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Blue Card ARFF Module
Whether you’re department may respond to aircraft emergencies, have a small municipal airport or a bustling international hub, this resource offers a structured, certifiable incident command system designed to enhance coordination and efficiency.
From the nuances of pre-incident information to the pivotal role of trained Incident Commanders (ICs), we cover the essentials of managing aircraft emergencies. Discover how standardized initial radio reports, strategic declarations, and effective communication with pilots and incoming resources can save lives and property. On this episode we talk about the tactical and strategic approaches necessary for handling these high-stakes situations, emphasizing risk management and the importance of prioritizing savable lives. This is a must-listen for anyone that may be involved in aircraft emergencies, offering invaluable insights that could make all the difference during critical incidents.
This episode features Jeffery King, Chris Stewart and John Vance.
We want your helmet (for the AVB CTC)! Check this out to find out more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg5_ZwoCZo0
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This episode was recorded at the AVB CTC in Phoenix, AZ on September 10, 2024
welcome everyone to the b shifter podcast. You've got john vance here today, along with chris stewart and jeffrey king, and we are here to talk about the arf module that is coming out from blue card, which we'll get to all the details about that in just a few minutes. How are you guys doing today? It's nice to have you here in the studio.
Speaker 2:It's great to be here.
Speaker 1:It's great to be here.
Speaker 2:Got a trainer going on, so it's nice to be able to work with some folks all over the country and then come up here and work on some podcast stuff. It's a great opportunity.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a beautiful sweaty trainer in Phoenix in September.
Speaker 1:Everybody's here enjoying the fall weather. Yes, yeah, we uh. We're about 100 degrees, 105 degrees right now, but, uh, next week it's in the 90s. You guys are gonna.
Speaker 3:It's gonna turn cold little.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll get some winter coats for people coming yeah yeah, I'm sure they'll be bundled up meanwhile in minnesota, not until it gets under uh 20 degrees. I have to tell my wife. I don't tell my wife much, she's from Jersey, she'll tell me, I don't tell her, but she'll go without a coat when it's 10 degrees out and it's like if you go into the ditch you're going to need a coat eventually. So I kind of encourage her to do that. But here in Arizona they'll be wearing down jackets when it's 50 degrees out, which I always find huge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they turn on the outside space heaters at 75 degrees.
Speaker 3:It's wonderful.
Speaker 2:Warm up.
Speaker 1:So Blue Card has an ARF module coming out. We're going to be talking about that at the conference on October 3rd and 4th in Cincinnati, slash Sharonville, ohio. You can go to Hazard Zone BC this address and sign up if there's still time. We are a few weeks ahead of that right now, but when this podcast comes out, it's going to come out very, very soon. After that the ARF module will be out sometime, coming up relatively soon, right? Yes, should be Okay.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about it, because I think there's a lot of applicability in this beyond just what we would think of a traditional airport fire department. And the reason Chris is here. Chris worked on the module. He was actually assigned to the airport fire station for a few years, weren't you A couple years, yeah? And then Jeffrey, of course, is our Director of Professional Development and he helps get all this curriculum together. So that's why the guys are here talking about it today. You had some more help on the module from some other members of the staff here, but you guys are here today and we really wanted to get the information about what the module was all about. So what can we expect? We'll start with that.
Speaker 2:So I think what we were tasked with doing was trying to create an incident commander training program for those people who respond to ARF incidents and taking the blue card, the eight functions command, the strategic decision-making model and plugging that into the ARF environment to help those people who work in those situations. And that's what we've tried to do. We've refrained from delving too deep into what we would consider kind of task-level work and really focused on things at the strategic and tactical level. Not only were Chris and I involved with it. Sean Glazer was intimately involved with it. John Tabudlo from Hawaii was intimately involved with it. You'll see them as some of the talking heads in the class. So we've got a lot of folks who are either involved either from the Air Force side, phoenix side, hawaii airport. We got a lot of folks with some experience who can really help us dial the program in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so it's an interesting situation with ARF is there's a fair number of municipal airports around the country where that jurisdiction, that department that manages that jurisdiction, is responsible for the airport and responsible for ARF, and then there are some where it's standalone agency that manages that, and so on, the ones where fire departments work at the airport, there is some form of foundation of incident command, typically because they're managing fires every day, right. But when we look at the ARF standard, it's very much focused on resources, it's very much focused on capability, really at the task level, to be able to manage what goes on secondary to a crash and the life safety component with that. But there really isn't a standard or a set curriculum with regards to incident command that is taught as a part of the ARF curriculum, is taught as a part of the ARF curriculum. So there was a true gap and true opportunity there to be able to take what Blue Card has done for you know, since 2008 and what Chief Brunicini did for a lot of years prior to that, and to be able to put it into a system that is transferable, relatable, trainable, certifiable in the ARF world.
