BY TOM BRENNAN
Last month we began listing mistakes that can be lessons on the structural fireground. Remember, “A corrected mistake is not a mistake—it becomes a lesson!” Great leaders in this business try to get this task done for their unit all the time (not to mention themselves)!
We spoke last time of some ideas about what to do before, during, and on arrival at a structural fire at which we are sure to begin an interior, aggressive attack. Let’s continue with additional common errors that can cost us dearly (and that may be masked over).
Fire location. Everyone on the fireground must have the mission of continuously locating the fire in relation to the structure. CONTINUOUSLY! I am sorry to be repeating, but I can’t emphasize that point enough.
Firefighters assigned a task or tactic before the alarm response are able to begin to gather data on the probable location of the fire—the area of the district, the street of the structure, the side of the street, upper or lower half of the structure, front or rear? Now for inside the building: floor of the fire, direction to it, left or right? Now communicate—to command, to your team, to the alternate service (engine to truck and truck to engine). This is the most important ongoing task on the fireground, and all rapid-fire decisions depend on it!
I often (though less and less lately) ask firefighter groups when I am lecturing, “What is the most important thing you can perform all the time while working with an occupied dwelling in which there is a fire?”
“Rescue human life,” is the usual answer!
But the better answer is, “Locate the fire!” How do you know which of the attention-getting apparent victims is truly in need of your primary effort for rescue if you don’t know where the fire is?
How do you know how many lengths of hose you need if you don’t guess the floor by outside signs and then refine it by receiving the information from the interior? Remember the ineffectual radio report that states, “We have a working fire, and we are stretching” or “Smoke and fire showing”? What do we know from that? Nothing!
Hose length. All of this feeds the next mistake (becoming a lesson): stretching into a structure fire and coming up short of hose. The causes are laid to the “always” concept of stretching the preconnect all the time and to the lack of personnel responding on the unit, but both can be solved. The impetus for getting this lesson is that there is no more confusion; upsets; screaming, headless firefighters running in circles; or a breakdown of a smooth extinguishment exercise that can be prompted by running out of hose inside the fire building and not reaching the seat of the fire.
People calmly tell me that they just add a length. Well, that means that they don’t have a clue of how hard or difficult it is. Where does the additional length of hose come from? Who gets it? Where do you hook it up? If it is done on the floor you’re stuck at, who gives you enough room? If it is done at the pumper, can you afford to shut down? What has the fire begun to do? Have firefighters AND civilians made commitments and movements inside the structure based on the belief that you will “get the fire”? This simple process (mistake) puts firefighter and civilian lives in jeopardy, causes all kinds of injuries on the fireground, and more. Erase the mistake the first time, and create a lesson for all time.
While we are on stretching and using hoselines, failure to plan for a rapid entry into the fire compartment can cause all of the problems listed above. The hose should be laid out with enough hose to rapidly advance to and through the fire you LOCATED (see how it all fits?) before water is started! This is a front entrance to a private dwelling, a public hall opposite the fire door in a multiple dwelling, use of stairs below the fire, and window in the shaft combinations—or even forcing the occupancy across the hall and stretching the dry hose into and back out of it before water is started. Standpipe operations are notorious for “clumps” of hose and inefficient and slow stretches to the seat of the fire. Get all the hose laid out on the staircase, below mostly or, if the fire condition is minor, up to the floor landing above the fire and then down to the hall door to the operation floor.
A couple of other negative events that occur at firefighting operations with the first or second hoselines that need to be changed are the following:
- Failure of the hose team to spread out on the line. We spoke of laying out the hose on the fire floor or just below it for rapid movement, but all this has to have the foundation of getting enough hose there in the first place. Get rid of the clump of hose at the building entrance first, and get firefighters to space out on the bends to the objectives on the same floor of a commercial occupancy or on each stair landing of a multiple occupancy until the officer or nozzle control firefighter indicates that enough is available. Everyone shouting “More hose” one after the other without any result means that they are all bunched in front of the hose supply and will stay there forever. Stretches become short. See how it all fits?
- Failure to practice nozzle-handling techniques—in the real world, that is. All of us can stand and hold a nozzle and direct a stream of water into the lot next to the fire station. But practice getting around bends with and without help. Practice and know just how close you can get to the couplings and bail with your backup hand without losing control to back pressure; practice making bends on your knees and stomach without getting pinned between the hose and the outside corner to turn. Practice what reduced supply feels like, what it sounds like. There are lots of nozzle techniques; inside the fire building is not the place to learn them. n
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 Unplugged (Fire Engineering/FDIC, 1999). He is a regular contributor to Firenuggets.com.
