By Jamie Thompson
EMS1 News Editor
Chief Dennis Rubin is the first to admit he faced a range of challenges during his tenure heading up DC Fire & EMS — not least during his first few weeks on the job.
Chief Rubin left the post at the start of this year, having served as chief for about four years.
During a session at Fire-Rescue Med in Las Vegas, Chief Rubin said of the department at the start of his tenure: “I don’t think it would be an unfair statement to say it had been neglected financially as well as politically in the structure of the city government.”
Chief Rubin’s presentation — titled “Lemons to Lemonade: A Leadership Journey” — focused on his time at the DC department; specifically the challenges he faced and how he turned them into opportunities to aid the department and the community.
One of the most significant came just 12 days into his new position, on April 28, 2007, at a two-alarm house fire in which five-year-old A’sia Bradine died after a 911 caller gave the wrong address to dispatchers.
He told the session how Engine 15 drove past the actual location within five minutes of being dispatched; when crews eventually found the correct address, Chief Rubin said firefighters risked life and limb to get to the girl, but heavy fire consumed the duplex.
“The firefighters worked their butts off — there was a ladder rescue of mom and dad, and they found A’sia within a few minutes but unfortunately she had succumbed to her injuries, which were horrible burn injuries,” he said.
An investigation found that, as with many fatal house fires, there were no working smoke alarms in the property.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, Chief Rubin said the department established an aggressive program to install smoke alarms in all households in the city.
While free smoke alarms had long been available to residents, a new initiative was created, the Smoke Alarm Utilization and Verification (SAVU) Program — which can be seen in the video that accompanies this article.
The critical difference this time was that firefighters actually installed them — statistics show a working smoke alarm will lower fire fatalities by 50 percent.
“We had a smoke alarm program before, but to say it was weak would be an understatement,” Chief Rubin said.
“We’d go out to malls and shopping centers and simply give them away — we didn’t install them.”