By Tom Sitz
In the world of quint concepts and three-firefighter engine companies, many suburban departments are getting away from or reducing static loaded hosebeds off the rear of the engine. (I mention quints because of the amount of hosebed and booster tank capacity you lose.)
Even more perplexing is the engine company that has all of its hose preconnected or has three or four preconnected lines of all the same diameter (usually 13/4 inch) and keeps the only spare hose on the engine bedded underneath the preconnects so members have to stretch the preconnect and then bring up the spare hose that’s stored underneath it. Having all your attack lines fixed to a certain length makes it much harder to get a line in service when the 300-foot-deep commercial occupancy has a fire (unknown location because of heavy smoke throughout) and the only thing you’re staring at is 200-foot preconnects.
Some firefighters would say, “Well, we’ll just stretch two preconnects and tie them together.” The engine company’s job is to stretch and operate handlines as quickly as possible, and having to pull two lines just to get one in service is not the fastest way to deploy lines. The above comment is probably okay for the poor to mediocre engine company that uses terms like “good enough” and “at least nobody got hurt” during the incident critique, but for the aggressive company that wants its lines in service as quickly as possible, that type of mentality just will not do.
 1. Photos by author unless otherwise noted. |
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Don’t get me wrong; preconnected handlines are extremely efficient for your average private-dwelling fire. In fact, that is the line most often stretched in my department, and we like it that way—it’s an easy stretch. We have determined through experience and preplanning that a 200-foot 13/4-inch preconnect reaches the overwhelming majority of private dwellings in my community. But—and this is a big one—it does not reach all of the private dwellings in my community. Probably around 10 to 15 percent are too far back from the street for a preconnect. Factor in garages set behind the dwelling (we have a fair number of those, as does probably every suburban community), sheds, rear exposures, and medium to large commercial/industrial occupancies, and the percentage will go up.
With a lot of thought and trial and error during training and on the fireground, my station has outfitted its engine with a mixture of preconnected and static hose loads that allow the three-firefighter engine company to rapidly stretch and operate 13/4- and 21/2-inch hand-lines. Our engine has four preconnected attack lines:
Line 1—100 feet of 11/2-inch line off the front bumper that we use for car and dumpster fires.
Lines 2 and 3—200 feet of 13/4-inch attack lines (150 gpm/low-pressure fog set on straight stream for most of our private dwellings).
Line 4—200 feet of 21/2-inch attack line (250 gpm/low-pressure fog set on straight stream for most of our small to medium commercial/industrial buildings).
We also carry four static loads off the rear of the engine for large commercial or industrial buildings or the set-back private dwelling/ garage. The static loads are also the lines we deploy when we reverse lay. My company trains very hard on forward and reverse lays; how we lay into the scene is situation-dependent. Our second-due engine for private-dwelling fires is a mutual-aid company. After we confirm that it is en route, the officer in charge has several options available, all based on size-up and ETA of the second-due engine. The majority of the time we like to go directly into the scene and start our attack off our 750-gallon booster tank. The officer knows he has five minutes of water with one line off before running out of water. Based on fire conditions and ETA of the second-due, the officer will have the mutual-aid company forward or reverse lay a supply line to the first-due. If the hydrant is within 100 feet of the engine, it is the chauffeur’s responsibility to get the hydrant in service. If heavy smoke or fire is showing as we pull onto the street, the officer may elect to forward lay into the fire and have the second-due charge the hydrant. There are times when we will have to act as a stand-alone company if the second-due engine is unavailable or gets stopped by a train—those are the most likely times for us to reverse lay.
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 4. Photo by Gary Reed. |
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We carry four static hosebeds off the rear of the engine for reverse laying and to supplement our preconnects (see photo 1).
Bed 1—1,000 feet of four-inch supply line with a manifold next to it so we can reverse lay just as easy as forward lay; also for a ground-mounted deck where more than 400 gpm are required.
Bed 2—500 feet of 21/2-inch with a 11/4-inch smooth-bore nozzle on the end. This gives us 325 gpm for large commercial/industrial fires. The first 100 feet are in a bundle, which serves two purposes. First, it is our standpipe attack line. The jump firefighter pulls the bundle on his shoulder, and the chauffeur disconnects it from the rest of the load. The firefighter then carries the 100-foot bundle to the area of operation (see photo 2). Second, when you reverse lay, you dump the bundle on the ground, estimate how much hose you need to get to your point of entry and if any other sections will be needed for attack, flake that amount on the ground, and have the chauffeur drive away. Remember, this is a three-firefighter company. The firefighter picks up the bundle and reports to where the officer has determined the entry point for the stretch will be. When he gets there, he will have a 100- foot working length of hose and the most powerful offensive handline in most department inventories (see photo 3).
Bed 3—100 feet of 13/4-inch in a bundle to a gated wye to 200 feet of 21/2-inch to a double male to 500 feet of three-inch. Underneath the 100 feet of 13/4-inch, we have another bundle of 100 feet of 13/4-inch—our second attack line off the wye. This load also serves two main purposes.
