Kansas City fire chief says new procedures will help prevent future collapse deaths

Fire Chief Paul Berardi felt it needed to be more than a narrow investigation into one tragic night in Kansas City’s Northeast area. He got what he called a “brutally honest” report.

The deaths of two firefighters last year became an opportunity to order a full-scale review of the Kansas City Fire Department’s firefighting tactics and procedures, Berardi told The Star in his first extensive interview since the release Tuesday of a long-awaited investigative report.

The result is 14 recommendations, only one of which comes in direct response to the wall collapse that killed the men in a smoke-filled alley. That suggestion — to make sure commanders account for everybody after the establishment of a collapse zone — already has been implemented.

Berardi now figures there is “nil” chance of a fatal exterior wall failure claiming the lives of Kansas City firefighters in the future.

“But I guarantee you,” Berardi added, “we will have another fatality.”

And that’s why, he said, “we wanted to take a really hard look, kind of a really painful look at our organization from a systemic level. Because we know it’s not going to be a wall collapse that kills us the next time.”

Other recommendations in the report are meant to prevent future unanticipated tragedies that might share no similarity to what happened that night last October on Independence Boulevard.

Firefighting, Berardi said, is a dangerous job fraught with myriad lethal hazards: live wires, flashovers, unstable roofs and weakened floors.

With luck, the next fire fatality could be years from now.

The last time a Kansas City firefighter died in the line of duty was in 2008, when Terrance Crockett collapsed while battling an arson fire. In 2004, Gerald K. McGowan died when the pumper he was riding to a fire struck a tree. In 1999, Battalion Chief John Tvedten became disoriented and died in a large warehouse fire.

The most recent previous loss of multiple Kansas City firefighters in a single incident happened in 1988, when an explosion at a construction site near U.S. 71 killed six firefighters.

Berardi said the aim of the new recommendations is to minimize losses, just as his department and others around the country have learned by reading reports of other line-of-duty deaths in the nation’s fire service.

“It is unfortunate that events are the impetus for change, but it’s probably human nature,” Berardi said. “Why do we have seat belts? Because we killed so many people and they didn’t wear seat belts.”

The 68-page report released this week focuses on the events of Oct. 12, when a wall collapsed as firefighters attempted to extinguish an arson fire at 2608 Independence Blvd.

The report said commanders allowed John Mesh, 39, and Larry Leggio, 43, to continue to fight a fire from an alley that was in a declared collapse zone. Missteps and misjudgments had deadly consequences that night, the report said.

Hence, one specific policy change tops the list of recommendations from the 11-member Kansas City Fire Department team that spent months researching and writing the report.

No longer will commanders assume that everyone has heard an order to get out when a collapse zone is declared around a burning building. Now everyone at a fire scene must acknowledge they understand. Roll call will be taken just as it is after an order to evacuate a building.

According to the report, multiple fire companies didn’t hear the collapse zone order six minutes before the collapse that killed Mesh and Leggio and seriously injured two others.

The radio system worked fine, Berardi said. Noise and other distractions interfered with communication. There were other problems that night, the investigative report found, including miscommunication and management missteps.

Implementation of the collapse zone policy — where none existed before — occurred even before the report was released, Berardi said, and training has begun.

He said he supports all 14 recommendations. His department already has adopted or made progress on most of them, he said.

For instance, training is being stepped up on measuring risks and being aware of changes in fire conditions. All officers are getting instruction on the duties and responsibilities of being safety officers on the fire scene. And more emphasis is being placed on enforcing the use of personal protective equipment, such as breathing masks and all elements of the protective clothing that firefighters are issued.

Two recommendations will require six or seven-figure investments and are probably a few years away at least, Berardi said.

One involves enhancing the Fire Department’s data on structures that pose specific risks, such as warehouses and places with hazardous materials. That information is currently kept in paper form in binders that are consulted when a fire occurs. Berardi said software exists to access that electronically.

The other is a firefighter accountability system. Currently, incident commanders use paper or boards to keep track of what companies are at a scene and where they are positioned. New GPS-style technology allows commanders to pinpoint firefighters at a scene. That would greatly aid in rescue operations and could be integrated with a firefighter’s airpack.

But that’s unlikely to happen until the department’s airpacks are ready for replacement at a cost of about $1.5 million, Berardi said.

This story was originally published May 26, 2016 at 4:58 PM with the headline "Kansas City fire chief says new procedures will help prevent future collapse deaths."