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Electric Vehicle Safety Training

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I was contacted a couple months ago by Paul Melfi who is working with the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) on a new project called Electric Vehicle Safety Training.  The project has some major legs and $4.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

The goal of NFPA’s Electric Vehicle Safety Training project is widespread training participation and ensuring that firefighters and first responders are prepared for emergencies involving electric vehicles. The training seeks to:

  • Create awareness of unique emergency response needs for electric vehicles
  • Drive awareness of availability of training modules
  • Remove concern about inherent safety of electric vehicles and ability to safely respond in emergency situations
  • Reassure public that trained first responders know what to do in emergency situations involving electric vehicles

Electric Vehicle Safety Training is a project of the National Fire Protection Association

The  website and the training are in the development phase right now.  However, make sure you bookmark the site and start checking it regularly!  The Electric Vehicle Safety Training Project has the potential to be an informative resource for First responders dealing with electric vehicles.

Posted by on November 30, 2010 • Filed under: extrication, fire-rescue-topics, news, special-operations • Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Hydrogen Safety for First Responders

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The U.S. Department of Energy has put together a web based course that provides a “awareness level” overview of hydrogen safety for first responders.   The price is right, free!!  You can also order an abridged version of the course on CD.

Posted by on November 29, 2010 • Filed under: extrication, fire-rescue-topics • Tagged: , , ,

2011 Volvo V70 Body Structure

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2008 until to present, as of 2011 the Volvo V70 has a body structure around the passenger compartment is constructed in the form of a particularly strong safety cage using different grades of steel.

2011_Volvo_V70_Safety_Cage_UHSS_Boron

  • Red: Ultra High Strength Steel
  • Orange: Extra High Strength Steel
  • Yellow: Very High Strength Steel
  • Blue: High Strength Steel
  • Grey: Mild Steel / Forming Grades
  • Green: Aluminium
Posted by on November 26, 2010 • Filed under: extrication • Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Firefighters on the scene of large house fire in Birmingham

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This is a little off the topic of extrication, but below is a great reading smoke video.  This house fire was in  Birmingham, Michigan (Which is a high rent district north of Detroit).  

Firefighters believe the fire started in the basement, moved up the interior walls, and continued to burn in the attic.  The blaze caused a portion of the first floor to collapse.  The home is a 1920′s vintage Tudor.

Posted by on November 24, 2010 • Filed under: firefighting-operations, fires • Tagged:

2011 Honda CR-Z Sport Hybrid Coupe Body Structure

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The Body Structure of the 2011 Honda CR-Z is made up with 45% high-strength steel (590 MPa or above).

 

2011 Honda CR-Z Advanced Compatibility Engineering (ACE) body structure

2011_Honda_CR-Z_High-Strength_Steel_Body_Structure_ACE

 

 

Most likely you looked at the image above and asked why does the windshield interface matter during an extrication?  The 2011 Honda CR-Z has a thin A-pillar design that measures 108.8 mm in minimal thickness to improve forward visibility.  Why it really matters is the A-pillar get strength through the use of high-grade, high-tensile steel of class 780MPa.

Also make sure you read through Honda’s Emergency Response Guide ERG.

Source of images and information: Honda Media Newsroom

Posted by on November 16, 2010 • Filed under: extrication, fire-rescue-topics, rescues, training-fire-rescue-topics • Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

2011 Chevrolet Volt First Responder Labels

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General Motors (GM) has set a new bench mark for US automakers and all foreign automaker.  General Motors has been very proactive with training First Responders on the 2011 Chevrolet Volt.  There is an awareness training program that is visiting major US cities.  For those of us who don’t or can’t make it to one of the programs GM has put together a 26 page Emergency Response Guide (ERG).  The really cool part of the ERG is pages 16-18.  These pages display labels that are located throughout the vehicle just for us!  Check it out!

