Questões de Concurso

TEXT II

The most decorated firefighter in FDNY history

By Xavier Jackson

From the 1970s through the 1990s, there were thousands of fires raging across New York City. And all those fires had one thing in common: they were likely to have faced the likes of Jack Pritchard, the most decorated firefighter in New York City history.

From the beginning, Pritchard had proven himself a worthy member of the team, although his commanding officer was reportedly getting worried about his “near suicidal” tendencies when battling fires. For example, he found himself at the fire of a three-story building with a mentally-challenged child trapped on the third floor. He quickly charged in without oxygen and found the child, before he realized he was trapped. Left with no other exit — and by this point actually on fire himself — Pritchard smothered the child, and leaped to the first floor where he was doused with water and shipped off to the burn ward with the boy.

Pritchard’s next large inferno would be several years later, when he found himself rescuing fellow firefighters from a fire at Waldbaum’s Supermarket in Brooklyn. It was a fire he didn’t even have to go to, since his shift had actually already ended. But that wasn’t going to stop him.

It didn’t take long for him to distinguish himself again. On March 27,1992, Engine 255 arrived at a fire to find an injured firefighter being pulled from the building after unsuccessfully attempting to rescue a 70-year-old man. Impatient and realizing he didn’t have to wait for orders as he was already in charge, Pritchard charged into the inferno, safety equipment be damned. He found the man, on fire, in his bed. Not hesitating, Pritchard extinguished the flames himself and dragged him out of the building.

He spent the next two months recovering from his burns in the hospital.

Then in July of 1998, Engine 255 pulled up to a fire where Jack Pritchard would perform the most famous heroics of his career. After learning there was an infant trapped in a crib on the fourth floor, Pritchard entered his Supermanmode and fearlessly leaped into the building to locate the baby.

After taking flames directly to his unprotected face, Pritchard located the baby, still alive. Unfortunately, flames were leaping above the crib, preventing him from lifting the baby to safety. Using his un-gloved hands — because safety was a word that still didn’t exist in his vocabulary — Pritchard grabbed the melting crib and began dragging it out of the room. Breathing carbon monoxide and severely burning his hand the whole way, Pritchard dragged the crib to his fellow firefighters where they assisted in rescuing the infant. For this he was awarded his second Bennett medal — the first was for the Walbaum’s fire — the highest award possible in the FDNY.

He finally retired from the department in 1999 with the rank of Battalion Chief, ending his career by simply stating “It’s been a real honor to be a firefighter.”

Available at: <https://www.firerescue1.com/fdny/

articles/the-most-decorated-firefighter-in-fdny-history-

jed6X9Qw0PqRnEbF/>. Accessed on: August 13,2020

(Adapted).

TEXT I

Top stories of 2019 | No.1: Hero firefighter mourned

BERWICK, Maine — Firefighters and residents in Berwick and surrounding communities felt a deep sense of loss after the death of Fire Capt. Joel Barnes, who died shielding a fellow firefighter from flames during threestory apartment building fire March 1.

Barnes,32, was hailed as a hero at his funeral for giving up his life to save his comrade.

The fire also displaced eight tenants in six apartment units. No tenants were injured. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness, ruled the building needed to be demolished. The institute inspects buildings whenever a firefighter is killed in the line of duty, according to Berwick Town Manager Stephen Eldridge.

Barnes had no chance to escape from the third floor of the 10 Bell St. apartment building fire, leading to his death from “probable hyperthermia and/or hypoxia, ” according to a report released April 5. Dr. Christine James of the New Hampshire chief medical examiner’s office determined the cause of death and ruled the manner of death was accidental. Hyperthermia is defined as the condition of having a body temperature greatly above normal, while hypoxia is a condition in which the body or a region of the body is deprived of adequate oxygen supply at the tissue level.

Available at: <https://www.fosters.com/news/20191230/top-

stories-of-2019--no-1-hero-firefighter-mourned>.

Accessed on: August 11,2020 (Adapted).

TEXT I

Top stories of 2019 | No.1: Hero firefighter mourned

BERWICK, Maine — Firefighters and residents in Berwick and surrounding communities felt a deep sense of loss after the death of Fire Capt. Joel Barnes, who died shielding a fellow firefighter from flames during threestory apartment building fire March 1.

Barnes,32, was hailed as a hero at his funeral for giving up his life to save his comrade.

The fire also displaced eight tenants in six apartment units. No tenants were injured. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness, ruled the building needed to be demolished. The institute inspects buildings whenever a firefighter is killed in the line of duty, according to Berwick Town Manager Stephen Eldridge.

Barnes had no chance to escape from the third floor of the 10 Bell St. apartment building fire, leading to his death from “probable hyperthermia and/or hypoxia, ” according to a report released April 5. Dr. Christine James of the New Hampshire chief medical examiner’s office determined the cause of death and ruled the manner of death was accidental. Hyperthermia is defined as the condition of having a body temperature greatly above normal, while hypoxia is a condition in which the body or a region of the body is deprived of adequate oxygen supply at the tissue level.

