By Tom Brennan
The reason for this title (aside from trying to be cute) is that many of us overlook, tend to forget, or just ignore all the parts of a subject. This is especially true about tactical practices that need to be “in the Swiss army knife” all the time. In short, many are enthralled with capital “A” and don’t see all the other parts of the letter, especially the unimportant lowercase. I am going to try to simplify some thoughts that will (may) help in routine situations and keep them routine!
Portable ladders and their use becomes a confusing subject—learning, then selecting, then using, then critiquing, then feeding back, then training yourself. Then you try to add all the information you may have gathered over the years—selection tricks; position triage of the second ladder needed; tip of the ladder location, depending on where you are going; and more. This is not to mention the intense ordered chaos of the scene of a building on fire and screaming language that is undecipherable.
In this case, winning or losing the battle with these ladders does not depend on whether you can raise the thing and get to and enter your objective; it all focuses on GETTING OUT. You can use all the tricks, theories, selections, assistants, positions, and climb techniques, and you will get into your objective. You step over from a blank wall objective, you stand on the top rung and pull yourself up and into the window 35 inches from the tips, or you feel for the pitched roof from the eaves that your ladder just about reaches and get yourself onto the incline and out of sight of the critical eyes below. You either get to your objective or you don’t. If you don’t because of poor tactical operations, so what? Your pride is injured, and your “atta-boys” are all cashed in, but you are all right.
How do you get out? How do you get someone that you may have found out? Never mind that state of consciousness or the number you located. So you can see that all the “bar room” theories and bets on fine points of tactics are supported only IF you can get out (in this case).
Here is another example. Arrival of apparatus is the (direct) responsibility of the chauffeur and the officer. (Notice my order here.) It doesn’t matter at a fire scene whether it is a truck or an engine. What is the enemy you have to combat first and foremost to make all the other rules and practices fall into place? Luck? Maybe, but not likely. It is “funnel vision”—your inability to keep in touch with the big picture. Out-of-control funnel vision is a virtual killer.
When smooth and rapid water application is not immediate and at the right position inside the structure, it is a problem for civilians and uniformed personnel alike. Failing to protect the searching firefighters as soon as possible causes early aborting of an incomplete primary search and entrapment of the searchers themselves.
Tower bucket operators are the most exposed to this malady. They believe they are advancing a 750-gallon stream to the seat of the fire. All around them becomes obliterated. Erratic tower movement to the objective is a tremendous cost in time—15 moves with the stick instead of three is a prime example. Secondary objectives (that may become primary) are missed, exposures to personnel in the bucket from below and surrounding in the case of electrical service, fire extension to autoexposure (you) or collapse dangers are all vital information that you can smoothly attain only if you remain thinking in Cinemascope.
I can remember being assigned to a tiller-equipped ladder company and turning into the fire block with narrow service roads serving the multiple dwellings on one of the widest thoroughfares in Brooklyn. Two people with fire glowing behind, adjacent to, and below them were seen at the fourth-floor window. It was 4 a.m., and we had hundreds of yards to go. Funnel vision had the officer screaming all kinds of orders, passed over the experienced chauffeur, and got handed off to the tiller driver. He began to “take out” single and double-parked cars, slowly at first but then like a successfully launched pinball. The result is that we were never able to get to an operable location for the aerial and were forced to use the canvas net for the two, now airborne, civilians. Wrists were broken, knees were smashed, roof ventilation was delayed, and second-arriving truck personnel had their hands more full than they planned as we tried to rapidly regroup.
Was the primary and controllable cause poor apparatus placement? Nope. Aerial ladder access? Forcible entry? Primary search and removal/rescue techniques? Ventilation? No, nope, nada. It was all a result of failing to get the funnel vision under control by prior training (talking about it), critiquing it (from other fires), giving smooth orders, and more. All the tactics of a great truck would have been in play had the apparatus not been held up by five or six parked cars.
Funnel vision can also put effective and rewarding interior operations (handline use, forcible entry, and primary search) on hold and in danger if the company officer gives in to the vision. This is occurring more and more because of the criminal staffing situation that fails to recognize the value of the company officer and puts him in a position of a “highly paid backup to the handline.”
Rule: The minute a company officer puts his hands and mind into the operation of the tactic he’s trying to accomplish, it can and will spell disaster. Flashover and rollover entrapment, stair failure, collapse signs, fire location, and secondary fire location are all the events to trap our people once the eyes and ears of the area are microfocused.
TOM BRENNAN has more than 35 years of fire service experience. His career spans more than 20 years with the Fire Department of New York as well as four years as chief of the Waterbury (CT) Fire Department. He was the editor of Fire Engineering for eight years and currently is a technical editor. He is co-editor of The Fire Chief’s Handbook, Fifth Edition (Fire Engineering Books, 1995). He was the recipient of the 1998 Fire Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award. Brennan is featured in the video Brennan and Bruno Un-plugged (Fire Engineering/FDIC, 1999). He is a regular contributor to Firenuggets.com.
