Lessons to be learned by experts and professionals

I REFER to last month’s letter, ‘Experts and the erosion of craft knowledge and skill’, in which Bill Gough comments on a letter that I had written in response to an article, On the defensive (see FP&FEJ, February 2007, p.36), by Mac McGregor.

I was careful, in my earlier letter, to only deal with those aspects of Mr McGregor’s article of which I had personal knowledge and then only about those aspects of the case to which Mr McGregor made reference. My purpose in writing was to highlight that in my experience people who comment on actions against fire and rescue services rarely have any practical knowledge of investigations and litigation, and to counter what I believe to be misleading statements in the article regarding the scope of the action against the fire and rescue service and the fact that none of the technical evidence had been presented by the various witnesses and been subjected to cross-examination.

Mr Gough advises that he attended the incident and later led a debrief. If the case had been heard in open court, Mr Gough would have discovered that he was mentioned in one of my reports, that is:

‘The effectiveness of correctly positioned jets can be judged from the actions later in the fire. Senior divisional officer Gough assumed command of the fire at 1924 hours and decided to establish a “stop-line” towards the south (front) of the factory from the compartment wall. This he achieved by 2018 hours. The part of the factory south of that stop-line was saved and is back in production. The effectiveness of that stop-line can be judged by the fact that production machinery and finished goods to the south of that line were unaffected by the fire. The same techniques which were employed to stop the fire spreading to the southern end of the factory should have been used in the initial attack on the fire in order to contain the outbreak.’

Mr Gough refers to experts and lay folk and of these two groups of people ‘talking past each other’. He also makes the comment that there are ‘many lessons for experts in relation to the craft knowledge and skill of us lay folk’. This statement could be interpreted as someone portraying himself as an old-style practical fireman who must have knowledge not available to an expert. I do not agree that firefighters are ‘lay folk’; they are, or should be, professionals. I agree entirely that there are lessons to be learned by both experts and professionals. I have learned from my mistakes and the mistakes of others, both when I was an old-style practical fireman and during the time I have been an expert witness.

The faults at APUK were not to do with ‘software or technical gadgetry’, they were to do with basic operational planning, both strategic and tactical.

Unfortunately, it is my experience that not only do modern fire and rescue services not learn from their mistakes, they do not acknowledge that mistakes have been made. Fortunately, the vast majority of firefighters are very good at what they do but, since leaving the fire service, I have had the misfortune to witness at firsthand the lack of knowledge of fire safety officers, not only of their supposed specialism but also on the unnecessary financial burden that they place on businesses; I have seen a lack of operational preplanning and execution result in the loss of buildings and I have been appalled at incompetent fire investigators who have given evidence in arson cases.

Mr Gough concludes with a reference to ‘experts who will financially punish a fire and rescue service’. Mr Gough should be aware that, unlike some fire officers, my evidence is objective, whether I have been appointed by solicitors acting for a complainant or by solicitors acting for a fire and rescue service. It is not the expert who punishes anyone, it is a judge who determines the outcome of a case and who makes any awards.

Michael Dennett PhD, MIFireE
Independent fire consultant

Does the fire safety engineering profession have a problem?

I WOULD like to respond to Bob Parkin’s letter in the July issue of the journal.

There are many aspects of this letter which I need to respond to, but the most annoying part of this letter is the implication that I need to see dead bodies to be a competent chartered fire safety engineer, so by implication only fire officers can be fire safety engineers.

The very beginning of the letter gets life safety and property protection muddled up, because Mr Parkin talks about the mill burning down.

I also find it difficult to believe that anyone who interprets the removal of the requirement for door closers in dwelling houses in Approved Document B as ‘blowing a hole in the whole concept of passive fire safety’ has completely missed the point of passive fire protection.

I seem to remember that my original letter (see FP&FEJ, June 2006, p.13) which Mr Parkin comments on said that, in certain circumstances, sprinklers can provide fire engineered ‘life safety’ solutions to novel building designs. I also remember that a number of other engineers wrote in support of my letter.

If this opinion is typical of fire safety engineers who come from the fire service, then they would seem to be poles part from fire safety engineers who are engineering graduates. If this is the case then the profession has a problem.

Dr Kevin Towler CEng, MIFireE