Speaker 3:So I think we're touching on something that's much needed and in my experience at the Phoenix airport is that's what I spent the vast majority of my two years there doing is taking what we did in our incident command system and applying it to that specific hazard zone on the footprint of the airport, dealing with the interesting critical factors and strategic partners that you have to deal with and work with at an airport to actually make it happen.
Speaker 3:So we know and understand the resource differences depending on an airport's index and their requirements for resources there. So this really is built for small airports just to begin the incident command process. If when they have a response and maybe they only have a two unit response that has one individual working on each one of those units, they can start the command system and as support from off airport comes in, then they start to fill in all those important roles, including the strategic level IC, and that's in comparison to large metro airports that may have a battalion chief 24-7 battalion chief on duty at the airport with all of the necessary resources. So we're trying to build a system that's going to work well in all the response configurations that we see across airports in the country.
Speaker 1:So is there benefit for a regular fire department who doesn't have maybe an airport or adjacent to the airport but just has a lot of airline traffic overhead? Anything in this? I mean, I really do not know how we approach aircraft emergencies. I've been on them, but it seems like we just typically use the same you know system at least, and then try to fake our way through it a lot of times. Will it help those departments that have air traffic overhead, maybe not necessarily an airport?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean we. I think if we just pay attention to the news, and even if you set up a Google alert and you can get all the information of the different things that are taking place across the country from aircraft crashes or landing in a place that there shouldn't be landing the potential for having the need to have an incident commander who's trained in an ARF situation is very high, and it doesn't matter if you're one of those municipalities that has an airport that you're responding to on a regular basis. You have potential, like you said, with aircraft flying overhead at any given point, for somebody to have to possibly make an emergency landing or do something else. So having a game plan for it is going to make everybody a little bit more comfortable and then make sure the incident runs smoother.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so if you have aircraft that has an unscheduled landing off the airport and you have a reasonably intact aircraft but you have fire, there are certain things that you need to know and understand that are not in play at most other structure fires, that we go on to understand just how endangered the folks inside that fuselage actually are, how quickly we need to get water and or foam on that fire to start managing and mitigating that threat, and then being attuned to what resources need to come to help you, to assist you with that. And then the strategic partners that are going to show up, like the National Transportation Safety Board and those types of folks and the FAA. They're going to show up to start to investigate that, and they're going to show up to start to investigate that, and they're going to have a lot of questions for the folks that answer that. I think the biggest benefit, though, is those agencies that are responding onto the airport, but they don't necessarily work on the airport.
Speaker 3:If we build a standard system for the folks on duty at the airport to initiate the incident command system and allows it to escalate as resources come onto the airport, that's a really, really important thing, because I don't want to this will sound more cavalier than I mean. But you know, if an aircraft crashes off of the airport, you've got to deal with the problems that are present with the resources that you have. Right, and we've seen that in in multiple scenarios. Right, and you're not going to have a crash truck there at those likely any anywhere close. So you have to do the best you can. But when you're using those specific resources on the airport, then having an incident command system that can manage those to their best, utilizing their best, have a really smart awareness and be able to have that strategic level management and understanding to get companies in place in the right way to manage the problem in the most effective means.
Speaker 1:So what does the module look like? How many hours is it? Who's going to have access to it? What's the ins and outs of the module?
