Fire departments in Charleston County getting closer to Automatic Aid

A group of five fire departments in Charleston County, is one step closer to ensuring that you get help as quickly as possible when you need it.

The Sofa Super Store fire in 2007, brought to light a number of deficiencies. Among them, the inability, or the refusal of some departments to work together.

Shortly after the fire, News 2 reported that firefighters said, they routinely drove past another jurisdiction’s fire station on the way to emergency calls.  In some cases, those calls were within eyeshot of a fire department not sent to the scene.  Those stories, and others prompted a new push for cooperation.

We first reported in 2007 that a the coalition of fire chiefs from, St. Johns, James Island, Charleston, North Charleston, and St.Andrews, started working to standardize methods. That included writing Standard Operating Guidelines (SOG),  firefighters continue to test those SOGs in joint training sessions on a regular basis. Many of those SOGs could be put into effect on October 1st.

St. John’s Fire Chief Karl Ristow, says the ultimate goal is “true Automatic Aid, but you can’t have that until you standardize procedures for the firefighters”.

Automatic Aid erases jurisdictional lines in areas like ours, where annexation created doughnut holes, where jurisdictions surround other jurisdictions.

Standardization includes things as simple as what you call the different types of fire trucks, how many are sent to certain calls, and probably the biggest hitch…communications.

Most of the progress has gone on behind the scenes, but recently you may have noticed fire trucks in your town, or city with new numbers on them. The County Fire Chief’s Association recently approved a numbering system for the fire trucks. It’s the first visible sign for taxpayers of firefighters working as one team.

However, Ristow says this is not a quick process. There are political barriers that go along with the training barriers. While Ristow says he is getting 100% support from his Fire Commission, firefighters tell News 2, it is not the case everywhere.

“Publicly they back it, but trust me, there are politicians who will refuse to work with the City [of Charleston]“, said one firefighter who wished to remain anonymous.

Ristow also says, there is a culture within the fire service that he, and the other chiefs are working to change…the culture of not wanting to call for help.

An Automatic Aid, or Cooperative Response plan needs to be approved by government officials before anything can be put into place. Ristow says he hopes that can happen before they move to the consolidated 911 center in 2013.