'Fire is Failure,' Citizen Cadets Learn

Fire is failure for Chad McGiboney. So the Johns Creek Fire Department division chief and city fire marshal fights it with proactive lessons in prevention and education.

“The guys here, the guys on the engines and ladder trucks, they’re ready for fire, because that’s their job to put them out,” McGiboney said. “But my job is to prevent fires from ever happening.”

It was week 5 of 8 of this inaugural Johns Creek Citizens Fire Academy. And cadets got a crash course last week in JCFD’s fire marshal division operations and fire extinguisher training straight from the pros themselves inside and outside Station 62.

The fire academy offers ordinary citizens extraordinary access to JCFD front-end operations. And it’s open to all adult Johns Creek residents who can pass a criminal background check and commit to the course schedule.  

The fire marshal’s job is as much about educating the public about potential fire risks in the home and workplace as it is about formal inspections and post-fire investigations, McGiboney said.

Every commercial structure in Johns Creek - 1,900 businesses spanning 32 square miles of Georgia’s 10th largest city  - and the safety of those who dwell between their walls is a responsibility that falls squarely on McGiboney’s shoulders.

So he works proactively with local businesses to limit fire risk in all of the city’s commercial structures. Even the hospital and big box retailers are subject to the fire marshal’s inspections division.

And while single-family homes aren’t under McGiboney’s direct jurisdiction, his division does offer free residential fire safety audits on certain days of the week.

Everything from ensuring an exit door in an elementary school cafeteria is readily accessible to storage of solvents in an auto repair shop or electrical outlet overload in an office building – nothing is too insignificant to escape the fire marshal’s ceiling-to-floor inspection punch list.

And it’s a heavy burden to bear, McGiboney admitted. Thousands of lives and livelihoods are at stake, including those of his fellow firefighters who rely on McGiboney’s recon to accurately plot a plan of attack should a structure erupt in fire.

Could a cache of propane canisters lying flat on a warehouse floor become superheated missiles in the event of a structure fire?

Extension cords, while convenient and reliable, can easily spark an electrical fire if the rubber casing is breached from foot traffic or rolled over repeatedly by chairs – especially if the cord is run under floor coverings, which McGiboney calls the perfect fuel.

Everything from multi-level office building floor plans to where combustibles are stored inside manufacturing and retail stores are all considerations the fire marshal must ascertain as risks and address for correction.

And more often than not, McGiboney said, business owners are eager to follow his recommendations for fire code compliance.

Of course if they don't, they could find themselves in handcuffs - as a sworn officer, the fire marshal maintains arrest powers and has the ability to place stop-work orders on commerical construction projects and renovations. 

The fire marshal is also tasked with determining cause and points of origin of fires in commercial and in some cases residential units – a mind-boggling science and discipline of physical forensics in and of itself.

Everything from identifying burn patterns from flashpoint to the detection of accelerants in arson cases - and the tedium of chain of custody in evidence gathering - is all in a day’s work for the fire marshal.

“Our ultimate goal, what we strive for in everything we do, is to make sure a business or commercial structure and the people in it are safe,” McGiboney said.

“A lot of times people don’t realize how small dangers can ad up to big disasters,” he added. “And we’re really not out to shut down or hassle businesses. We just want to make absolutely sure that everything is working right in the business so the people in them can keep on working.”

Johns Creek Citizens Fire Academy continues with Week 6 course instruction on JCFD’s emergency management, storm preparedness protocol and an overview homeland security updates, guidelines and general information. Check back with Johns Creek Patch later to see how the cadets progress.

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