BY ART BLOOMER
Without a doubt, search is possibly one of the most dangerous activities on the fireground. You are usually working in close proximity to or above the fire, without a hoseline, and probably with not enough firefighters. How often do you preplan for a search? How often do you drill on search techniques? Do you form an action plan before you search? Think back: When was the last time your company pulled up on a working fire and you were assigned to do a primary search?
SCENARIO
You are the officer on the first-due ladder and you turn onto the block to find heavy smoke rolling down the street. The engine company is stretching a line toward the front door of the fire building. The incident commander (IC) grabs you and tells you that there are reports of civilians missing and they were last seen on the second floor. With the firefighter that makes up the second half of your search team, you enter the front door ahead of the two-member engine crew.
As you reach the second-floor landing, you yell through your mask to the other search firefighter, “Stay right behind me!” and together enter the apartment. You quickly realize the visibility is zero, and it’s really hot. You proceed for what seems like 15 feet along the wall; when you turn to give the other search firefighter further orders, you find he is not there.
Now, all of a sudden it gets hotter, and you hear a PASS alarm going off to your left, or is it your right? Darn, those things always seem to echo. You move off in the direction from which you think the sound of the alarm is coming; within seconds, it stops. You call out to the other search firefighter-no answer.
Now the IC calls to tell you that the missing search firefighter has just stumbled out the front door and asked him if he knows where you are. You decide that now is a good time to leave. As you head back to the door, you notice that the stairwell is now well involved. It looks like the engine company might not be making much (if any) progress.
As you try to compose yourself, your low-air alarm starts to go off at the same time you hear three long blasts on the air horns. You head toward the front of the building, find a window, and break it out. As you look down to the ground, you see the IC, your missing firefighter, and the engine crew all looking up at you with puzzled looks on their faces, all trying to figure out why you are still inside.
It’s getting hotter, and fire is now coming through the door into the apartment where you are. You had left the door open. Someone has finally gotten a ladder to the window at which you are standing, and you wish you had drilled more on bailout techniques. If you’re lucky, you will get to the ground in one piece.
Amazingly, the missing people were in the crowd watching the fire the whole time.
I hope this doesn’t sound too familiar to you, but I’m sure it might to some. We just don’t spend enough time training, drilling, and planning for search operations. And most of us don’t size up the building that’s on fire, form an action plan, and share it with the rest of our crew. It doesn’t take all that much time to consider the following information, form an action plan, and complete a successful primary search every time.
SEARCH SIZE-UP
At every fire incident to which you respond, even if you don’t think about it, you do some sort of size-up. From the simple lockout to the fully involved warehouse fire, somewhere in the depths of your firefighter brain, you do a size-up. You see the problem, determine what needs to be done, assemble the tools needed, and attack the problem. This process takes only seconds to complete because most of the time you are acting on prior experience. This size-up procedure must be done for every fireground task, especially prior to a search of a burning building. Your presearch size-up must include
- the size of search building;
- any preplans involving this structure;
- the location and extent of the fire;
- whether other fire units are on-scene, involved in operations, and making progress;
- potential for trapped victims;
- confirmed victims and locations; and
- your crew’s training.
Building Type and Size
What size is the building? Is it small, medium, large, or extra large? Size does matter; it will dictate how many firefighters are needed, the type of search required, and the tools to use. Regardless of the type of occupancy, you can group buildings by size as follows:
Small: one- and two-family dwellings of wood-frame construction (photo 1);
Medium: multiple occupancy of wood-frame and ordinary construction with fewer than six apartments;
Large: apartment houses (five stories or less) and most commercial venues (photo 2);
 (2) A “large” structure, this particular apartment house is of ordinary construction; it was built prior to 1900 and is chock-full of voids, chases, and other nasty surprises. |
Extra large: warehouses, large retail stores, and high-rise structures of five or more stories (photo 3).
If you combine this size information with the fire building’s construction type, you can determine the rate of possible fire extension, where it will extend, and the potential for collapse, at the very least. The structure’s size will also have a direct bearing on the staffing needed. It’s quite obvious that a 25- × 45-foot, one-story wood frame house will likely need only a crew of two to complete a simple primary search, whereas a 500- × 1,000-foot warehouse would require quite a few more firefighters.
