On March 11, Kyle Smith, a Telgian HAZMAT Consultant, trained emergency responders on NFPA 3000 Active Shooter/ Hostile Event Response (ASHER) at the Greater Atlanta Society of Fire Protection Engineers Fire Safety Conference at the Infinite Energy Center in Duluth. Smith is also Battalion Chief with Cobb County Fire and Emergency.
Smith’s presentation focused on new standards designed to help prepare for, and deal with, the threat of hostile events. “In the old active shooter response model, firefighter response was delayed to allow police to secure a situation, contain a situation before firefighter teams could go in to a scene to save lives,” explained Smith. “This new standard gets fire teams in earlier to have a greater impact on survivability. We have learned to have the greatest impact on survivability, fire teams need to approach together with police before the threat is neutralized, when the threat is contained by not necessarily neutralized.”
Attendees also learned about pre-incident planning needs and realistic solutions for facilities, AHJ risk assessment and planning, community and response plan management.
According to the National Fire Protection Association from 2000-2018 there were 277 active shooter events, with 884 fatalities and 1,546 injured.
“If you don’t have a practiced plan in place then your organization is not truly prepared,” Smith added.