Download the 2011 Chevrolet Volt Emergency Response Guide (ERG)

2011 Chevrolet Volt High Voltage Labels First Responder

2011 Chevrolet Volt High Voltage Labels First Responder

2011 Chevrolet Volt High Voltage Labels First Responder

A good friend that I met in EMT class, Eric Leung, who is a Firefighter/EMT in the neighboring city of Novi sent me this picture  of the First Responder label on a Volt.  General Motors has been offering up drives of Volts at Detroit area suppliers who played key roles in the vehicle development.  The label below is mounted on a plastic shield called the sight shield.  The sight shield mounts to the GOR which is the Grill Opening Reinforcement.  I moonlighted for a company designing and packaging sight shields over 10 years ago.  A part of the car that never gets any respect!

2011 Chevrolet Volt High Voltage Labels First Responder Firefighter Eric Leung Novi Fire

Posted by on November 12, 2010 • Filed under: extrication, fire-rescue-topics, firefighter-safety-health, rescues, special-operations, training-fire-rescue-topics • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Drawn by Fire, A Top Christmas Gift?

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I’m kind of putting a gift idea out there for my wife and maybe some others as well. Believe it or not, she sometimes jumps onto my blog to see what was so important that I didn’t make it to bed at a normal hour.  I was going to post this gift idea on the Fire Critic’s Top 10 Gift ideas list, but for the life of me I can’t find it!  My top gift idea is the book Drawn by Fire by Paul Combs.

Drawn by Fire Paul Combs Firefighter

Paul Combs is an illustrator and a Lieutenant for the City of Bryan Fire Department in Ohio.  Paul’s work has been nationally syndicated but in my opinion, his best works are the editorial cartoons published monthly in Fire Engineering, JEMS, and Public Safety Communications. 

You can buy the book at Amazon.com.  However, if you want a signed copy by Paul Combs those are avilbile from his website Studio 7.

Posted by on November 11, 2010 • Filed under: administration-leadership, ems-health-safety, fire-rescue-topics, firefighter-safety-health • Tagged: , , , ,

2011 Hyundai Genesis Body Structure

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The body structure of the 2011 Hyundai Genesis is made from an Ultra High Strength Steel (UHSS) uni-body.  This is the first line of defense for the passengers inside the Genesis’s cabin.  Hyundai has engineered advanced crumple zones to absorb and redirect forces away from the passenger cabin. 2011-hyundai-genesis-body-structure

Genesis body-in-white is made of the following types of steel: High-strength steel (HSS) (56.7%), shown in green, and Ultra-high-strength steel (UHSS) (18.3%), shown in orange/red. That totals to 75%.

2011 Hyundai Gensis Boron Extrication Body Structure Airbag UHSS

There are 8 airbags in the Genesis, including 2 front, 2 rear seat, dual front-advanced, and roof-mounted curtain side impact bags.   An added safety feature in the seat is the active front head restraints that protect against whiplash in a rear collision.  These whiplash protection systems have started to make there way into more vehicles.  When the systems were first used the cost was too high so you would only find them in high end vehicles.  The systems work very well!

Posted by on November 9, 2010 • Filed under: ems-topics, extrication, fire-rescue-topics • Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Watch Driver, Passenger, and Seat Airbags get deployed. Air curtains too!

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I posted some videos of Ron Moore deploying airbags on several different Ford vehicles at the CREST Center in Michigan. Ron hot wired every airbag in the vehicle and deployed each one. The Ford representative was there also, he had an airbag wired up to fancy box with a button. Ron used a battery! The Ford guy did throw out a disclaimer that Ron’s method is not endorsed by Ford.

              

             

You should never preform extrication training with a vehicle that has live airbags.  Use the opportunity to demonstrate to your department what an airbag sounds and looks like.  This can also help on the EMS side of things to understand the speed and the size of the airbags.  Here are some step by step instruction how to hot wire airbags.  Other useful info available at Firstrespondertv.com.

Posted by on November 5, 2010 • Filed under: extrication, fire-prevention-education, fire-rescue-topics • Tagged: , , , , , , ,

2011 Nissan Leaf Electric Car

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The 2011 Nissan Leaf or “LEAF” as an acronym for Leading, Environmentally friendly, Affordable, Family car is an electric car packed full of batteries.  The LEAF is a compact five-door hatchback produced by Nissan.  The LEAF also falls into several car classes, Zero-emissions Vehicle (ZEV) and Compact battery electric car (BEV).  Although I would call the battery “compact”! The details on the body structure are still fairly tight lipped.  Rest assured, I’m searching high and low and will post that info as soon as I get it. 

