ROCK SPRINGS — The smell of smoke is strong and a light haze is visible through your home: you immediately exit and call 911. Quickly dispatched are your Professional Fire Fighters and you are expecting them to arrive capable with appropriate staffing to mitigate the underlying cause. To ensure we have the career personnel on hand for a City the size of Rock Springs the fire service routinely uses the National Fire Protection Agency recommendations outlined in NFPA 1710. We also work with the our local elected officials and the Fire Chief to enable us to meet community expectations with the financial resources at hand and the existing organizational goals in place.

A quick You Tube search of “UL legacy vs modern” will show the speed of modern home furnishings completely engulfing a room within 3.5 minutes. Because of this, small fires become big very quickly. Meeting NFPA 1710 can minimize these fires to a room and content fire instead of a whole home and a total loss of cherished memories. With each fire alarm initial response automatically sends 3 Fire Engine Companies. These companies, per NFPA 1710, should be staffed with four on-duty personnel ready to perform extinguishment, search and rescue, ventilation, aerial operations, and water delivery to name a few items that must be accomplished in a coordinated effort. Each of these companies will arrive with a tactically proficient officer ready to initiate interior operations and each full alarm arrives with a supervisory chief officer for the scene. Career Professionals bring knowledge and expertise for quick fire containment with our supervisor chiefs having over 65 years of full time career experience.

With the financial resources at hand your Rock Springs Professional Fire Fighters have worked to maintain 3 companies with a maximum initial response of 11 Professionals. A second alarm provides for off duty personnel to respond when needed. Many studies show the minimum personnel to handle a 2000SF home with initial response is 15 personnel, this is despite the fact that positions continue to be lost from your Local Professional Fire Department. The fire propagation curve shows Dollar loss, civilian, and fire fighter injury and death go up unless adequate fire suppression forces are available to greatly influence the outcome of a structure fire. This is undeniable and predictable.

The three main goals of fire suppression are Life Safety, Property Conservation, and Incident Stabilization. With a military based rank structure Fire Fighters and Officers are groomed through education and experience to enable rapid intervention and meet these goals. Command structure minimizes the fire propagation curve and gives our members the ability to perform an All Hazard operational approach. Rock Springs Professional Fire Fighters strive to meet NFPA 1710 and will continue to meet the needs of our residents with the resources at hand.

RS Professional Fire Fighters Vice President Jason Cristanelli