Firefighters face a growing danger on local roads
The Colorado Springs fire chief’s number one safety concern right now is not related to fires at all.
It’s operating in busy roadways.
KRDO recently spent some time at one of the busiest stations in town to see firsthand the dangers firefighters face on every call.
The city broke a record for traffic deaths in 2018 with 48 lives lost.
None were firefighters, but that wasn’t the case everywhere.
Across the country, 17 firefighters and paramedics were killed in crashes while responding to calls, with many more injured.
“That (crashes) happens in Colorado Springs. We are fortunate that we haven’t had a firefighter run into,” said Collas.
However, there have been plenty of close calls in the form of rear end collisions and other minor wrecks.
11 years ago, a woman slammed into the back of a parked fire truck already responding to a crash here at platte and powers.
When questioned at the hospital later, she said she never saw it, even though it had all of its lights on.
Firefighter Jason McFerran and his partner were standing behind that truck just a few seconds earlier.
“We had just finished putting gear away, and walked 15 feet away, and I heard this horrific crash, and turned around and saw a car bouncing off engine 8,” he recalls, “and it was one of those realization moments that this could have gone really poorly for him and I.”
Today, McFerran is a Driver Engineer at Station 1, one of the busiest in town.
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His mission is to get his fellow firefighters to a scene and back safely.
One of the most important things he does to protect his crew is parking at an angle, to use his fire truck as a wall against ongoing traffic.
“There’s a reason for that, there’s a method to why we do that, it is to make sure that our 40,000 pound truck is our protection and is our barrier,” he said.
Chief Collas says trucks today are also required to have more reflective paint, lights, and stickers than ever before.
His crews not only put out cones when working in public roadways, but wear vests and reflective striping to be as visible as possible at all hours.
Still, it’s hard to eliminate the fear of a serious crash entirely.
For Collas, that fear hits very close to home.
“I’m always worried. I’ve got a son on this department. And he’s my blood son, but I’ve got a lot of dear friends that I’ve grown up with over the years, and every one of our firefighters means the world to me, and I don’t want anything to happen to them when they’re doing their jobs to protect this community.”
McFerran says the best thing drivers can do to help him is pay attention when behind the wheel, don’t focus on a wrecked car when passing a traffic accident scene, and pull to the right with your flashers on until a fire truck passes.
At one time, the fire department had a “traffic signation preemption” system to turn all the lights green for emergency vehicles, but the system was complicated, difficult to maintain, and often created unnecessary delays for non-emergency traffic.
However, the City of Colorado Springs recently upgraded to a new first responder mapping system to get crews to an incident quicker, and that new system could eventually have a traffic signal preemption component added to it.
