RETIRED CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER 4 KEVIN MITCHELL
Dallas, Texas
When winter arrives, the days get shorter, the nights get longer and they both get much colder. However, this does not keep the Army from training. Field training exercises are a reality for every unit, no matter how cold it is. Just as surely as the temperature drops, Soldiers look for ways to stay warm. I’d like to share a story about what happened to my troop and an M1941 potbelly stove one winter night during a two-week field training exercise (FTX).
According to our local standard operating procedure, a guard was required any time a stove was being used. This was a good idea and a great safety measure. Unfortunately, that was hard to do when you are part of an air cavalry troop that generally consisted of only 30-35 Soldiers, most of which had Army-regulated crew rest issues. On this particular night, the maintainers, who made up about half the troop’s personnel, were in their own GP Medium tent while the rest of us — the pilots — were in a separate tent.
At the beginning of the FTX, our safety officer reinforced the necessity of having a guard watch the stove at night while everyone was sleeping. The pilots dismissed him because none of us (including myself) wanted to stay awake all night, or even for just a few hours, working the guard shifts. The commander also erred against safety and established policy by not enforcing the issue. He wanted every pilot available for whatever missions came down the following day.
We’d been set up in our area of operations for about four days and everything was going well. But on that fourth day, it got exceptionally cold. Using the M1941s wasn’t even in question. The only question was how high, or hot, were we going to have the stove. (Keep in mind this was before I knew the concepts of risk assessments and a risk management matrix.) Nevertheless, we applied part of the risk management process and implemented some controls by deciding to maintain the stove at its lowest setting. We then attempted to keep the heat from the stove inside the tent by sealing it up, including the doors and one of the two top vents. Soon after, we all went to sleep.
About , a couple of us awoke because it was freezing inside the tent. We noticed the stove didn’t appear to be giving off as much heat as it was earlier in the evening. We didn’t know why and since it was cold and in the middle of the night, we didn’t stop to think about it. Instead, we did three things. First, we closed the other vent on the top of the tent, leaving us with no ventilation except for the stovepipe. Second, we turned the stove up to the halfway point. Third, we went back to sleep without a care in the world. No problem, right?
Well, about an hour later the same thing happened with the stove. It just wasn’t putting out any heat. Without thinking about what could be causing the problem, we turned the stove up to the max setting and went back to sleep. Still no problem, right?
About , one of the officers in the tent woke up and sensed something just wasn’t right. He grabbed his flashlight and shone it around. To his surprise, all he saw was about 5 to 6 feet of smoke engulfing the whole tent. He immediately woke everyone and we took the appropriate actions to eliminate the problem. We turned off the stove and opened the doors and vents to allow the tent to air out. Fortunately, we averted a disaster.
Three separate and distinct things led to this situation. To begin with, the stove wasn’t on a flat surface. This fact was known during the initial setup, but when the squadron commander tells you to set up at a certain place, you set up at that place. Plus, who wants to move a GP Medium after it is set up? To alleviate the problem, a wooden stake was wedged under the stove to level it and keep it from wobbling. However, at some point during the previous three days, the stake was accidentally moved from its position, allowing the stove to sit at an angle. This caused some of the fuel to pool on one side, resulting in incomplete combustion, which caused the smoke that eventually filled the tent. We also determined our only source of ventilation, the stovepipe, was clogged and didn’t allow the exhaust to escape properly. The closed doors and vents just compounded the problem.
The commander, as well as the warrant officers, failed to see the potential risk in leaving the stove burning without supervision. I was taught in the Aviation Safety Officer Course that for every incident with a serious result, there are 59 minor injuries and 600 near-misses. The actions of those involved in my troop could be considered to have resulted in a near-miss — a major one! That FTX could have ended tragically, but, thankfully, it didn’t.
The moral of the story is there are no valid reasons in the training environment to overlook or ignore any safety control. In this situation, the commander should have been willing to accept the loss of a pilot or two each day for the length of the FTX to pull guard duty. The other option was for the commander to accept the risk of the elements and tell us to bundle up and prepare for a long, cold night.
I tell this story to bring some awareness to the hazards of not adhering to the proper controls. Safety measures provide a means to protect the military’s most treasured asset — the Soldier. Enforce the standard!
FYI
Here are some tent stove tips to keep your Soldiers safe and warm this winter:
- Always do your preventive maintenance checks and services before using a tent stove.
- Listen to the tips you get from your safety personnel and those you hear during your classes and lectures.
- Always have a guard on duty when using a tent stove, even if it means doing one-hour shifts.
- Make sure someone has read the technical, field or operator’s manual(s) for the tent stove you are using.
- Make sure the tent is always vented.
- Always ensure the stove is level.
- Only use approved fuels.