MORE “WHADDA YA MEAN BY THAT!!”
BY TOM BRENNAN
Last month I used questions (faithfully quoted) that you raised at the various places I have visited during the past year. You can also e-mail your questions to me at tfb111 @aol.com.
Why do you advocate putting the structural fire tactic that the on-duty firefighter was assigned for that tour of duty on the accountability system used by your department? We think that the names of the operating firefighters are enough!
Well, it depends on how you operate in your location. If you have (firefighter understaffed) units arriving at the scene and the entire unit is given the same assignment (i.e., vertical ventilation or interior search of a certain floor or outside ventilation or, or U ), then you are correct. However, if you work for me, each firefighter is assigned a position or function to answer for at routine structure fires depending on arrival. That assignment is given to him at roll call at the start of the tour and entered on the “riding list.” Truck companies should split assignment for interior team and outside entry and vent team, and vertical ventilation team, and, and,…. Engine companies should likewise assign the nozzle, the nozzle backup, and the third person on the line also, should that luxury be available.
If the fire is routine, there`s no matter. The accountability system comes into immediate play when things do not go routinely. Explosion, interior local collapse, exterior collapse, flashover, and smoke explosion are some of the main events we cannot plan for. Now you need to know a “Best Guess Estimate” of whom you are looking for and where they probably may be!
The listed assignment will assist in that. For example, if we find the hoseline, we know we are looking for people a short distance from the nozzle and at the nozzle. In the case of a third firefighter on the line, he should be at the half landing below the operation floor or at the door to the occupancy, where he can be ready for relieving and also keep the hose flowing forward smoothly. We would not look for the firefighter assigned to the roof under the collapse. Nor would we look for the fire team at a partial collapse below the fire floor. In collapse situations, the savable people are on top of the pile and lucky to be within voids created by the floors in the collapse. If we know the assignment of the firefighter and to what floor the interior team is assigned, we are way ahead of the confusion and the guessing factor. But then, if everyone does the same thing on arrival … never mind!
Whaddya mean, another stretch–we always stretch the preconnected crosslay!
There is that word again–always (red light!). What do you have on the pumper that can lay a stretch if the three, four, or five lengths of 134-inch hose in the preconnect beds are not enough? You cannot stretch it into a fire at a strip store that is 200-plus feet deep with a 30-foot sidewalk and double-parked cars and the hydrant hookup on the median near the parking lot!
You cannot stretch any of them into an occupied four-story frame apartment house in lots of middle America`s urban/suburban experience–at least not to the top-floor rear with a return-type staircase in the front of the building and with no wellhole in the handrail. As a matter of fact, you will need people from the second engine to help with this stretch. And you certainly cannot take it into a commercial structure that is 300 feet by 200 feet that has the entrance at the corner! So now the problem. What is one solution? Simple–the 212-inch bed of hose at the rear of the engine. Put more than 12 lengths of 212-inch hose in it with the male on top and ready for a reverse lay or back stretch–meaning, you hit the fire first and then run to the hydrant with the engine.
I had some deputy chiefs say that they were against it because it was an archaic method. Then the electrical supply shop burned to the ground because they fought the fire from the rubbish in the rear of the building and into the building and “almost” made it to the front! About 50 feet and two aisles short!
Get 12 more lengths of the 212-inch into the bed and then put two, three, or four lengths of 134-inch hose in a large loop on the top connected by a male reducer. If you need varied lengths, step off with the 200 feet of small attack hose and strip off the additional 100 to 200 feet of what you need (if you do) and let the pumper run to the hydrant location. One firefighter can pull along a loop of 100-plus feet of the small attack hose to the base of the wellhole or to the floor below the fire or wherever. Is this to say “all the time”? No, but it`s there if you need it! Additionally, if the doubtful amount of fire shows itself on arrival, you have but to disconnect the reducer and stretch the 212. More next month! n
TOM BRENNAN has more than 35 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 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 is the recipient of the 1998 Fire Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award. You can e-mail him at tfb111@aol.com.
