BY TOM SITZ
The pump operator is such an important position on the fireground that many large urban fire departments make it a tested or promoted position. This allows them to pull their pump operators out of a small pool of people who have gone through a formalized pump operator school and have passed some form of test to earn the position. Having the same pump operator every day when the company reports for duty certainly adds to the company’s efficiency. In these systems, jump seat firefighters probably do not spend a lot of time training on pump operations. They probably spend the majority of their time training on what they are expected to do: stretching and advancing handlines, operating master streams, and catching hydrants.
However, smaller urban, suburban, or rural fire departments do not have the personnel resources to dedicate people only to operating the pump. Consequently, all members must be trained in all aspects of fireground operations. In the smaller career departments, the pump operator position may rotate weekly or monthly. In a volunteer department, the pump operator may be determined based on order of arrival at the fire station. The first one to the station drives the engine.
In these systems, it could be very easy for individuals to miss certain types of training needed for pump operators to be able to effectively do the job, since the training cannot be narrowed down to specific fireground operations because they need to be able to perform all operations: engine, truck, and emergency medical services; in some organizations, technical rescue and hazmat can be added into the training cycle. If you are on a holiday or vacation day in a career department or if you have to work during drill night in your volunteer department, it could be several months before another pump operator drill rotates through the training cycle.
Many departments’ training cycles do not cover what they expect their operators to do when things go wrong at the pump. This article reviews several things that can happen to a pump operator and what to do to fix the problem or put a bandage on it so you can maintain water long enough to back personnel out of the building when something goes wrong. Remember, the pump operator has to be able to think and act on his own (he may be the only person outside the building) in the initial minutes to fix whatever went wrong.
Scenario 1: Loss of water in your supply line while the attack line is already in the building. The attack is underway, and the supply line collapses from a lack of water. What is the operator expected to do?
1 Pull the tank suction valve and begin operating off the booster tank water. This will at least buy the attack team some time to back out with whatever water is in the booster tank for protection. Whether it is three-quarters or one-quarter full of water, some water is better than nothing. How do you explain burning or trapping members because of a loss of water when water is sitting in the truck? Remember, close the tank suction valve when you make the switch from tank water to the supply line.
2 Immediately after pulling the tank suction valve, notify the engine company officer using Emergency Radio Traffic that he lost his supply line, that he is operating off his tank water, and how much water is left in the tank. The engine company officer should be notified first, as he and the rest of the company are in the hazard zone.
If formal command is in place, the incident commander will use this information (how much water is left) in addition to what he sees on the exterior and situation reports from the attack team to determine whether to immediately withdraw his operating forces or continue with a more cautious offensive operation.
Any time a supply line has been compromised, the pump operator should notify the fireground via Emergency Traffic. For example, “Emergency Traffic, Emergency Traffic. Engine 1 operator to portable 1: We lost our supply line. You are operating off tank water only with three-quarters of a tank left, and you still have fire showing in two windows on side 4.”
Based on this report and what the company officer sees on the inside, he can continue with his incident action plan or alter it accordingly. Based on the report given above, a tactical retreat until the supply line problem has been fixed would probably be the most likely course of action. However, if it were a kitchen fire that was knocked down, one-half of the booster tank is filled with water, and the operator reports from outside in his Emergency Traffic that the smoke is lightening up, the officer inside would probably choose to continue to operate in the kitchen and start checking for extension.
3 Figure out why the supply line lost water. Steps 1 and 2 are bandages before determining what to do to fix the problem. It is very tough to fix things if you do not know why they are broken. The operator must immediately rule out several logical assumptions.
The first and easiest way to correct this immediately is to check to see if another engine has tied into a hydrant on the same water main as the attack engine. If the operator of the attack engine hears command order another engine to lay another supply line into the scene a minute or two before his plug dries up, he needs to get that plug shut down before that engine starts supplying attack lines. If that second engine was robbing water from the attack engine, once that plug has been shut down, the residual pressure for the attack engine should return to its original pressure.