First, if we forward lay into a fire and the structure is farther than our preconnects will reach, we will stretch this line. In my department, as a general rule of thumb, if it is a small to average one-story structure, we want one section of 50-foot attack line at the point of entry (usually the front door in private dwellings) for advancement. So any one-story structure more than 150 feet from the street is too far away for our preconnects. For a two-story structure, we require 100 feet for advancement, so any two-story structure more than 100 feet from the street is too far for the preconnects to guarantee 100 percent coverage. The firefighter grabs the two loops on the bottom of the 13/4-inch bundle and pulls it down. Then he grabs the next loop down, which is the 21/2-inch, and pulls this loop, and 100 feet of 21/2-inch dumps on the ground. The chauffeur then pulls the second loop, and that dumps another 100 feet of 21/2-inch on the ground (only after the initial 100 feet of 21/2-inch is deployed—we do not want a pile of spaghetti at the back of the truck). The chauffeur then drags this 21/2-inch hose up toward the point of attack. Up to the double male, this is a 300-foot attack line. If 300 feet are enough, the chauffeur breaks the line at the male and ties it in. If 300 feet are not enough, the chauffeur starts to deploy the three-inch to fill out the rest of the line. Most of the time we have found that 300 feet of hose covers the overwhelming majority of our set-back dwellings and garages (see photo 4).
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Second, if we reverse lay, the firefighter dumps the bundle on the ground and estimates how much 21/2-inch hose is needed to get the wye up to the front door. If it’s 100 feet, he pulls the first loop; if it’s 200 feet, he pulls the second loop. He then dumps the second bundle of 13/4-inch on the ground before the engine drives away for the second attack line. I should mention that while all of this is going on (here and in all the scenarios above), the officer is conducting his size-up. After this, the chauffeur can reverse lay. Remember, the 21/2-inch is filled out with 500 feet of three-inch hose (see photo 5).
Bed 4—500 feet of three-inch hose connected to the 21/2-inch hose for a fill. Besides the functions mentioned above, this static load has three main purposes.
1. Supply line. We have several large chemical plants in our community that have fire pumped hydrant systems. The average hy-drant gives 150 psi off one of these pumped systems. If we pull into XYZ chemical plant and find heavy fire, and the officer in charge decides to forward lay, we will lay dual supply lines—one four-inch and one three-inch—to support our deck gun and 21/2-inch attack line. We also have our domestic water system preplanned so we know where the “good hydrants” are. One of them happens to be right outside one of our townhouse complexes. We know that if we are going to forward lay into that complex with a heavy fire condition showing, we will again drop dual supply lines. This is why we lead out with the female coupling.
2. Support sprinkler/standpipe fire depart-ment connection (FDC). This is not normally a responsibility of this engine. Our second-due engine, which responds out of our station with one firefighter, has the primary responsibility of pumping the FDC. Note: All of our sprinkler/standpipe occupancies are identified, and the second engine goes on receipt of the alarm.
3. Ground-mounted deck gun 400 gpm or less. Why 400 gpm or less? Because friction loss in the three-inch will eat you up over 400 gpm for any length of stretch. Let’s say you go defensive and you want a deck gun in the rear yard, or exposure 3 needs protection and you’re the only engine operating in that general area. If you determine that 400 gpm (13/8-inch stacked tip) is sufficient to take care of the problem, one firefighter can grab the gun and a loop of three-inch (one section) and carry it with him. The other firefighter or officer can place one section of three-inch on his shoulder with help from the chauffeur and drag one or two sections before the chauffeur has to help with the stretch. If 400 gpm is sufficient, why kill yourself stretching four-inch when you can use three-inch? Remember, in this scenario, it is going to be a long night, so anything you do to work smarter in the beginning will pay off later in the operation (see photo 6).
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Having a mixture of preconnected and static loads of various gpms gives the three-firefighter engine com-pany the best opportunity for a quick stretch and effective knockdown. The key to laying out your attack engine is to know your district. Figure out how far off the street your average private dwelling is, and set your preconnects accordingly. Do you have set-back occupancies? How deep is your average commercial/industrial building? Do you carry enough 21/2-inch to cover it effectively?
We have several commercial/industrial occupancies that our 500 feet of 21/2-inch static load will not cover. For those occupancies, no hose comes off the truck until the officer in charge completes his size-up and determines where the attack will start. We may have to reposition the engine to another street for the attack.
Discipline and a good size-up are extremely important in these types of operations. Train hard on different scenarios: forward lay, reverse lay, preconnects, static loads, and deck gun attack off booster tank. Don’t handcuff your members’ creativity; give them the tools they need to do their job as aggressively as possible.
Thanks to Chief (Ret.) Steven R. Sitz for his help in the area of engine company operations through the years.
TOM SITZ is a lieutenant and a 17-year veteran of the Painesville Township (OH) Fire Department. He is a shift supervisor and training officer. Sitz has an associate degree in fire science and is a state certified instructor, inspector, and haz-mat technician.
