By Tom Brennan
This month, HERE are more simple thoughts about structure firefighting from which you can spin off all the regular, routine, standardized evolutions and tactical operations that have to bridge the gap from training on a blackboard to functioning successfully at the operation. For example, as a company officer, you should be able to answer “why” for the first few things you think of doing, performing, or ordering on the fireground. Why do you always stretch the preconnect? Always? There are situations for sure in which larger hoselines are necessary. Remember, if you attempt to enter the fire structure (or fight your way in), you need enough water to “make it” the first time and support the continuous advance. How many of you just let routine cause failure (that no one but you knows!)?
Why would you say that you would go to the roof with the roof team? Usually because you are not thinking and have forgotten to practice thinking for a long time. The company officer in charge of truck functions is one of the most important positions at a structure fire operation for at least the first 10 to 20 minutes. You have so many “plays” to pick from based on size-up of that particular incident and so few logistics (firefighters) to get it done. Priorities must be set, conditions and results continuously monitored, and recommendations transmitted to the building command.
If you are on the roof with two of your three- or four-firefighter teams, it means you are copping out. The job that they have to perform is basically simple and a single important support tactic to interior operations. You should have ensured that the team can function at company drill and at practical sessions you perform in the field while on duty. Remember, if you find yourself engaged in the labor of a single tactic, you are no longer effective as a company officer in that firefight.
Speaking of truck work (extinguishment support functions), what tools are seen in pictures of firefighters at fire scenes that should be left on the trucks? Halligan-type bars that are too long or too heavy! You need the finesse of a nicely formed and well-balanced iron. The length of the bar should “marry” it with the striking tool you use that you can carry with one armload. It should not be too long so as to restrict operations or longer than the width of hallways, private dwelling doors, or recesses supporting doors in masonry buildings.
Six-pound axes are another often-carried tool, but they are too light for striking during forcing entry and for cutting anything more formidable than linoleum. And another often-carried tool is the pickhead ax. What use is it as a striking tool? If you work for me, you’d better be taking two tools when you leave the truck—two that work together. Axes with points on the striking surface make great retirement gifts.
What is the eight-foot hook or pike pole for? Most of our work is in structures with ceiling heights of eight feet or less in the fire rooms. So eight-foot hooks are too long to use on walls and too cumbersome to carry up stairs and make turns with on fire escapes while unbalanced. The same question can be asked of 31/2-foot “closet hooks.” It is time for them to “come out of the closet” and be replaced by halligan-type bars. Usually, fire pictures show tall firefighters with closet hooks and short firefighters with pike poles larger than six feet. There is nothing that a “small” hook can do that a halligan-type bar cannot do better, and you don’t run out of uses for the halligan bar very often.
Say an electric utility service wire is down and on something (car, person, etc.) when you arrive. What is the most important simple rule to remember first? Don’t push the wire anywhere! Pushing the middle of it off the object you wish to relieve of stress will move the arcing end where? Toward YOU! Anchor the loose end with something dropped or tossed, work on an insulated (as much as possible) surface, and get the wire off the objective or the object off the wire.
Stop cutting all roofs that you get to! You cut a roof only when the fire is under the roof! At a top-floor fire with a cockloft or an attic threat or presence, it is primary. Remember, you must make an opening from outer air on the roof down to where the fire lives. If the fire is not in the space or floor below the roof yet, open what the building offers you (skylights, scuttle covers, bulkhead doors, and ventilator equipment), and get down and help out below. Remember funnel vision? Well, this is its partner—shallow vision. The roof is a popular place to be during a structure fire.
How many firefighters assigned a single truck task are too many? Three, especially today with disaster staffing!
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.
