County Investigation Of Firefighter's Death Is Prompting Changes

Report Is a Model for Agencies Elsewhere

As a wind-fueled blaze consumed the Woodbridge house around him, causing it to start collapsing within seven minutes of firefighters arriving, rookie Kyle R. Wilson needed help.

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. . . . I'm trapped inside, I don't know where I am. I'm somewhere in the stairwell. I need someone to come get me out," he radioed.

"Repeat last message," the command radioed back.

Nothing. There was no answer from Wilson for four more minutes as fellow firefighters tried to save him. Then came another message, later determined to be Wilson: "I need water. . . . I need water. I'm burning up in here. I need water fast!"

Wilson's radio calls were recently released as part of the investigation into his April 16 death in the line of duty, the first in the 41-year history of the Prince William Fire and Rescue Department. The investigation, detailed in an inch-thick report released Jan. 26, is prompting vast changes in the department and is being used as a learning exercise as far as the West Coast, officials said.

"This is a document that we're not only going to learn from in Prince William County," Chief Kevin J. McGee said. "We're hearing back from colleagues around the country that they are learning from this as well."

Wilson, 24, was searching the second floor for occupants, not knowing they had escaped, when conditions rapidly changed. Within seconds, visibility around him decreased from clear to zero and the temperature rose from 100 to 800 degrees, officials said. Despite repeated rescue attempts, Wilson remained trapped in an upstairs bedroom.

In the eight months that followed, a department task force dedicated thousands of hours to analyzing what happened that morning, spending days "dissecting a single snapshot of time." In the end, the task force found that extreme weather conditions and the lightweight construction of the house on Marsh Overlook Drive contributed to Wilson's death, as did "organizational preparation for the response to the incident." The report makes more than 200 recommendations.

Last week, the Board of County Supervisors heard an hour-long briefing of the report.

"We have to get public safety right," Supervisor Frank J. Principi (D-Woodbridge) said. "We need to do everything possible to ensure you have the resources to implement all of these recommendations."

Although a price tag has not been attached to the recommendations, County Executive Craig S. Gerhart said, "Clearly there are fiscal ramifications."

"We will sort through the recommendations and weigh the relative priorities," he said.

Among the findings were that not every person had a portable radio. Those who did reported several problems, including transmission failures and dead batteries. Crews also split up during the rescue attempt and not all firefighters adhered to evacuation orders.

The report also touches on the lack of training and highlights flaws in the dispatch of mutual aid, saying stations from Fairfax County and Quantico Marine Corps Base were closer to the incident than some of the Prince William units that were called.

As far as staffing, the report found: "There was an insufficient effective firefighting force to perform all the necessary, concurrent critical tasks associated with firefighting activities."

McGee said that some recommendations will take longer and cost more than others but that even before the findings landed on his desk, the department started making changes. For example, a second battalion chief and additional crews are now dispatched for residential fires.

McGee said firefighting standards were based on 2,000-square-foot houses. The Marsh Overlook house was about 6,000 square feet, which has become more common in the county in recent years. Because houses are not only getting larger but also being built with more lightweight materials, firefighters have been directed to study the construction. Officials said the Marsh Overlook house began to collapse within seven minutes of firefighters arriving.

Other changes the department is implementing include a full audit of equipment, adopting guidelines in line with the rest of the region and upgrading a position so the department has a health and safety battalion chief.

"I'm not looking at what could have happened or what should have happened," McGee said. "It's what we have to do to make our response safer."

He said he plans to have workshops to go through the report page by page.

"This was a very intense six-minute time period where there were thousands of factors at play and thousands of decisions made all at split-second levels of decision making," McGee said. "Now we've had the luxury of being able to look at that . . . over the course of an eight-month period."

Assistant Chief Brett Bowman said that after the department put the report online, it began receiving requests to make presentations. Calls have come in from places as far as Ohio, Washington state and Canada.

"Part of this whole investigation was in honor of Kyle, and part of honoring Kyle is that we are sharing everything we have learned with the entire fire and rescue industry," Bowman said. "We want to make sure the entire fire and rescue industry is safer. We don't want anyone to suffer what we did."