Integrating Terrorism Skills to the Fire and Rescue Service - Research Proposal Example

RESEARCH PROJECT ASSESSMENT Integrating Terrorism Skills to FRS Table of Contents 1- Introduction 1.1- General Introduction 3 1.2- Thesis Statement 3 1.3- Aims and Objectives 3 2- Integrating Terrorism Skills to the Fire and Rescue Service 2.1- The Need for Multi-Skilled Fire and Rescue Service 4 2.2 – Integration of Terrorism Alert Skills 7 2.3 – Issues in Integrated Skills Upgrading 10 3- Research Method/Data Collection/Analysis/Limitations 3.1- Research Method 12 3.2- Data Collection 12 3.3- Data Analysis 13 3.4- Research Limitations 13 4- Conclusion 14 5- Reference List 15 1. Introduction 1.1 General Introduction The act of terrorism is not limited to a certain weapon as anything that can inflict harm has the potential to be used by the terrorist (Windisch and Crosby 2007, p.111). Terrorism presents new challenges for the fire and rescue service as fire fighters need to learn new task as they perform their usual work. Integration of terrorism skills is undoubtedly essential and required since terrorism knows no boundaries and can happen anytime. The service must seriously consider upgrading their skills and develop new strategies while maintaining high degree of efficiency. This is because acquiring terrorism fighting skills will make the fire and rescue service updated and relevant to new risk and expanding scope of risk management. The following sections discusses the issues involved in terrorism response such as the need for multi-skilled fire and rescue service, integration of terrorism alert skills, and issues in skills upgrading. 1.2 Thesis Statement Terrorism skills integration can benefit the fire and rescue services and the public they serve. 1.3 Aims and Objectives a) The primary of aim of this thesis is to determine the issues involve in integrating terrorism skills to the fire and rescue service. b) Determine the benefit of having a multi-skilled fire and rescue service c) Acquire knowledge about terrorism alert skills and its effect on existing core competencies of the fire and rescue service. 2. Integrating Terrorism Skills to the Fire and Rescue Service 2.1 The need for Multi-Skilled Fire and Rescue Service In the United Kingdom, the fire and rescue service has been doing their job well as evidenced by increased fire safety consciousness among the public and considerable reduction of fire occurrences since 1995 (Pinnington et al. 2007, p.214). Today, in addition to their traditional role, the Fire and Rescue Service have the responsibility to respond to terrorist act including chemical and biological attacks (Keyes et al. 2005, p.250). In 2004, for instance, the Home Office developed a framework specifically intended for emergency services and these include chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear response (National Audit Office 2008, p.21). Moreover, this national framework that has been sets out by the UK government contained specific targets and objectives for the Fire and Rescue to attain. It is some form of strategic plan that would support the government’s broad agenda that include development of an effective institution that can adopt and manage the growing threat of terrorism (British Retail Consortium 2006, p.58). In view of the reality that traditional Fire and Rescue Services are not properly equipped for newer and sophisticated threats, the government recognizes the need to enhance the capacity of the service and be able to respond rapidly and efficiently to terrorism and other major incidents (Public Accounts Committee 2009, p.7). These include procuring modern equipments such as new detection, identification, and monitoring vehicles, mass contamination facilities, and training for around 10,000 fire fighters (Public Accounts Committee 2009, p.9). The Fire and Rescue Service around the country apparently have to alter their philosophies and strategies in order to do their job properly. For instance, their tactics and equipment must be equal or greater than those of the terrorist. They must be more imaginative, motivated, quicker, and ahead of their counterpart. According to Barr & Eversole (2003, p.563), the threat of terrorism and the new responsibility assigned to the Fire and Rescue Service would change the way they operate significantly and these may include cultural change and rapid adjustments of the way they do things in the organization. For instance, as emergency first responders, there is a strong possibility that a certain fire and rescue service will be involved in the early stages of a biological attack crisis management thus they should have an emergency response plan and trained for this type of incident (U.S. Department of Justice 2001, p.38). Another is the reality that the effect of bombs and other form of weapons are different from a common fire as it may involve secondary devices exploding while rescue efforts are being performed (Bevelacqua & Stilp 2009, p.7). In other words, aside from fire and other rescue operations, the fire and rescue service should go beyond traditional fire and rescue operations and equipped, trained, and prepare themselves for any terrorist attack. Apparently, this means changes in the way they think, move, plan, and execute their work. For instance, in a terrorist attack involving chemical agent, critical decisions must be made whether a rescue will be performed or not as doing so may lead to additional loss of life most likely from the fire and rescue service (Bevelacqua & Stilp 2009, p.8). The need for multi-skilled fire and rescue service is clearly being shaped by the changing circumstances in the world we live in. Out of the battlefield, terrorism has become the common weapon being use by political insurgents from different independence movement to the Muslim extremist and shaped the development of responses to terrorist acts. The number of deaths and injuries, disruption of services, damage to infrastructure, and the reality that WMDs are aimed at civilian targets are enough reasons to be prepared locally (Steinhausler & Edwards 2004, p.13). People can no longer rely on the military for protection as terrorist acts often occurs within a city or areas populated by civilians. Apparently, the first group of responders in these areas will be the local fire and rescue service and without the required skills, more lives will be lost including the fire fighter themselves. Logically, being multi-skilled is beneficial for a number of reasons. In practice, the