Incident Report

Detail Report of SCBA Failure during Live Fire Training Exercises

Incident Date: May 8th, 2008

Incident Location: Washington State Fire Training Academy

Equipment Directly Involved in Incident:

SCBA Model – MSA 4500 Ultralite MMR FS2 CBRN Firehawk Regulator

SCBA Bottle Model – MSA Stealth H-30

Nipple ‘O’-ring part number 633553

Report prepared by: Captain John Gallup, Training/Safety Officer

Department Background

The City of SeaTac is a small municipality located in the south end of King County just south of the City of Seattle. The City surrounds the International Airport that serves the Seattle area and consists of approximately 10 square miles. The department is an all career department that staffs three fire stations. The staffing is accomplished through the use of three shifts with 15 personnel assigned per shift. Personnel consists of 1 Shift Battalion Chief, 3 Shift Captains and 11 Firefighters. Washington State requires firefighters who perform structural firefighting to participate in annual Live Fire Training. The City of SeaTac accomplishes this requirement by sending all personnel from a shift to the State’s Fire Training Academy for a day of training exercises.

Incident Description

The City of SeaTac Fire Department was conducting Live Fire Training Exercises in a concrete burn building. A training plan was in place consistent with NFPA and Washington State requirements. The burn building is outfitted with several rooms that have fire pits to accommodate training burns. Wooden pallets are used for the burns. Overseeing the training exercises was the Department’s Training and Safety Officer.

The scenarios used for the exercises were to focus training for initial arriving fire companies at a building fire with possible victim rescues. Personnel in attendance for the exercises were divided into four separate fire companies consistent with department policy. The Shift Battalion Chief acts as the Incident Commander during the exercise scenarios. The Department’s Assistant Chief of Operations was in attendance as an incident safety officer. The State Fire Training Academy assigns a State Fire Instructor to attend and participate as a safety officer. In addition to the above personnel, 3 additional department employees were attending as ignition team members.

During the fourth scenario of the day, fires were burning in three fire pits and the burn building was an IDLH atmosphere. Three fire companies had been working inside the structure forapproximately 5 to 8 minutes performing fire attack and search and rescue operations. While doing a face to face communication exchange to organize their operations, crews heard a sudden and loud discharge of air. A Captain from one company recognized the discharge as an air leak coming from the SCBA pack of another Captain. The two Captains along with company members quickly exited from the burn building through an identified set of egress doors. All air was discharged from the bottle by the time they exited the IDLH atmosphere. Approximately 5 to 8 seconds had elapsed. No injuries occurred.

Once outside the burn building the bottle and pack were checked. The pack’s coupling nut was found to be tight and the bottle’s main valve was opened fully. It should be noted that because of the rapid discharge of air, the coupling nut and the bottle valve body were very cold and condensation had frozen to the surfaces. The bottle gauge and the pack gauge confirmed that there was no air in the bottle.

The pack’s coupling nut was disconnected from the bottle valve and the ‘O’-ringin question was not seated in the fitting nipple where it should have been inside the coupling nut. The ‘O’-ringwas found in the bottle valve body. The pack, the bottle and the ‘O’-ringwere set aside and marked for further examination.

Incident Pictures and Drawings

Incident After Actions

Our department has made contact with a maintenance vendor to have the pack and bottle in question broken down to determine if we can identify cause of incident. Our department has also contacted NIOSH to see if they would like any specific action prior to examining the pack.

Maintenance records for all packs are being reviewed along with maintenance policies to confirm we are following manufacture recommendations. In addition, policies regarding daily checks and filling of air packs are being reviewed. At this time, our department believes our practices and policies to be consistent with requirements and recommendations.

Failure of an SCBA pack in an IDLH environment for reasons seemingly out of control of the user can have a negative impact on the confidence of personnel with equipment. For this reason, our department decided to replace the ‘O’-ringin question on all department air packs.

Our department will await response from NIOSH for any further recommendations.

Respectfully

Captain John Gallup

Training/Safety Officer