Timed Drills for Stretching Hose Lines Into Buildings
departments
The Volunteers Corner
Every officer should know what stretching a line into a building means in terms of time and manpower.
Time is an important factor in developing fireground strategy because the fireground commander has to plan his strategy so that the line is in an effective position after the fire has extended during the time it took to stretch the line. Furthermore, the time it takes to stretch a line to the desired position depends on the number of men handling the line and how far they have to go vertically and horizontally.
Like most fireground evolutions, the best time to develop facts is during training—not on the fireground when the sense of time gets mutilated.
Look around your own area and determine the sizes, in floor area and height, of your smallest and largest buildings. Then determine the average size of what might be your most typical building problem. In some areas, this will be a two-story house. In others, it will be a five or six-story building and in a few areas, a high-rise.
Conduct drills: To get the information you need, you will have to conduct some drills. Men stretching lines during these drills must operate at ordinary fireground speed. They must never run but can walk fast on the ground and climb stairs and ladders slow enough to make stretching a line a smooth operation that does not threaten to drag the hose out of anyone’s hands.
Inasmuch as fires differ in size, both 1 1/2 and 2 1/2-inch lines (or 1 3/4-inch lines) should be used in the drills. If your hose loads have special finishes, continue to use them. The idea is to keep the drills realistic or they will be meaningless.
Some drills should be into buildings with large floor areas but only one story high, if that’s what you have in your area. Other drills should be to upper floors of t wo or three or more story buildings, and if you have high-rises, drill both using an elevator and walking up stairs. Remember, elevators should never be used in a high-rise unless they are under the manual control of the fire department.
Timing the drills: To make these drills meaningful, they must be timed. However, time should not be stressed and the fire fighters must not fight the clock. The timer should be unobstrusive so that the times recorded are reflective of how long it will take for the same evolutions at a fire.
You may be surprised at how long it takes to get a hose line ready to operate on the 14th story or a high-rise—or at the inside attic scuttle in a 2 1/2-story house. Time the difference between using a 1 1/2-inch line and a 2 1/2-inch line.
Manpower has a vital effect on the time it takes to stretch a line. Depending on the specific problem, the optimum number of men will vary. For example, it doesn’t take any more men to put a line into operation off a standpipe on the 50th floor than it does on the seventh floor. On the other hand, a line taken to the fourth floor over a ladder is not the same manpower problem as taking a line up three flights of stairs.
On the other hand, you will find that increased manpower eventually bows to the law of diminishing returns. When you add a third man to a lining-in problem, the time should show a marked reduction, but as you add more men, the time saved becomes less and less. You eventually reach a point where adding another man to a line does nothing to reduce time.
Manning considerations: Properly done, these drills will provide figures from which you can draw conclusions about manning of engine companies. You will begin to get a better idea of just how much work a specific number of men can do in stretching a hose line. Now the officers will begin to get a pretty good idea of where a fire can be expected to extend while lines are being put into operation. This will affect their judgment of where initial lines should be ordered to be placed.
The times you obtain for the more difficult situations will affect the chief officer’s decision to call additional companies just to get enough manpower to get lines into position within a reasonable time. It may result in automatically dispatching additional companies for certain large buildings.
In volunteer departments where many fire fighters respond directly to the fireground from their homes, it may be necessary to develop a closer control over the assignment of these men to lines being placed in operation. It is better to have a number of fire fighters standing by, waiting for an assignment, than to have them melt into the hose crews already well manned.
If the proper overtures are made in the name of improved fire protection, arrangements can be made with the management of industrial buildings to conduct drills during non-operating hours. Usually such plants have one or more watchmen on duty who can unlock doors. The plant employee in charge of fire prevention and protection also should be present during your drill.
As for drills in residential buildings, vacant buildings waiting to be torn down become available from time to time, or you might find one about to be remodeled. In many cases, your own fire station can at least satisfy a second floor lining-in drill.
Large mercantile establishments, such as supermarkets, may allow you to drill on their premises while clerks are restocking after shopping hours.
Look around. There are more opportunities to conduct drills inside buildings than you may realize.