Speaker 2:The module itself is going to look very similar. So folks who are familiar with going through the eight functions of command on the online site are going to recognize the familiarity as they go through it. There's going to be an introductory section and then you're going to go through the eight functions of command as they apply to the ARF environment. So I think that sense of normalcy will be there for them. As far as how long it's going to take, I'm imagining that the online is going to be anywhere between that 12 to 18 hours just to finish the online piece and then we'll have a couple of certs that they can go through simulations just to make sure that they can effectively apply the eight functions of command in this setting. I mean, it's really everything about it seems the exact same, and that's one of the things we tried to strive to communicate at the beginning of the class is that nothing has changed. The eight functions of command don't change because I'm going from a residential structure to an aircraft of some kind. It's the same functions of command. My strategic decision-making model does not change. The only thing that has moved a little bit has been the critical factors. So as long as we have the ability to effectively evaluate our critical factors, develop the right risk management plan. The ability to effectively evaluate our critical factors, develop the right risk management plan, put our folks in the right strategy. Those folks with an ARF background can create the right strategy, the right IAP to satisfy the tactical priorities for an ARF incident. So nothing changes, all exact the same.
Speaker 2:Who's going to have access to that Should be everybody. Once you get your initial IC certification, you'll have an opportunity to take that, similar to how we're doing the hazmat. As far as some of the other components associated with it, I don't know that all that's been worked out at this point, so to speak, on it would probably be a little bit ahead of the game. But anybody who is a standard IC will be able to take the class. As a matter of fact, the standard IC certification will be a prereq to go through the class. We've got to make sure that you understand the basic components and then we're going to put you in this specialized setting.
Speaker 1:Is there a different command worksheet or anything else that goes along with this, or do?
Speaker 2:you use a standard command worksheet. So we've got command worksheets, we've got dispatch communication forms All those things are embedded into the program. So as you take the program and you come on the spot where you're working on the command worksheet, you can print off a tactical worksheet that's designed for an ARF setting. It's got an airplane on it and it shows how we're positioning around the aircraft. I think one of the things that's nice about it is Chris speaks so eloquently about those companies that aren't assigned into an ARF setting, that are responding from outside ARF territory. If those folks are going through the class, when somebody tells them to position themselves at the six o'clock on the aircraft, they're going to know that I'm going to be near the tail of the aircraft, and being able to standardize that communication is going to make our response to the citizens much smoother and more efficient, and I think that's the goal of what we're trying to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's so many advantages in doing this.
Speaker 3:There is the strategic and tactical advantages we have in managing the incident more effectively and keeping our firefighters in better positions, better accounted for and, ultimately, safer.
Speaker 3:But then there's a huge advantage for the airports, and so none of these incidents involving aircraft at airports is managed without the help of airport operations. So the folks that manage the runways, the folks that manage the facility, if you will, they're always a huge part of these incidents because they have responsibilities with controlling what's open and what's closed, working with the air traffic control tower to shut down certain parts of the airport so that we can work in a safe manner. So having that system that's built in there allows us to better coordinate with all the people that are needed to manage these. And then we're creating an environment where we have an IC. That number one is trained and certified to be a hazard zone IC, and then we're specifically applying the ARF element to that standard certification. It makes them way better at their job, and then that allows them to communicate and perform and connect with all those other strategic partners that we have to work with in a way more effective way, how much pre-information do you get, or do we talk about this in the module?
Speaker 1:Because I know I've been dispatched before for an alert one or whatever they call it, and they talk about how much fuel is on board, how many souls are on board. Does this help us make sense of that? Because I understand 129 people are on board, but with the fuel I don't necessarily know and sometimes the aircraft type. Do we get into any of that with this module?
Speaker 2:We try not to. We will define all those terms and make those available for everybody so they can understand them. But when it comes to the fuel and some of those, we're not delving into that task level stuff. We're leaving that for the ARF specialists. I mean, those are the people who are certified and trained in ARF. This is more for those people who are functioning at the strategic level, who are having to come into this event and participate in resolving or mitigating this hazard. So we don't have a lot of it in there. It's really at the higher level just to help the ICs do their job in an ARF incident.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and a lot of times those numbers, like the number of people on board, is the aircraft full or isn't it? Am I going to have a big life safety potential here or not? That's what you're trying to figure out. And you take that number and you balance it against what type of aircraft it is, so it tells you, oh, that's a very full aircraft or no, that's actually a small number of folks for that aircraft. So there's a little information within that.
