September, 2002
The Fire Department and Terrorism
With the recent passing of the first anniversary of
9-11 has come an abundance of attention to terrorism. It seems
appropriate to let you know what the fire department has been doing to
prepare for a potential incident in our area. We have an individual who
has attended all four “train the trainers”, developed by the National
Fire Academy and the Federal Emergency Management Association,
addressing terrorism. These classes are to be given to emergency service
personnel to prepare them for a terrorist attack. When coupled with the
appropriate prerequisite classes these courses provide the
Terrorism: Command Specialist certification. We will now make these
classes available to our personnel. The nice part about these classes is
that if you changed the term terrorist incident to large accident
involving multiple patients or hazardous materials incident, the same
principals apply, so the training has dual purposes. We are also
requiring that our personnel take an internet based class on terrorism,
and attend a department class on terrorism. While we hope that
Plainfield Township is never the site of a terrorist incident it would
be negligent of us to not be prepared to the extent possible. The
department has also sent five people to training for technical rescue.
Technical rescue encompasses the areas of high angle, trench, collapse,
and confined space rescues. We are currently, and will continue to work
closely with neighboring departments to prepare to function as one unit
in the event of a major incident.
As a final note on 9-11; Plainfield Township hosted a remembrance
program on 9/11/2002. Representatives of over a dozen emergency service
organizations attended, as well as children from three of the schools
and elected officials. The program was a dignified salute to those
emergency service personnel who gave their lives on 9/11/2001.
We are about to deliver a new firefighter certification class. This
training is mandated by the State for all career and non-career
personnel. This class will include members of several other area
departments. The class is paid for with State firefighter training
funds.
If you have the opportunity please visit our web site at
plainfieldfire.org.
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