BY TOM BRENNAN
I had a great fire service instructor, a prolific writer, who once told me, “It was perfect when you got it, sonny; don’t edit it!” Well, I think I fell into that trap myself. I have tried the past few months to “drop” some short thoughts on a bunch of tactics we face in our everyday emergency operations—thoughts that are short enough to start a conversation or a drill or a critique and easy enough to put down in front of aggressive firefighters so that we won’t have to be bored with all the surrounding data about what makes the thought “right” or “according to all the standards.”
Well, I finally heard from one of you on this set of documents—a great friend, who asked on the phone, “What the heck are you talking about?”
I wanted to say JUST that a portable ladder’s objective is to get out of a burning building. I wanted you to figure out how to choose it, raise it, and climb it and to remove a victim without my having to write all that I know and had to plagiarize.
Now for this month’s column.
Rail service tracks. A few thoughts on operating on rail service tracks. How many of you think you are safe when the electrical service is shut down? Well, we lost and injured some firefighters because no one accounts for diesel machine operations or knows that train operators are told to coast as long as possible after losing power.
How do you know the power is off? Throw the switch to the OFF position. Right? Never! Get the message to the main control site through your dispatcher, and then order that he get the name and identification of the supervisor reporting that power is “down” as asked.
Also about rail traffic, there is no assigned direction for rolling stock in relation to the track position. Enough said.
Silo fires. If the silo at the farm location is on fire, DO NOTHING! NOTHING! Our farm districts still represent a significant life hazard to our structural firefighting brotherhood. After hearing of many frustrating losses of life during these operations, I went to a state fire academy to read as much as I could about the subject (there are no tenement silos). If the vents were closed, there was an explosion; if the vents were opened, there was an explosion. If you applied water from the base, there was an explosion; and if you applied it from the top, there was an explosion. Some storage required ventilators to be closed, and some required them to be open. If you get the message here, nothing you can do can help, and anything you do can put you in harm’s way for nothing!
At a semisophisticated participative drill program at one state fire academy, the stage behind the screen the “incident commanders” were using housed an instructor with his finger on the tape recorder’s “play” button. The tape was of an explosion, and the button already was set on “too loud.”
“When do you get to play that thing?” I asked.
“Every time!” he answered.
So I came to my little conclusion to share with you: Leave the silos alone. And then find the time to read why.
Doorways. Get the nozzle and the line through the doorway to the fire room, and operate from the inside wall. In short, get out of the doorways. If the fire is keeping you on the “unburning” side of the opening in a doorway or a bend in the hall or room, or at the bottom of a basement or cellar stair, you either don’t have enough water or you have more fire than you think you have. Remember, there is less punishment inside and adjacent to the opening than in it.
With that statement, here’s a question: When do you seek out and get into door assemblies? When the structure you are in begins to collapse before you make your retreat to the outside. The door and alcove assembly has stronger framing than any other spot in the room or structure for you to pause in during your Mayday escape.
Hoseline stretch. Remember to set up every hoseline stretch before you stretch. You will always regret having to recover from too many lengths, too few lengths, incorrect location, and poor size selection. Adding a length of hose in a halted interior fire attack in a structure is always inefficient, ineffective, confusing, and unprofessional—and it could be litigious.
Unconscious victim. Speaking of occupied structures on fire, What do you do with the unconscious victim you found? After you call for help and announce where you are, pull at the head of the victim and nowhere else. Sounds dumb, I know; but if you don’t take the time to ensure that, you could change a smooth drag to an area of refuge into an impossible task at best. Save all the rescue training victim carries until you get to the area of refuge. Real rescues in fire buildings save two people—you and the victim.
Ensure that the victim is moving horizontally head first, and keep the arms and legs from stopping the process at every door, stair assembly, and window opening.
Charge the water extinguishers at the scene of the fire after the critique and before you take up. Water extinguishers and critiques share a common lesson: Both are less effective if you don’t “take care of them” before you get back to the station.
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.
