BY FRANK C. MONTAGNA
We tell truckies not to congregate behind the nozzle team. Why not? Truckies need to get into the fire apartment as soon as possible, don’t they? The nozzle team, if staffing permits, consists of a nozzleman, a backup man, and an officer. Where there is inadequate staffing, the officer may take the nozzle or backup position. When the nozzle team starts to advance into a fire, it does not usually move into the building and on into the fire area in one continuous motion. Rather, the members move forward and stop and then move forward and stop again. This start-stop movement occurs for many reasons.
They may encounter a heavy pocket of fire that must be extinguished before moving forward, or a window may fail, causing a blast of heat and flame to bear down on the nozzle team. The team will then have to cool the area and drive the flame back or retreat to a safer area before advancing again. The team may discover holes in the floor and have to find another route to advance on the fire, or it may suffer a full or partial loss of water or pressure, causing the members to stop and back out. The nozzleman may start to lose his grip on the nozzle as the nozzle pressure causes the hose to slowly slip back through his fingers, causing him to stop and partially shut down momentarily to adjust his grip on the hose. Team members’ SCBA alarm may sound, warning of impending air depletion, and it may be necessary to exit the area after other firefighters make their way to the nozzle position and relieve them. A victim may be discovered, or the hallway they are advancing down may be cluttered with furniture or other obstructions, necessitating that they stop their advance to remove the victim or clear the debris before continuing. All of these things, as well as many other occurrences or problems, can cause the nozzle team to slow, stop, or exit.
What does this have to do with crowding behind the nozzle team? It is the nozzleman who feels the full heat of the fire as he advances. The nozzleman partially shields the backup man. Everyone else behind the nozzle team feels the heat to a lesser degree. As these other firefighters are trying to advance into the fire area to do their jobs, the nozzleman may well feel the need to stop for any of the above-mentioned reasons or for myriad other reasons. The natural aggressive inclination of the horde behind him to advance could easily push him into harm’s way. The aggressive firefighter yelling from the rear, “Get in there, you coward!” and pushing against the firefighter in front of him could be nudging the nozzleman into a hole or into wind-driven fire caused by a failed window. This “pushing” problem is one reason, but not the only reason, to keep the area behind the nozzle team unobstructed.
If relief is needed, it can be difficult, if not downright impossible, for the relief team to maneuver down a narrow, smoky hallway and through a group of firefighters bunched up behind the nozzle team. In addition, the nozzle team may be faced with suddenly changing conditions that necessitate a hasty withdrawal from the fire area. A collapsing ceiling showering fire and sparks down onto them, a sudden water loss, or fire lighting up behind them can necessitate a tactical withdrawal to a safer area. Scalding water burning the nozzleman’s knees or pouring down his neck might force him to give up the nozzle to the backup man and to quickly exit. This might be impossible with the horde in place behind the backup man.
Another problem often associated with the horde is that in its enthusiasm to move forward, some firefighters may be kneeling or standing on the hoseline. Even the most aggressive nozzle team has a hard time pulling a few hefty truckies along with the nozzle. Some firefighters might have good reasons to get into the fire area with the nozzle team. The truck’s inside team, for example, must make a search, open up walls and ceilings to discover hidden fire, or ventilate the fire area. This is not, however, a good enough reason to bunch up behind the nozzle team.
If the fire is of such magnitude that it must be extinguished before anyone enters the room, then the nozzle team must go first. For it to do its job and to advance aggressively, the members must know that if things go bad, they have an unobstructed path to egress behind them. The rest of the firefighters should let the nozzle team and their officer decide how fast to advance. Only they know the true magnitude of the conditions and hazards in the hallway and in the fire area. The rest of the firefighters should not be pushing from behind intentionally or inadvertently. If the nozzle team is not moving, its members may be fatigued or injured and need to be replaced, not be forced into the fire area by firefighters who are not squatting in the nozzle team’s boots and are not exposed to the conditions and dangers the nozzle team is enduring. The nozzle team may need to be supported by a backup line if it can’t advance against heavy fire conditions, or it may have to hold its position and prevent the spread of fire while an attack is launched from another vantage point. It may not always be able to move forward.
It is not easy to keep the escape route open behind the nozzle team. It will take an officer to turn back the well-meaning horde; in fact, it may take a chief. If you could give everyone a shot at being the nozzleman pulling the line down a hot dark hallway at a butt-kicking structural fire, I think it would be a lot easier to keep that escape route clear at future fires.
OVERHEAD ROLLDOWN GARAGE DOOR
We are warned that we should clamp a vise grip onto the metal track of an overhead rolldown garage door or put a pike pole into it before entering a residential garage to extinguish fire. Why?
As a truck officer, I responded to a fully involved car fire in a residential garage. The car was burning furiously, and the engine was in the process of stretching to the rear of the house, where the garage was located. While waiting for water, I told a young firefighter to wedge the tip of his pike pole into the metal channel that supported the open rolldown garage door. He looked at me confused. He did not know why I wanted him to do it. At that moment, the springs that held the overhead door in the “up” position failed because of the heat of the fire, and the heavy wooden door came crashing down like a guillotine. As it landed with a bang, the young firefighter’s eyes widened first with surprise and then with understanding. He now knew why I had directed him to put the pike pole into the track.
