Eleven fire departments in Orange County, Calif. - home to more than 3 million people - have agreed to a new active shooter response plan. Under the plan, responders wearing ballistic vests would enter buildings with police to treat victims with life-threatening injuries as soon as law enforcement has determined the shooter is no longer in that area of the building. Traditionally, fire and EMS have waited until police have killed or captured the shooter and done a thorough search of the building before entering.
“We realize that staging outside and waiting isn’t acceptable any more,” says Kris Concepcion, battalion chief for the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA). “We have to take some kind of action.”
Fueled by the horrors in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn., a growing number of fire and EMS experts across the nation are saying responders are playing it too safe when it comes to active shooter response. Instead of waiting for law enforcement to bring victims to them in “cold zones,” they say responders need to work with law enforcement to gain access to “warm zones” so they can get to victims with life-threatening but treatable injuries more quickly.
In Orange County, the issue hit home in 2011, when eight people at a hair salon in Seal Beach were shot and killed by the ex-husband of a salon employee. It was the worst mass shooting in Orange County’s history.
For about a decade before the Seal Beach shooting, the OCFA had kicked around the idea of an active shooter policy, says Capt. Mike Morganstern, who helped craft the plan. “The Salon Meritage shootings jump-started it. Aurora stoked the fire. Then after Sandy Hook, it was like a whole pile of wood got dumped on it,” he says.
Importantly, firefighters have the support of local law enforcement. After the plan was drafted by a committee that included representatives from the OCFA and other area fire departments, the OCFA asked the Orange County Chiefs of Police and Sheriff’s Association, which includes chiefs from all of the county’s police departments, for input. Their comments were incorporated into the final plan. “I’ve been doing this for 23 years, and this is the first time that law enforcement and fire together have actually held hands and made a complete policy that both were very satisfied with and eager and willing to work together on, at every level from police chief to the fire firefighters,” Morganstern says.
Key elements of the plan include the following:
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When a shooting occurs, fire and police incident commanders will find each other immediately to set up a unified command post and, if possible, a common command radio channel. Under the old way of doing things, the fire and police commanders were in different locations, so that scene intelligence had to be relayed by fire and police dispatchers to one another and then to firefighters, Morganstern says. Having fire and police standing next to each other will ensure firefighters are getting information immediately.
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Responders on the first arriving engine will don protective gear and prepare to become part of a “rescue group” made up of police and firefighters.
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Police should try to move victims to a “casualty collection point,” and from there to the cold zone for treatment. If that’s not possible, rescue groups will enter the building after the police contact teams (the first responding police officers) have isolated or neutralized the shooter. Rescue groups help locate and treat victims whose wounds need immediate care.
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Firefighters providing treatment at the casualty collection point should only stabilize life-threatening injuries. Treatment should not delay the rapid movement of victims to the cold zone for more definitive care.