Available at: <https://www.fosters.com/news/20191230/top-

stories-of-2019--no-1-hero-firefighter-mourned>.

Accessed on: August 11,2020 (Adapted).

TEXT I

Top stories of 2019 | No.1: Hero firefighter mourned

BERWICK, Maine — Firefighters and residents in Berwick and surrounding communities felt a deep sense of loss after the death of Fire Capt. Joel Barnes, who died shielding a fellow firefighter from flames during threestory apartment building fire March 1.

Barnes,32, was hailed as a hero at his funeral for giving up his life to save his comrade.

The fire also displaced eight tenants in six apartment units. No tenants were injured. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness, ruled the building needed to be demolished. The institute inspects buildings whenever a firefighter is killed in the line of duty, according to Berwick Town Manager Stephen Eldridge.

Barnes had no chance to escape from the third floor of the 10 Bell St. apartment building fire, leading to his death from “probable hyperthermia and/or hypoxia, ” according to a report released April 5. Dr. Christine James of the New Hampshire chief medical examiner’s office determined the cause of death and ruled the manner of death was accidental. Hyperthermia is defined as the condition of having a body temperature greatly above normal, while hypoxia is a condition in which the body or a region of the body is deprived of adequate oxygen supply at the tissue level.

Available at: <https://www.fosters.com/news/20191230/top-

stories-of-2019--no-1-hero-firefighter-mourned>.

Accessed on: August 11,2020 (Adapted).

International Civil Defence Organisation

1. Introduction

Fires are the accidents which occur most frequently, whose causes are the most diverse and which require intervention methods and techniques adapted to the conditions and needs of each incident. Depending on the type of fire (nature of the material ablaze), meteorological conditions (wind) and the effectiveness of the intervention, material damage can be limited (a single car, building or production or storage warehouse installation), or affect wide areas (forest or agricultural fires, hydrocarbons, gas or other highly flammable products, storage or piping installations, harbour installations and rail or marine transport equipment). […]

2. Preventive and protective measures

Fires can spread more or less rapidly depending on their causes, the nature of the material and goods alight, the fire prevention installations (automatic sprinklers), meteorological conditions, the ways the population is informed and the initiative it shows, as well as the speed and efficiency of the intervening services and of their fire-fighting equipment. In the light of experience, prevention is seen to be most important and consists of two distinct components. On the one hand, the primary responsibility falling upon the political authorities empowered to implement the legal prescriptions concerning fire protection, to forecast accidents and to inform the population, as well as to set up measures and means for fighting fires and explosions. On the other hand, the responsible behaviour of each individual based upon an education geared towards caution and the respect of instructions in case of fire. Defining, and controlling the implementation of, the particular rules of protection against fires, specific to each enterprise presenting a potential danger, including the training of security personnel, is also relevant in this context. The many types of fire and the preventive and protective measures which relate to them, make it advisable to limit the present study to the specific measures falling to the political authorities in one area only, namely that of “forest fires”. This type of fire is of particular interest to developing countries and the preventive measures to be applied have a general representative value, that is:

– organising an observation service, prevention and alarm (security) service at local and regional levels;

– implementing legislation regulating the use of fire by all the population present in or at the edge of forests, and more particularly by owners and individuals exercising a professional activity in sensitive areas;

– planning and concrete preparation (periodic maintenance) for fire-fighting through adequate landscaping of the territory and appropriate forest cultivation limiting fire propagation (alternating vegetation, clearance, trimming), creating and maintaining access paths (extinction) and fire-break areas as well as fire-fighting equipment such as water supplies (conduits, cisterns), watch towers and meteorological posts, and the construction of helicopter landing pads;

– surveillance and detection of fires as soon as the danger of fires is forecast by the ad hoc meteorological service (which comprises automatic or mobile statistics posts observing the winds and the vegetation: dryness, force, direction, evolution);

– as soon as the danger of fire increases, activating an alarm plan (basic intervention plan) requiring the engagement of preventive intervention squads (firemen), and their wide positioning as near as possible to the threatened zones, and making available water bombers and specialised aerial machines ready for action;

– preparation and concretisation (organisation) of an intervention mechanism: this requires the setting up of specialised management programmes ensuring the coordination of powerful and efficient equipment and means for fighting forest fires (instruction);

– preparedness management and the coordination of the use of the means of intervention of the authorities and the information and alarm services for the population require a secure transmission network (radio network);

– planning the evacuation of the population possibly under threat in the various sensitive areas, particularly if there are risks of explosion (reservoirs and gas conduits explosives or ammunition dumps, hydrocarbon production, handling or transport installations, other dangerous material, etc.).

[...]

Available at: <http://www.icdo.org/en/disasters/man-made-disasters/industrial-accidents/fire> . Accessed on: April 6th,2018 (Fragment)