the municipally owned fire apparatus, two state vehicles were sent to Northampton Dec. 27, said Coan.A school bus-sized Incident Command Unit brought a number of high-tech gadgets to the effort. Coan said the vehicle has equipment that can cross-patch multiple radio frequencies, making it easier for firefighters from different departments to communicate. It also has a data link to the state police helicopter that hovered over the fire sites much of the day.
One of two Incident Command Units in the state, this one is based in Easthampton. It is operated by firefighters from around the region who are also contract employees to the state Department of Fire Services.
Meanwhile, the Incident Rehab Truck arrived from Stow to provide weary firefighters with a place to sit down, warm up and rehydrate.
Evolving practice
Recently retired Holyoke Fire Chief David LaFond, a past president of the Hampden County Mutual Aid Association, said his department is testing mapping software that could be invaluable to mutual aid efforts.
Many fire departments already have detailed computer maps of their own communities showing geographical features as well as underground utilities and other useful information. But they don't have the same data for neighboring towns, LaFond said.
With grant funding, Holyoke is building its own detailed map database for the whole of western Massachusetts. LaFond said he hopes other communities around the state will take on similar projects.
High-tech tools aside, LaFond said, mutual aid relies on teamwork and communication.
"It works really well when the firefighters know each other," he said. "It works very, very well when the firefighters can train together."
Unfortunately, he said, there aren't many opportunities for separate fire departments to train jointly.
The state mobilization plan was used most extensively in 1999 in response to the Worcester Cold Storage fire. Coan said more than 150 fire departments participated, not only fighting the fire but also combing the wreckage for the bodies of six firefighters who perished in the blaze, and providing fire protection to the city while the fallen firefighters' colleagues attended their funerals.
While they didn't generate as large a mobilization, Coan said the Northampton arson fires were unprecedented in that there was such a large number of fires reported in such a short span of time. Coan said when he was first alerted to the fires early Dec. 27, he was confident the mobilization plan, with Duggan's supervision, would be up to the challenge.
"I don't think anywhere in the country you would have had a better outcome," Duggan said.
Staff writer Chad Cain contributed to this report.