Speaker 3:And then when they start giving us fuel and pounds and those types of things, really what we're trying to discern is that aircraft landing heavy or aren't they? Is it going to be harder to stop? And is there how big of a threat? Do we actually have to have a fuel fire during that, during this event or this incident? That's more attuned to the ARF folks themselves and knowing and understanding that with their you know the specific aircraft and what threats and what hazards are going to come with that.
Speaker 3:But for us at the strategic level I see position we're mostly concerned. All right, we're going to have a. We may have an aircraft event here. I should expect a lot of people. Have an aircraft event here. I should expect a lot of people, I should expect a high threat for fuel fire and then where that fuel fire then extends to and that fire is going to have a significant impact on my ability to attempt to rescue people if they're in savable positions. So it matters, but it matters most to the actual trained ARF folks and the strategic level IC should start to become way more familiar with that and that can be worked out between the Blue Card Incident Command System and the ARF requirements. That are done for those folks.
Speaker 1:So when we arrive and we're sizing up an aircraft emergency and we give that initial radio report, we're describing what's going on right, Sure, and then is there a strategy declaration still no, everything's the same.
Speaker 2:The initial radio report is the exact same. So when you look at the communication form that we've embedded in the program that you can print out when it comes out, you'll see that everything's the same. When we start talking about that first part, like size, height and occupancy type of I guess, a structure fire right when we start talking about ARF, we're talking about size type as it applies to category, class and type and we break those down in the system, and then arrangement as opposed to occupancy, because how that aircraft is going to be arranged, either on the runway, off the runway, on a golf course, in somebody's backyard, all those arrangement issues are going to have a much more, much greater impact on what we're doing than the occupancy itself. We know it's an aircraft, we know the types of aircraft and we cover a lot of that in the modules craft.
Speaker 3:We know the types of aircraft and we cover a lot of that in the modules. Yeah, and I think the size up part becomes critical. But there are unique critical factors to aircraft incidents and that is the type of aircraft. That is the condition that the aircraft fuselage is in. How significant is the fire and smoke conditions right now? Do we need to deal with that before we start dealing with victims or do we need to start dealing with victims before we start dealing with the fire? And then what is the position of the aircraft? Is it stable? Is it not stable? How close is the aircraft to exposures? It becomes an interesting problem. So a lot of those critical factors are similar but we apply and we look at them with a little bit different context in trying to identify what's critical here.
Speaker 3:Where am I in my risk management plan? Because, like Jeff said, the risk management plan is exactly the same. It has everything to do with savable lives and or savable property or the lack of both right. So we're definitely going to risk a lot in a calculated manner to save savable lives and we have the same choices at ARF incidents that we do on a standard fire ground. Are we going to remove the fire from the victims? Are we going to remove the victims from the fire ground? Are we going to remove the fire from the victims? Are we going to remove the victims from the fire? Now, we're going to do that a little bit differently in the ARF world, with crash trucks, flowing foam and other extinguishing agents, but it's still the same questions that we have to answer.
Speaker 3:The strategy is still the same Are we going to work inside the hazard zone or aren't we? Based on the conditions, based on where we are in our risk management plan? So offensive and defensive strategy absolutely applies, Because if we show up to a twisted heap of burning aluminum and titanium and jet fuel that we have no ability to save anybody, that's going to be in the defensive strategy. We need to declare that and know what that is and, just like on a standard fire ground, we need to identify that, write that off but then identify what our exposures are. What can we protect? What do we need to get all clears in, what are those critical parts? So all those things build to a standard incident action plan. And now, again, the incident action plan uses some specialty resources and some, I'll say, differently trained firefighters to deal with that particular threat and manage those tactical objectives.
Speaker 1:How many work cycles is a typical incident like this? I mean, is it similar to structural firefighting or is it over very quickly?
