A brief talk on the history of fire protection in the United States

Firefighting is one of the most dangerous but most dangerous occupations in the world. This is the responsibility of every fire department to save lives and reduce casualties and property losses. Firefighters perform no greater service than by going to the aid of others. Firefighters perform better than no service to help others.

In an emergency, it is not always a fire. It may involve landslides, building collapses, automobile accidents, airplane crashes, natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, incidents of hazardous materials, riots, explosions, water emergencies, and medical accidents. The list of potential emergencies is unlimited.

Due to budgetary constraints and the shrinking number of available personnel, many fire departments have found that mutual assistance is the only effective means of properly providing emergency services to their communities. Ideal fire fighters will be properly trained and equipped to deal with any type of emergency, but this is rare.

Because of the wide variety of possible properties of firefighters in an emergency, it is envisaged that it would be imaginable that a firefighter can spend his entire career in training instead of responding and assisting the citizens to spend.

For example, federal government regulations for the training of hazardous substances may require hundreds of hours of training to become hazardous substances as a professional certification. Emergency medical training can be anywhere from 40 hours to 1600 hours depending on the level of care provided to the public. Water, high angles, confined spaces, building collapses, automatic relief, landslides, and other rescue training can take more than 100 hours to become mastery of the skills and techniques required. Firefighting technology requires thousands of hours of training to become technology and knowledge.

Fire fighters also have training to check fire and safety hazards in buildings, understand building and fire codes, and admit arson fire signs and be able to collect and preserve evidence of these fires. They must be able to pass fire safety information to children, school officials, hospitals and nursing home personnel and public speakers and educators who swear to protect the general public.

All the above listed skills also need to maintain the level of annual training. In order to meet the needs of citizens, many institutions rely on a large number of mutual assistance from other organizations to provide the necessary personnel and some of the professional skills required in these incidents. This is very rare and a department can do it all. "

The history of mutual aid

The city of Boston was founded in 1679 and the United States fire department. After the revolutionary war ended, the idea of ​​volunteer fire fighters spread throughout the country. Mutual aid follows the ability of the local fire department to overwhelm as soon as a major regular fire occurs.

Above the community service, the work done is worthy of excitement and self-satisfaction, and is the only reward for fire fighters. Many famous Americans served as community fire fighters, George Washington, John Hancock, Alexander Hamilton, Samuel Adams and Paul Revere were all volunteer firefighters in their day.

As early as 1700, private enterprises and industries began to form their own shabby to make their own workers to better protect the facility's fire brigade. Mutual aid was occasionally requested from the surrounding facilities and the fire department, but no formal system was widely used until World War II began.

The Baton Rouge Regional Mutual Aid System or BRAMAS claims to be the first of a wide range of mutual aid systems in the United States. It was founded in 1944 as a security officer at the Baton Rouge Fire Department and local industrial facilities. Its original focus was during the Second World War, but it has been expanded to include fire, explosions, gas emissions, blackouts, natural forces, and other civil defense preparations.

According to the purpose of the organization "from the BRAMAS Mutual Aid Agreement" section:

"The goal of Baton Rouge's mutual aid system is to develop, maintain and increase mutual assistance and cooperation among members involved in emergency procedures and disasters such as fires, explosions, leaks, release of toxic substances, etc. Members of the BRAMAS such as emergency members or designated government agencies or third parties to provide materials and equipment, and designated members at the disposal of the necessary members of the BRAMAS, for the purpose of deterring emergency clean-up. "

According to the section on "fields of interest", the areas of interest include two basic goals:

1. To assist in the prevention of disasters.

2. In order to minimize the impact of major accidents, they should happen.

The realization of these goals:

1. Establish a coordinated and practical long-term plan for dealing with emergencies.

2. Encourage cooperation between the private sector and government agencies.

3. Improve emergency control technologies and facilities to make more effective use of available resources.

BRAMAS 92 member organizations of all types of industries, federal government agencies, states, parishes and local government agencies and volunteer organizations. It covers eight (8) parishes (states and counties outside Louisiana).

Not BRAMAS is an emergency response organization. It is a clear purpose of bringing the surrounding industries and government agencies to assist each other in the field of major emergencies with equipment.

The member agencies’ aid calls for retention to handle their own responsibilities in emergencies. Each member organization appoints the representative of the organization. The representative elected a chairman and an executive committee to oversee the operation of the system.

The BRAMAS representative meets monthly to review the main issues related to emergency response and control occurring in the network format, exchange information, host speakers, and discuss system improvements.

When BRAMAS was first established in 1944, the institutions involved in the formal agreement did not respond. Now, a formal mutual aid agreement must be signed by each member organization. The current agreement involves compensation.

The system is triggered only at the request of a member organization. Each member organization is responsible for setting up a call to have (1) mutual assistance, or (2) providing assistance if the order chain of each shift is required. The communications were triggered through the fire station dispatch center in Baton Rouge. The dispatch center maintains telephone, radio, computer and card membership resource files and answering system 24 hours a day.