Kona Village Apartments Fire (Bremerton, WA - November 13, 1997) » Critiques

The Bremerton Fire Department specifies in its Standard Operating Procedures very structured policies and procedures to critique major incidents. The procedures assign duties and responsibilities for implementing the critique sector and establish guidelines for critique levels and time frames. The Kona Village fire definitely qualified for multi-level critiques. A summary of those critiques is listed below; the findings are summarized per specialty.

Bremerton Fire Department

On Saturday, December 6, 1997, the BFD held a critique of the fire that occurred on November 13, 1997. The results of that critique were published in a BFD Safety Bulletin. The issues and lessons learned from this critique are consistent with the finding of this Technical Report.

Some additional issues were discussed:

• Additional safety officers are needed for incidents of this size and complexity.
• Division and sector officers, as a practicality, must request additional resources as the need for those resources becomes apparent.
• When tasks are completed or difficulties are encountered, the teams need to inform the group leaders. If resources are needed to complete the task, group leaders or division officers should not hesitate to request them.
• Command and company officers need to be mindful of the danger of asbestos in buildings and to take steps to recognize and mitigate the hazard early in the incident.
• All radio communications were on one channel and this flow of messages generally worked well. However, face-to-face communication between various functions and officers worked much better than did radio communication.
• Structural engineers are required to evaluate damaged structures.
• The use of spray paint to identify the sides of the building and identify rooms searched worked very well.
• Site security is vital for the start of the incident, and through the investigation and recovery phases.
• The rehabilitation unit is vital in extended incidents such as this.
• More aerial devices were required earlier in the incident, because no elevated streams were available to confine fire spread.
• Mutual aid is invaluable, as it directly demonstrates the need for standardization in training and operations.
• Fire departments need to actively promote fire alarm and sprinkler systems in all large apartment complexes.