THIS TIME, GET THE ROOF!
BY TOM BRENNAN
Last month, we left you, the member of the truck company assigned to vertical ventilation, at the roof of a fire building where the fire was a floor below the top floor. Remember that ventilation tactics for a top- floor fire differ from those for a fire that is not under the roof! But that should be evident in our discussions of this topic in past issues.
You were up on the roof and the bulkhead (penthouse) door was opened and the top hinge was pried off the frame to keep the door open! Make sure that the size of the door opening is handling the smoke condition and then go to the other three sides of the structure for your survey. Note a few things that should be reported to those below and to the incident command function. Are any human beings in view–either at windows or on fire escapes that cannot be seen from the front, or who can be seen at the base of the shaft or in the yard, having jumped from the fire building or just escaped from it and are awaiting assistance? Report them and their location and the life threat as you see it to both your officer and command. You should be able to locate just what (if anything) is threatening them and their apparent danger–as in extreme peril, great danger, or relatively out of danger and safe, in your experienced opinion.
Note if you are able to assist in horizontal ventilation from the roof with a rope tied to a tool, etc. and report that to your officer in the building, as he can coordinate that with the inward movement problems of the handline and the search team. Note: If the fire is on the top floor, don`t hesitate to take windows in all the occupancies below the cockloft or attic space without getting orders from below.
Monitor the conditions at the bulkhead (penthouse) opening, especially if there is a skylight on the top of the structure. If conditions have worsened, return now to remove the skylight. If the door opening is handling the smoke condition, continue to open vertical arteries such as additional skylights, ventilation ducts, elevator bulkhead doors, dumbwaiter bulkheads (what are they?), and any other covered openings you see.
If you have to return to assist the stair ventilation by removing the skylight obstruction, how do you do it? Many times you have to get to the top of the structure! Well, remember that any position or assignment on a truck is a two-tool job. Place the halligan against the bulkhead structure and step on the upright adz for an assist to get you to “hop” up to the roof line of the bulkhead itself. Or, better yet, take the bulkhead door off and “bury” the axe or halligan into the roof for a stop and lean the door against the structure. A short run and jump with your foot hitting the door latch assembly will put you on the bulkhead roof in short order.
Now, this skylight may be the only one on any building that performs as the books tell you. It may be openable. Try to lift (pry) it off the seat. If you cannot (as is the case most of the time), go through the routine of breaking one light (pane of glass) and then the dust cover below. After warning the crew below about the broken pane of glass, break out all the remaining panes. Again, the one glass and the tinkle of falling glass from the dust cover should alert the firefighters below that more glass is falling. Now report that you are finished with the roof operations, as you size them up from your location, to your officer below. He will confirm that you should now join your team at a location designated by your officer.
If you want a tip from the old days–when we were allowed to be aggressive and think for ourselves–on multistory buildings the roof person would then descend the fire escape to the floors below the roof and work downward floor by floor to the fire floor, searching for occupants and other important data. But that was yesteryear.
It is a good policy here not to use the fire building to gain access below to rejoin the “troops.” But your experience should dictate that event with a bulkhead stairs. However, you should never use the scuttle opening and its ladder to go down from the roof operation and onto the fire floor! Enough for “not on the top floor” fires.
Top-floor fires and fire in a one-story building (that is the top floor) are another story. Vertical ventilation operations almost never cease at least until the fire is under or near under control. You must prepare to cut the roof from the time of arrival on the fire scene (roof-assigned person size-up). When do you take a power saw to the roof, and when do you leave it on the truck? Top- floor fire is the answer. Take a saw and a halligan or a saw and a hook, and get there!
Open all openings available to you as above. Survey the three sides. Take out some windows that show severe exposure and then prepare to cut. Remember to divide the roof into quadrants, depending on fire conditions that you see on the roof and the conditions rising from the sides of the building. You can make a pretty great decision as to where the best cut should be placed and in which quadrant.
The officer of a well-trained team of truck people should expect the roof cuts to begin, and if conditions indicate otherwise (mattress fire, no extension to cockloft, fire under control, etc.), he can order that the cutting be suspended. At fires on the top floor, truck folk assigned to the roof should plan on cutting and can be stopped in the minority of cases. This one delay is responsible for many of our top-floor losses, especially in single-story row stores (taxpayers or strip stores).
So, the difference with the top-floor fire is that you must plan to cut before you leave the truck, and take the tools necessary. Then you must plan to be there a long time–the work almost never gets done–and then there is always overhauling on roof assemblies. Guess who gets that job? n
TOM BRENNAN has more than 33 years of fire service experience. His career spans more than 20 years with the City of New York (NY) Fire Department as well as four years as chief of the City of 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).