usual responders in an emergency are the police, the fire and rescue service, and the medical group. All these responders have separate expertise but they work together and complement each other. The fire and rescue service particularly on a fire incident takes lead because they have the expertise on dealing with fire while the medical group takes care of the injured. After a terrorist attack, the same set of first responders will be likely at the scene and without terrorism skills; the fire and rescue service would not know that it is indeed a terrorist attack with possible secondary devices that would trigger anytime. Consequently, the FRS would treat the situation as a common fire incident and unknowingly perform their work as is until a second explosion occurs. In case of a biological attack, the same set of ‘unskilled’ responders will never know that the scene of the incident is contaminated and hazardous. The real problem is that aside from the responders, they will be putting the public in further risk. Integration of terrorism alert skills is clearly required thus the fire and rescue service should welcome the changes instead of making an issue out it. Moreover, as explained earlier, integration of terrorism alert skills not only would benefit the public but the organisation itself as they can respond securely and confidently whenever a terrorist attack occurs. The threat of terrorism is definitely challenging and one way of meeting this challenge is to prepare. 2.2 Integration of Terrorism Alert Skills Terrorism is not the kind of threat that should be taken lightly as it could be catastrophic. According to Narasimha (2007, p.2), terrorist acts often seeks to inflict the maximum damage to their targets and as evidenced by recent incidents such as the World Trade Centre and the Tokyo subway attack, terrorists are undoubtedly determined to meet their objectives. Responding to a major terrorist attack such as the above may not be as productive as preventing its occurrence. This is because once the terrorist successfully bomb or destroyed their target, rescue and other emergency services may only find themselves lifting dead bodies rather than treating injuries or saving lives (Pinnington et al. 2007, p.215). For this reason, being alert or having terrorism alert skills is much better than being prepared for the occurrence. Integration of terrorism alert skills into the fire and rescue service can bring enormous benefits. For instance, if the fire and rescue service is trained and equipped with chemical or biological detection and identification equipment, casualties may be reduced to a minimum. Upon receiving a report of a possible biological attack, the well-skilled and equipped fire and rescue service can proceed according to the specific emergency plan, identify the hazards, and decontaminate the area as early as possible. Their readiness and terrorism alert skills can make things easier and reduce the number of casualties. Some of the terrorism alert skills that the fire and rescue service need in order to be effective are awareness of the possibility of a secondary device, reconnaissance and information gathering skills, skills in stabilizing the incident scene, skills in protecting the crime scene, full knowledge of contamination procedures, recognizing signs and symptoms of chemical agent exposures, and skills in handling victims (Sorrel 1999, p.52). The New Dimensions Programme of the UK government is generally to enhance the capability of the fire and rescue service particularly in detecting, indentifying, monitoring, and mass decontamination from chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear attack. These include primarily the funding of facilities and training of staff to a level suitable for responding to major terrorist attacks (National Audit Office 2008, p.10). Clearly, responding to a terrorist attack not only requires specialize equipment but specific skills beyond what the fire and rescue service already have. Integrating terrorism alert skills therefore is critical to the fire and rescue service as terrorist threats requires more than conventional fire fighting and rescue ability. For instance, without terrorism alert skills or knowledge of different terrorism-related strategies, a fire fighter will be vulnerable to the harmful effects of biological agents. In addition, instead of effectively preventing further contamination, he may be unknowingly contributing to the spread of the disease. As evidenced by a number of terrorist attacks in the past, first responders were exposed to hazardous materials thus adequate level of self-protection and training is required (Steinhausler & Edwards 2005, p.14). More importantly, as a result of a terrorist attack the fire and rescue may sometimes find themselves removing rubbles from collapsed buildings and locate casualties beneath heavy concrete. It is therefore necessary to develop new skills including the ability to the deal with multi-level collapsed building and work in extremely hazardous confined spaces (Startin 2008, p.40). From a practical point of view, responding to an incident without preparation or skills will have the same result as responding to a terrorist attack. Certainly, anyone who would participate in an incident particularly those with an objective of rescuing and saving people will not be successful without the knowledge, equipment, and skills. Similarly, one should recognise the reality that responding to fire and responding to a terrorist attack is different and requires separate skills. For instance, the 9/11 incident was a terrorist attack never before seen anywhere in the world and the collapse of the World Trade Centre was never expected. Clearly, no emergency responder can claim that they are fully capable of dealing with this type of incident. In fact, as evidenced by the number of fire fighters caught and died in the WTC collapse- they are certainly not. Similarly, with their existing skills and equipment, the fire and rescue service all around the UK cannot claim that they can effectively deal with the same incident. The point is that integration of terrorism alert skills is vital to the success of any terrorism respond and if the fire and rescue service will take part in this then it is only logical to acquire and maintain the skills. 