In the mean time, look at the size of the batteries!  The battery pack is basically the entire floor of the car!  The battery packs used during prototypes and testing cost Nissan $18 a piece.  However, the production battery pack is going to much cheaper and cost effective at $9k!

Nissan Leaf firefighter extrication battery hybrid Boron UHSS
Nissan Leaf firefighter extrication battery hybrid Boron UHSS
Nissan Leaf firefighter extrication battery hybrid Boron UHSS

Nissan Leaf firefighter extrication battery hybrid Boron UHSS
LEAF Battery
Nissan Leaf firefighter extrication battery hybrid Boron UHSS
Nissan Leaf firefighter extrication battery hybrid Boron UHSS

Nissan Leaf firefighter extrication battery hybrid Boron UHSS
Nissan Leaf firefighter extrication battery hybrid Boron UHSS
Nissan Leaf firefighter extrication battery hybrid Boron UHSS


Posted by on November 4, 2010 • Filed under: extrication, fire-rescue-topics, firefighter-safety-health, rescues, special-operations • Tagged:

The First 15 Minutes: Decision Making at Roadway Incidents (Webcast)

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Firehouse.com is holding another great webcast training opportunity that goes along with extrication.  The First 15 Minutes: Decision Making at Roadway Incidents is a webcast presented by Jack Sullivan.  Jack is the director of training for the Emergency Responder Safety Institute. Make sure you sign up for the webcast at Firehouse.com!  Just in case you don’t listen to it live, Firehouse.com usually has an archive of the webcast available within 24 hours.

extrication-boron-webcast-firehouse

The decisions made by the initial responders in the first 15 minutes of a roadway incident are critical to the safe operations and the quick clearance of responders and emergency vehicles from the roadway. This webcast examines the first arriving emergency unit’s duties and the importance of a “windshield” size-up. Jack Sullivan will discuss methods for developing an incident action plan and estimating the time required to clear an incident while coordinating with other agencies.

extrication-boron-webcast-firehouse

 

Make sure you also check out Firefighter Netcast tonight at 9:00 EST for Taking It To The Streets.  There were some server issues last night at Blog Talk Radio so the netcast was postponed until tonight.

Posted by on November 4, 2010 • Filed under: extrication, fire-rescue-topics, firefighting-operations, major-incidents, mass-casualty-incident, rescues, special-operations • Tagged: , , , , ,

Reciprocating Saws vs Boron Steel

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Take a look at a test my friend across the Pond did on cutting boron steel with a reciprocating saw (or Sawzall if you are a Milwaukee Electric Tool fan).  Basically, John from RTC Rescue over in the UK shows that a reciprocating saw is useless trying to cut thru the boron directly. Boron steel will remove and or round the teeth on reciprocating saw blades.  That fact is really nothing new.  Blade manufacturers are working on improving the cutting ability of the blades.   Check the video out, John tries to cut the B-Pillar from a 2009 Mercedes C-Class with different blades and models of saws with no luck.

Posted by on November 2, 2010 • Filed under: extrication, fire-rescue-topics • Tagged: , , , ,

Extrication DVD Filming in Ford Motor’s Backyard!

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One thing that I have learned is the Fire Service is a small world.  Last week, David Dalrymple of Roadway Rescue was in Dearborn, Michigan filming part of a new 3 DVD educational series on vehicle technology & rescue for Pennwell.   I received an email from Dave back in July about my site and he mentioned that he would be in town filming.  I went down and met Dave and watched his crew make mincemeat out of a Ford Transit Connect.  They cut up a bunch of Ford brand vehicles that included the Taurus, Escape Hybrid, Fusion Hybrid, and many more. There was also a Holmatro Tool Rep there who had a new ram that is not out on the market yet, and of course I snapped a picture!  Dave had some good comments about the ram and hopefully we will get to see it in action in the DVD. So make sure you keep an eye out for the DVD series.

roadway rescue 2010 dearborn extrication dvd filming

roadway rescue 2010 dearborn extrication dvd filming

roadway rescue 2010 dearborn extrication dvd filming



Posted by on November 1, 2010 • Filed under: extrication • Tagged: , , , , , ,