Speaker 3:It depends, like a lot of things, right. So I was fortunate to make it through my two years without having a significant Alert 3 event. We had a couple, but they've involved engine fires, they involved landing gear fires, so fairly simple things to manage. So I don't have experience dealing with a large crash. In the ones that we've reviewed and the case studies that we've gone through, the Oceana airliner crash in San Francisco is probably the best because it's very, very recent.
Speaker 3:It happened here in this country and there's actually a lot of information available about that, and that one lasted a long time. It didn't involve necessarily interior firefighting, it was all exterior firefighting and it was utilizing foam trucks to extinguish the fire on the exterior of that aircraft, supporting people evacuating from the aircraft. But those aircraft were having excuse me, those ARF resources were expending all of their water, expending all of their phone, having to go back and resupply. So the IC's job at that point is how do I figure out how to get a continuous flow of foam and or agent on this while I have some trucks running out and I can start to be able to almost create a shuttle system so where they're resupplying while others are working? So it's not, as there are times when you come in and you basically you shoot your whole load trying to manage this, but there's also a lot of other times where you slow down and you're more deliberate about how you're using your resources. So it can be a tricky game and I can honestly say there are not a lot of people in the American fire service and in the ARF world that have done it a lot Like like most people get one or two in their entire careers and their entire lifetime, and so it's not as if we have folks that have a ton of experience in this, because they just don't. Thankfully, they don't happen that often.
Speaker 1:That's why we need George Petroni Agreed.
Speaker 3:Anyone Airport. Thank you very much. All right, you got it.
Speaker 1:I thought I'd drop a Dennis Miller reference. Is there anything else you guys want people to know about this ARF module? We're really looking forward to it coming out. It's a great add value for our blue card users that happen to deal with aircraft emergencies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the one thing that going through it as somebody who is not an ARF related person so I was coming at it from the structure fire background and really immersing myself in an understanding of what that world is like I think when we say the world ARF, we're generally thinking in terms of those large commercial airports.
Speaker 2:I think that's the idea that we get in our head and the reality is that the majority of the aircraft in this country are not flying and landing in those airports. They're all over the place in a lot of these smaller private airports, some of these municipal airports, and we have fire departments all over the country that have the capacity to respond to them. So this is going to be a great asset to the folks at our military installations. It's going to be at our Air Force Base, our Space Force Bases, our commercial spots. But it's also going to be a huge benefit to all those other folks who may have to respond to an ARF incident but don't necessarily have the training or understanding. We'll give them the tools to walk into the environment and at least be successful at setting up a command system.
Speaker 3:So I think we're working Right now.
Speaker 3:What we have completed is the beginning portion of it.
Speaker 3:Right, it's the foundation for it and understanding how you take the blue card incident command system and you apply it to the RF world.
Speaker 3:What we're building to is being able to have simulations in the same way that we have structure fire simulations, so that we have the ability to exercise and maybe even someday certify that's not in the cards right now, but that could be at some point is allow people to get some experience without actually having to do it and utilizing legitimate crashes, but also utilizing the things that aircraft or ARF units are going on every day Hot brakes, brake fires, engine fires, apu fires, a fuel spill at the gate and so we can create simulations for all of these so that we have the ability then to exercise that they can practice, that they can initiate the command from the air side you have units coming from the land side, which is off airport and be able to coordinate all of that in that fashion. So standby, the simulations aren't here yet, but the goal is to get to that so that we can support the foundation that we have with the eight functions of command.
Speaker 2:Based on what Chris just said and he talked about the number of people who actually have those large-scale incidents they've responded to. It kind of ties back to our May Day world that the small percentage of ICs that have actually managed.
Speaker 2:A May Day will give them the opportunity to practice managing some of these events before they actually have the opportunity or experience to deal with it. So I think it's a great chance for them and we're looking forward to it. It's going to serve a lot of communities very well, and that's really what it's about. It's about taking care of the communities where we work and the people who come and travel through our areas.