2.3 Issues in Integrated Skills Upgrading Considering the several destructive terrorism attacks, it becomes necessary for the fire and rescues service to be more suspicious of unusual emergencies as these may be an act of terrorism that involve secondary devices and attacks (Collins 2005, p.11). Although the fire and rescue service have been protecting the community for many years, they cannot hide the fact that they are most of the time under-funded, ill-equipped, and lack the necessary skills upgrading required for effective management (International Association of Fire Chiefs 2007, p.111). In addition, there are a number of threats aside from terrorism that requires high levels of knowledge and skills that the fire and rescue service should not ignore (Hirst 2007, p.11). Adding new tasks which are far beyond the fire and rescue’s core competencies created complications as thus involve conducting additional training and procurement of new equipments. In addition, skills or knowledge acquired from this training may perish without regular re-training (Howard et al. 2006, p.251). In other words, the fire and rescue service will go through a lot of adjustment and strengthening of their existing core competencies to fit in. Apparently, this task is not simple since attaining such proficiency in an emotionally filled and chaotic environment such as the aftermath of a terrorist attack requires sound decision that can only be achieved through advance planning and training (Boyd & Sullivan 1997, p.22). For instance, the present capability of fire fighters including their gear and protective clothing would not fit for terrorism related incidents such as a biological or chemical attack (Bevelacqua & Stilp 2009, p.90) thus they should plan and acquire the suitable equipment and training. In practice, the fire and rescue service will be most of the time fighting fires than responding to terrorist attack and if they were already trained and have the terrorism skills required, the tendency is to forget and retain the skills that they are very familiar with – fire fighting. For this reason, aside from the initial training for terrorism attacks, the skills acquired must be maintained. The issue here is both funding and availability of fire fighters who are often busy training themselves on their primary work. It is therefore necessary to plan and re-organize the organisation in a manner which terrorism respond is part of their primary work. Although this strategy would not resolve the issue entirely but it can greatly reduce the conflict. 3. Research Method/Data Collection/Analysis/Limitations 3.1 Research Method Since the issue is about people, the ideal research methodology in mind is one that can effectively extract information from people. It should have primarily a method of data collection that could ensure the completeness of information. In addition, the methodology should support data analysis and assessment of data collected. Since it is a good practice to use two methods of research so they can complement and check one another, the proposed method is a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology. Qualitative interviews would enable the research to gather idea, opinion, feelings, and experiences Patton 2002, p.4) thus very useful in getting the views of fire fighters about terrorism skills integration. Similarly, quantitative method is ideal for gathering information from medium to large-scale population systematically and can be use to validate the result of the qualitative method (Pierce 2008, p.42). 3.2 Data Collection Since the method selected research is mixed, the data collection will involve interviews and questionnaires designed to extract the necessary information from fire fighters. The result of the interviews and questionnaires will give the research a clear view of the subject and other related issue in terrorism skills integration (Bryan, 1995, p.6). 3.3 Data Analysis After finalizing the result of the data collection, an analysis will be made on the data. Results of the interview and questionnaires will be contrasted to each other while taking the most common answers. In this manner, the research can generalize on different issues and present a reliable conclusion. 3.4 Research Method Limitations Like any other research methodology the selected method has its share of limitations. For instance, due to time constraints and limited resources it is possible that the data gathered are incomplete or contains some outdated information. For instance, some participants do not want to answer all questions or skipped some items in the questionnaire. Some may be willing to answer but the information they are giving are based on old information. This incomplete and outdated information will undoubtedly contribute to some error particularly when the sources that could verify the reliability of the information are not available. Consequently, there will be some errors in data analysis and the result will be questionable. However, being aware of the effects of such limitation, the research was conducted in a way that it could present the most relevant and up to data information to ensure reliability and legitimacy of the arguments. 4. Conclusion Terrorism is not a simple threat. In fact, as evidenced by a number of terrorism-related incidents, the result of a terrorist attack is often catastrophic and unimaginable. This is the primary reason why terrorism presents new challenges to the fire and rescue service as they need to learn new task while performing their normal operation. Since terrorist attack can happen anywhere and anytime, the fire and rescue must be ready to respond. However, responding without proper training, equipment, and terrorism skills is fruitless as they cannot effectively perform the specific tasks required. A multi-skilled fire and rescue service is definitely an advantage because as first responders, the service is one of those who will be at the scene in the early stages of the attack which is the best opportunity to apply terrorism skills. Similarly, integration of alert skills in the fire and rescue service can bring a number of benefits since adequate knowledge of chemical or biological detection and identification can significantly reduce casualties. However, like other groups and organizations, introduction of terrorism alert skills into the fire and rescue service entails a number of issues such as funding for training and equipment, resistance to change by some in the organisation, additional task that requires significant adjustments and efforts from an already loaded and active organisation, and maintenance of skills. 5. 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