The second reason for a loss of water in the supply line, and the easiest to spot, is a burst length of supply line. The gusher of water in the middle of the street is a pretty good clue that you may have burst a section of supply line. We have had cars run over our supply lines during daytime and nighttime fires. I can still see a car flying through the air after it struck a five-inch supply line supplying our apparatus while operating at a restaurant fire. The car was traveling at a high rate of speed. There was a loud crash, a gusher of water 20 feet in the air, and the car came limping past us at a considerably slower speed. It appeared that the hose and the car gave and took equally. This problem is a little harder to fix because if you are tied into the hydrant’s steamer connection, it will have to be shut down while you change out that section of hose.
The third possible reason for losing your supply line, and the hardest to fix, is a water main break. Other than for water bubbling up from the street, it can be very hard to spot. The pump operator cannot fix a water main break, so he is going to have to take action that will eliminate the current water supply. In this situation, the attack engine may need more water/time than can be afforded by just operating off the booster tank. In this case, the operator should have the second-due engine pull up to the attack engine as closely as possible, preferably within 15 feet. This way, most engines will be able to use their short sections of supply line. This will drive up 500 to 1,000 gallons of water to a position where they will be immediately available to support the attack team’s withdrawal or continued operations. The second-due engine now has the option of topping off the attack engine booster tank and then laying another supply line from another water main or continuing to nurse the attack engine off the booster tank while another engine lays the supply. If for some reason the second engine cannot get into position next to the attack engine, it should immediately tie into the original supply and feed the attack engine from the booster tank until another supply line can be laid. From this position, the second-due engine has the option of tying into the original supply line with the supply line and laying into another water main once the attack engine booster tank is full.
A fourth reason you might lose water is the result of a blockage in the suction intake because of ice, rocks, plastic bags, or other debris. If the pump operator experiences a sudden loss of residual pressure with the supply line still fully charged, it is possible that there is a blockage at the suction intake that is limiting the water entering the pump. The water is still there, but the blockage is preventing it from getting into the pump. One way for the pump operator to verify a possible blockage would be to feel the supply line. If it is a blockage, the supply line will be rock hard as it is full of pressurized water being kept out of the pump. A good pump operator will squeeze his supply line when he notices his residual pressure dropping, and if the drop in pressure is occurring down range, it will be reflected in the softening of the supply line. If the pump operator believes he has sufficient water but a blockage at the tank suction, he should transition to tank water and shut down the supply line so he can clear the blockage and resecure the supply line.
Scenario 2: The attack engine shuts down as a result of a mechanical failure while pumping the attack line after it is hooked up to a hydrant.
The most important part of this operation is probably what the operator should not do: Never close any valves that are allowing water into the truck or open any valves (booster tank) that will redirect water away from the attack lines. At this point, the attack engine will at least be getting some water pressure from the water system for the attack lines during their withdrawal.
1 Once the operator realizes the engine has died, he should immediately close the tank fill valve to redirect that pressure back into the attack lines. The booster tank valve should already be closed since he is operating off a hydrant.
2 The operator needs to make an Emergency Radio Traffic call to the engine officer and then to Command to advise them the engine has died and that they are operating directly off hydrant pressure.
3 The operator should now have the second-due engine report directly into his position, if possible within 15 feet, and tie into the attack engine with a short section of supply line. At this point, the second engine ties the short section of supply line into one of the discharges (large-diameter hose or 2½-inch) so it can pump the attack lines already in place off its booster tank. The operator of the second engine should set his engine pressure 10 to 15 pounds higher than the initial pump pressure of the attack engine to overcome any friction loss being created as the water passes through the attack engine. At this point, the out-of-service attack engine is being used as a big manifold.
4 The next immediate priority is to get water to the second engine supplying the attack lines. This is a relatively easy fix since it is a mechanical problem and not a water supply problem. Since the second-due engine is pumping the attack lines off its tank water, you can shut the supply line down either at the plug or preferably with a hose clamp, disconnect it from the first engine, and tie it into the second engine now pumping the lines. This whole operation should take less than a minute once everything is in place.
I recommend using the hose clamp if it is available for several reasons. It is quicker than shutting down the plug, and it eliminates the ever-constant threat of a water main break whenever you shut down a hydrant. Also, if you are on a slight decline, all the water in the supply line will be running toward you once you disconnect it from the engine instead of only 20 to 25 feet of water from wherever you place the clamp in relation to the engine.