Speaker 3:So that's a great point and I'm going to take a little bit of a wild ass guess but I feel pretty confident in what I'm going to say is I would imagine the number of incident commanders that have trained on a mayday before the May Day actually happens, that incredibly small percentage of incident commanders is pretty close to the amount of ARF incident commanders that have actually we practiced and simulated a true alert three response in the ARF world. So it's very low. We need to increase that number. We need our ICs to have actually exercised it before it really happens and that is definitely a goal here.
Speaker 1:Timeless tactical truth from Alan brunicini. We went back to the card deck on this one. It's the four of spades and it says ims creates a simple, doable framework to always have command. Start with the first arriver. Ims creates simple, doable framework to always have command. Start with the first arriver. I guess a question off of this that I would have for you guys is does the first arriver with aircraft emergencies also assume command like we do with everything else? They should.
Speaker 3:There should be a standardized system. Unfortunately I don't think that's the case. I don't think there's a system. There's not a standardized system out there that actually causes that. And in a lot of airport situations you might have one or two crash trucks, depending on the size of the airport. Those, those crash trucks are likely staffed by, with one individual on each truck.
Speaker 3:Their day job at the airport is operations folks, so they're changing light bulbs on the runway or they're making sure that the markings are correct and dealing with signage and all that kind of stuff. And then when an alert happens, they respond to the station, they hop in the RFRIG and they go to wherever it is they're supposed to go, whether to the scene or if we're waiting for an inbound aircraft, they go in stage and there really isn't an incident command system for them. Right and likely. There are resources coming from off the airport. So their ability to get to that scene, to get to that aircraft, they're going to have to do a few things. They're going to have to do a few things. They're going to have to communicate with the pilot, if the pilot's able to, and they're going to have to then communicate with everybody else.
Speaker 3:Give a standard initial radio report. Give a standard follow-up report, begin that incident command system so that when a true strategic IC shows up that they're in a way better position to start managing it, they have way more information and they're not starting from zero trying to manage something that they don't know what happened prior to they get there. So having that initial arriver start a standardized process that is very similar to the way we do it in the regular structural world will make our incidents better. They will make them more effective, they will make them safer. I feel very confident we're going to be able to measure better outcomes because of that.
Speaker 2:We know I mean the folks in this room and probably the folks listening we know what happens at incident scenes when nobody takes command. We know what the absence of command looks like and it leads to a lot of freelancing, which leads, unfortunately, from times to a lot of injuries and sometimes a lot of deaths. Like Chris said at the beginning, this is a different environment with a lot of different threat levels and if we don't have somebody show up at the very beginning and take command of this incident, then we're going to be exposing ourselves to the risk that we don't need to. Our job, no matter what anybody wants to say, we are in the risk management industry and our job is to manage that risk as safely and as effectively as possible, while trying to mitigate the hazards and save lives. So that's what we're here to do. That first NIC at an incident management scene allows us to do that.
Speaker 1:Gentlemen, thanks so much for being here today and talking about the ARF module and how Blue Card is going to apply to the aircraft firefighting rescue world. Looking forward to it. I think it's going to be. I know I plan on doing it because I'm in a very busy aviation area. I've got municipal airports all around me and I'm on flight aware all the time tracking what's overhead and, frankly, it scares the heck out of me. So I'm looking forward to getting some more education on this.
Speaker 1:We're glad we could do this for you. Yeah, well, I appreciate it, it's just all for me.
Speaker 3:And so at the conference, at the Hazard Zone conference, Sean Glazer will be giving the presentation on the ARF. So please, if you're interested, you're going to be at that conference Check out what Sean's got to say, because he's going to go through the program in a little bit more detail than I think we talked about today.
Speaker 2:And that'll be a really good thing. Now, and, as in his former assistant chief at Space Force Base, he's got a pretty good understanding of how that's going to work, so he'll be a great one to talk with.
Speaker 3:And I'm pretty sure he's going to wear a Space Force uniform.
Speaker 1:You know what I think we put it out here now. Yeah, I think that's going to be a critical part of his presentation. It should be a requirement.
Speaker 2:I'll talk to Nick about it and see if we can mandate the Space Force uniform. Excellent.
Speaker 1:Thanks, guys, for being here today and thanks so much to everybody for listening to the B Shifter podcast. We'll talk to you soon.