Overhead garage doors typically ride on small metal or plastic wheels secured in lightweight metal channels on either end of the door. The doors can be quite heavy and, typically, there are metal springs and, if electronically operated, a raising cable or chain attached to the top of the door and stretching back along the ceiling toward the rear of the garage, where they are secured. The springs make it easy to lift the door and to maintain the door in the “up” position once opened.
A serious car fire in a garage will generate high temperatures at ceiling level; this heat can cause the door’s lifting springs and cable or chain to fail. This sudden failure may result in the garage door’s unexpectedly crashing down into the closed position. It is also possible that the door might slowly close as the springs and raising cable stretch as they are heated. If a hoseline has been stretched into the garage, the impact of a falling door can burst the hoseline, leaving the firefighters inside behind a closed door with the fire and without water. If the door falls on an uncharged line, it will prevent water from reaching the nozzle. The door can also hit and injure an unsuspecting firefighter positioned below it when it falls.
Placing your pike pole with its metal point facing up and braced snugly into the channel will prevent the door from falling lower than the pike pole point should the springs fail. This simple act can prevent the line from bursting if the door falls, firefighters from being injured by the falling door, and firefighters from being trapped inside the garage with a burning car and without water. Another option that will work on most residential overhead garage doors is to lock a vise grip on the track directly under the bottom edge of the raised rolldown door. Should the springs and cable fail, the vise grip will hold the door in place and not allow it to fall. Doors with electronic openers have been known to close unexpectedly when their electric circuitry is compromised by fire and smoke. Again, the pike pole and vise grip would prevent the door from closing.
Both the pike pole and the vise grip will keep the rolldown garage door from falling, but the high heat produced by the car burning in the garage poses another door-related risk. The intense heat concentrated at ceiling level can cause more than the door’s raising springs and cable to fail. The metal tracks on which the door rides could also fail. When this happens, the entire door drops down like a large pancake onto the car and firefighters below. Unfortunately, neither the vise grip nor the pike pole trick will help in this instance.
To avoid these door-related hazards, do not enter the garage until most of the fire has been knocked down and the springs, cable or chain, and tracks have been cooled with your hose stream. You should be able to hit and extinguish much of the fire using the reach of your stream from a position just outside the garage. You will still need to secure the open garage door with the pike pole or the vise grip.
FIRE IN A FLAT-ROOFED BUILDING
At a fire in a flat-roofed building, one of the tasks the firefighter assigned to the roof is told to perform is to feel the metal vent pipes rising above the roof and to open the roof around the hot vent pipe if heat is found. Why should the roofman perform this task?
The vent pipe is a vertical rise of piping that is an extension of the soil pipe, a drainpipe that carries off wastes from sinks, toilets, and other fixtures. The vent pipe is located in a vertical void typically found between the kitchen and the bathroom. In apartment buildings, these kitchens and baths are often stacked one on top of another, forming a continuous void from the lowest level up to the roof. Traditionally made of cast iron, vent pipes currently might be constructed of PVC plastic. The metal vent pipe conducts heat well, and a hot vent pipe is indicative of fire burning in the void containing the vent pipe. If the roofman discovers a hot metal vent pipe, he should notify his officer immediately. Fire could be spreading vertically and unnoticed through this void. It can be spreading upward and downward as burning embers fall down to lower portions of previously uninvolved sections of the void.
Rising heat and smoke, once they reach the roof, will start to mushroom in the cockloft. Unchecked, this will result in a cockloft fire. Once informed of the problem, the officer should initiate an inspection of this void area on all floors as soon as possible, but the fire floor and floors above should be inspected first, as the most likely direction of fire spread would be upward. As quickly as possible, hot walls along the run of the void should be immediately opened up and water should be applied up and down the void to extinguish any spreading fire.
Once the roofman vents the void by opening up the area of the roof around the vent pipe, horizontal fire extension from this void will be slowed as the fire rises toward the vent hole, but vertical extension will be accelerated; therefore, water must be rapidly applied into and up the void. A coordinated effort coupled with good communication between the roofman and his officer can quickly identify the source and location of this extending fire and smoke. Add to the team effort rapid water application into the void, and this fire spread can be stopped. ■
If you have a “Why Do We Do That?” topic you would like discussed in this column, send your suggestions to chief@chiefmontagna.com.
■ FRANK C. MONTAGNA is a battalion chief and a 35-year veteran of the Fire Department of New York. For the past 18 years, he has served as a chief officer assigned to Battalion 58 and is currently detailed to the FDNY Bureau of Training assigned to curriculum development, creating training programs for chiefs, company officers, and firefighters. He has a degree in fire science from John Jay College, where he has taught fire science and management courses as an adjunct lecturer. He is the author of Responding to “Routine” Emergencies (PennWell, 1999) and is a member of the editorial advisory board of Fire Engineering. Montagna lectures on various fire-related topics and is a contributor to Fire Engineering and FDNY’s WNYF.