The structure’s size and type usually dictate its floor plan, which in turn will determine the type of search to be conducted. Most single-family dwellings have simple floor plans in which a left- or right-hand lead search will work quite well. As you enter the front door of such structures, you are usually faced with either a center hall floor plan or a circular pattern, with a choice of starting your search to the left or the right.
But the primary search for each of these houses of “similar” construction would not be conducted the same way. Some search patterns do not lend themselves to a complete primary search of the building. You can miss whole areas if you don’t fit the search to the floor plan. A good example is the choice to go left or right in a circular pattern; you would miss the entire center of the building.
Construction also influences the choice of tools to bring into the structure for the search. Wood-frame construction requires certain tools, whereas fire-resistive construction most definitely requires additional tools such as rabbit tools for steel door frames. Building size will also determine the need for search ropes.
Preplans
Prior knowledge of the building is key to sizing up for the primary search. It’s impossible to get into every building in your response area, but when you do get “invited” into a building on an EMS or carbon monoxide call, make use of the opportunity to check out the floor plan. It’s very likely that similar homes in the area have the same layout. When you do a preplan walk-through of a business or facility, try to sketch out the layout; when you return to quarters, have a tabletop drill not only for fire attack but also for how you would search the building and what resources you would need. Use every chance to learn as much as you can about the buildings to which you respond, especially the surprises (photo 4).
 (4) This door to nowhere is three floors up. If you don’t find these “features” during a preplan walk-through, bad things could happen during a real incident. |
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Fire Location
Where the fire is located and how much fire there is are the most important things to know before entering a burning building to conduct a primary search. Also, it’s good to know where the fire might be going; again, you must look at the building’s construction for clues. There’s a big difference in fire spread in a century-old Queen Anne and a “McMansion” built in 2005. Fire spread in older homes built around the early 1900s would be much different from that in the open floor plans of today’s homes. The cathedral and vaulted ceilings of newer homes make a first-floor fire a much bigger problem than it would be in the older home with its smaller rooms and doorways. A kitchen fire in a McMansion will affect the second-floor bedrooms a lot sooner than the same type of fire in a home built in 1910. Additionally, the lightweight construction features of the newer structures vs. the plaster and lath with real dimensional lumber in the older homes will significantly impact the fire spread and the early collapse potential of the structure. However, that hundred-year-old building is probably of balloon frame or maybe even braced-frame construction. Consider in your search action plan how the fire will spread and how fast.
Units Operating On-Scene
Other factors to consider in your fire plan are what units are on scene, whether they are in operation, and how effective they are in their fire attack. If you are the first-due truck, you may be assigned to start a search simultaneously or prior to putting a line in service. This is a very dangerous time in the operation; if the engine has a water-supply issue or cannot reach the seat of the fire, the search team can get in way above its head. The ideal scene on arrival would be one with at least two lines charged and advancing, a full truck crew starting ventilation for life or fire, and a rapid intervention team (RIT) at the ready. But how often is that what you find on arrival? More often, you will find yourself entering the building with or before the first line.
This leads us to the progress of the units on-scene in attacking and controlling the fire. If you are going in the door in front of or behind the first line, you will immediately be aware of the progress made firsthand. You will probably be searching ahead of the line and quite possibly may find the fire and report its location to the engine crew. If you arrive after lines have been stretched in, you will have to rely on your observations and radio reports of the fire’s status.
What about the other truck companies on the scene? First, are there other truck crews there and operating? If no one is venting the structure, neither the search teams nor the engine crews will get too far. If you are the first truck on-scene, you will probably get a long list of things to do from the IC and most definitely will not have enough resources to do all of them completely or at the right time. You may have to vent as you search or split your crew to accomplish several tasks at once.
Above all, determine what company is there that will be able to save your butt if you get in trouble. You need to confirm that the RIT is doing its job before you head inside. You and your crew will do a more effective search knowing that there are ladders set up for egress and there is a fully equipped and geared-up crew waiting to go to work in case things go wrong.
Victims
This is one of the most important factors of your search size-up. If you arrive at an incident at which people are hanging out of windows and climbing out onto fire escapes, the task at hand is obvious. Or is it? How many more victims are still unseen, and where are they? Accounting for occupants at multiple dwellings is an almost impossible task and will definitely complicate the search process, since you will rarely, if ever, find an apartment house that is unoccupied.