Scenario 3: You are stretching an attack line directly from a hydrant.
Hopefully, you will never have to do this, but if you do, you need to figure out if it is feasible based on your water system on the training ground, not on the fireground. After you spend a couple of years in the fire service, you will witness equipment breakdowns often at the worst possible times. Several times during my career, the first-due or second-due engine broke down while en route or pulling up to the scene. I have also been involved in situations where the attack engine broke down after the attack lines were stretched so that the second-due had to come in and pump them. Although very frustrating, these things can all be quickly and efficiently overcome as long as the remainder of the engines on the assignment arrive in a timely fashion and your pump operators are trained in how to overcome these types of unpredictable events.
The problem occurs when your attack engine dies and the other units are not going to arrive in a timely fashion because of any number of factors: blocked train tracks, normal rush-hour traffic, or the second engine is coming from farther away because the normal second-due is already committed on a call. Now, what are you going to do? You have a working fire in a dwelling and a delay in an engine that can pump water because yours has died. This is when you really need to have a plan in place.
The majority of the hydrants in my jurisdiction have a static pressure of 80 pounds per square inch (psi) and an average gallons per minute (gpm) rate of between 500 and 1,200. Knowing this ahead of time, we decided to see how far from the average hydrant we could still get an effective fire stream using only hydrant pressure. To keep friction loss to a minimum, we decided to start out with a 2½-inch attack line with a one-inch smooth bore nozzle, which would give us 200 gpm if we were able to get a nozzle pressure of 50 psi. Using the street hydraulic formula for 2½-inch attack lines: Gpm: drop the last digit, and subtract 10, which gives you the friction loss per 100 feet of hose-200, drop 0 = 20 – 10 = 10 psi loss per 100 feet. We determined that we should be able to stretch a 2½-inch handline line 300 feet from a hydrant since we are losing 10 psi in friction loss per 100 feet at 200 gpm and still have 50 psi at the tip.
Since it looked good on paper, we decided to see if it would actually work. We hooked up an in-line pressure gauge to the 2½-inch hydrant butt so we could get a residual pressure and then stretched 300 feet of 2½-inch hose with a one-inch tip. Once we opened the nozzle, the 200-gpm fire stream we had coming from the hydrant was identical to any 200-gpm fire stream we were pumping. We knew from previous 2½-line drills that we could expect about 95 feet of penetration when we held that nozzle at a 45° angle from a kneeling position. That was exactly the penetration we got using only hydrant pressure.
Executing this drill proved our point that we could get a very effective fire stream 300 feet from the majority of our hydrants if we used the proper setup (2½-inch hose and smooth bore nozzle). One thing we did not anticipate was the water system’s rapid ability to adjust itself back to its normal operating pressure. Once the nozzle was opened, the initial pressure (static) dropped 15 pounds (residual) for a flow pressure of 65 psi. Because we tested initially on a looped water main, after about 30 seconds, the system brought the operating pressure back up to 80 psi at the plug with one line in operation. This proved that we could support two attack lines off one hydrant at a pretty substantial fire flow for a dwelling as long as we understood how the water system was being supplied (looped or dead end).
Also, the average distance between hydrants in our community is 500 feet. Based on this fact, we know that 300 feet of hose stretched from a hydrant will at least reach the front of the majority of our private dwellings. Whether you go offensive when using only hydrant pressure depends on your risk vs. benefit size-up. However, even if you do not go offensive, you can knock down a lot of fire from the exterior using 200 gpm with about 95 feet of penetration. At the very least, this is a very effective exposure line until help arrives.
You must understand your water system. Go out and figure out your average pressures, and then design a hose stretch that fits your water system. Then you will know in what parts of town you can stretch from a plug in an extreme situation and in what parts you can’t. A plug that is going to give you only 25 psi, even if it gives the gpm you need, is going to be useless. Why waste your time on a plan that is not going to work? Figure it out ahead of time.
TOM SITZ is a lieutenant and a 28-year veteran of the Painesville Twp. (OH) Fire Department. He is an instructor in the Lakeland Community College fire science program and the Auburn Career Centers Firefighter Certification program. He has presented at FDIC several times.