But pull up in front of a 2 1/2-story wood frame house, and it can turn into a guessing game. If no one is standing out in front at 2 a.m., does that mean the house is empty or that everyone is still inside? And once again, how many is everyone? At a single-family home, if at least one person got out, you have a good idea of how many more should be left inside but not always the exact number. In the excitement of a fire, parents sometimes forget about friends or family sleeping over until it’s too late.
You need to ask questions-of anyone who got out and of yourself before you form your action plan. You need to look at indicators of whether people are home or not, but still you must keep in mind that these indicators do not always tell you everything. When it comes to a primary search, these questions will help determine whether you risk a little, or risk a lot.
Action Plan
You put together all the information to form your action plan for a primary search. Let’s look at all these size-up factors. When you receive the alarm in quarters, look at the address. Do you “know” this building? Have you been there before on another incident or a preplan walk-through? As you respond, listen to any radio reports about potential victims, fire conditions, and units that are responding or are on-scene. When you approach the incident, look at the building. What “size” is it, and what is it used for? Where is the fire and where is it going? Are engine companies advancing lines? Are other truck companies opening up? Is there a RIT ready to go? Once you report to the incident command post and are assigned the primary search, ask the IC what is known about any reported victims or the potential for victims. Now you can go back to your truck crew and tell them what you know, tell them what you plan to do about it, and what you want them to do. It seems like a lot to do, but it can be done in a very short time, and it will directly impact the success of your search. By knowing all of these size-up factors, you can now assign your crew to do a search that will “fit” the task at hand, with the right tools, and in a coordinated manner.
Communications
Even though not part of the size-up process for a primary search, communication and accountability must be considered during a primary search. One of the most important things you can do to increase your safety and that of your crew is to account for your whereabouts and activities. It all starts back at the station by assigning riding positions and duties at the start of your shift. From the volunteer perspective, the officer needs to do this as firefighters get on the apparatus. This virtually eliminates the confusion of who is going to do what and with which tools when you arrive on-scene. Each riding position needs to have tools and duties assigned so each firefighter knows what tools to take and what is expected at an incident.
Communication is essential not only to provide the IC with progress reports of all units operating at the incident but also to let all the units know what the others are doing and where they are in the fire building. Anytime you relocate from where you last reported you and your crew were operating, you must give a radio report of that change to the IC, and the IC must acknowledge that report before you move to that new location. You don’t need to report moving from one side of the room to the other, but a move from Division A to Division C or from Division 1 to Division 2 can make a big difference if a RIT needs to look for you.
Training
When was the last time you conducted a drill or training session on primary search? I’m not talking about placing a dummy or two in a burn building at the training center and telling the crew, “Go find the victims; they’re in there somewhere.” It has probably been awhile. For some, it may have been during probie training. Most of us have probably been shown only a few ways to search, with the left/right hand lead being the most common appoach. The problem is, one search tactic does not fit all search situations. In the past few years, much emphasis has been placed on departments learning large area searches with ropes for use in rapid-intervention situations. Are you going to search a 2 1/2-story wood frame dwelling the same as you would a 24-unit apartment house or a 200- × 500-foot warehouse? Absolutely not, and for a very good reason: The buildings are not the same size. You need to “fit” the search to the building.
To prepare your firefighters to fit the search to the building, train them to do different types of searches and not to rely on modern technologies always being there for them. Yes, I am talking about thermal imaging cameras (TICs). Too many young firefighters think that the TIC is the end-all and cure-all when it comes to a primary search; they rely on it too much. They need to be taught all of the proper tactics and skills so that if they had to, they would be able to search “blind.”
This article is intended to make you think every time you pull up to an incident and are assigned to do a primary search. You need to stop, take a good look, listen to what’s going on at the incident, size it up, make an action plan, and then conduct a successful search. A successful search is one in which every firefighter who goes in comes out, whether victims are saved or not. You need to fit the search to the task at hand. Remember, “One size does not fit all.
ART BLOOMER is a 29-year veteran of the fire service and a firefighter with the Kearny (NJ) Fire Department, assigned to Ladder Tower 2 and Engine 2. He is a rescue specialist with New Jersey Task Force 1 and a certified fire instructor II and has been an FDIC H.O.T. instructor with the Fixed Facility Live Burn Instructors class and a classroom presenter.
