THE ROOF PACK
BY ANTHONY AVILLO AND ED FLOOD
Picture the following scenario. A truck company arrives on a second alarm at a two-story, wood-frame attached row house with a flat roof. Fire has control of the second floor. The incident commander orders the roof cut.
You are the truck company officer. Your crew consists of two firefighters and yourself. Your chauffeur positions the truck in front of the attached, but as yet uninvolved, D exposure. The chauffeur and the other firefighter (the “jump man”) raise a ground ladder to the roof of the attached, uninvolved D exposure. The chauffeur then ascends the ladder carrying two 75-foot lengths and one 15-foot length of utility rope, a pickhead ax, a halligan tool, and a six-foot halligan hook. What a guy! The jump man goes for the saw.
The chauffeur makes the roof, immediately assesses conditions on the roof, and checks the back of the building. He then makes his initial roof report to Command. Next, he uses the pickhead ax to break out the skylight over the interior stairs, providing a quick-fix vent action, allowing the two-firefighter roof team a little time to set up a proper roof operation. By this time, the jump man has made his way up the ground ladder with the saw.
The roof team is in place, and the following actions take place:
A 75-foot line is secured to a waste pipe and dropped to the sidewalk for use as a utility umbilical.
A halligan tool is clipped to the 15-foot line, measured to the top-floor window, and launched over the side to clear out the top-floor windows. This action provides horizontal ventilation of the fire floor to assist the hose teams advancing in from the front of the apartment.
Simultaneously, the roof is sounded for the location of the cut, and the saw makes the hole.
The butt of the halligan hook is used to push down the ceiling, and the ventilation is complete.
Command is informed of actions taken and conditions at the roof.
All the tools are lowered to the ground by the utility umbilical, and the roof team leaves the roof. A job well done.
How did all that equipment get up the ladder and onto the roof?
With a roof pack. All the rope and hand tools needed for this roof operation were put together in a compact package that is easy to access, carry, and deploy.
Three-firefighter truck companies are a reality. The understaffed, mandated do-more-with-less fire department is the norm in today`s fire service. It is fair to assume that this trend will not reverse itself soon.
Fire has never been concerned with our staffing problems or how many firefighters respond on the apparatus. Truck and rescue companies acting to support the fire attack and search operations must get the right tools to the right place quickly for a safe, coordinated, and successful firefighting operation.
Short staffing presents a firefighter/tool ratio problem. The roof pack was improvised by a three-member truck crew as a method for dealing with firefighter/tool roof operation requirements.
The one described in this article was developed by Weehawken (NJ) Fire Department Truck 222 (Battalion Chief David Curtis, who was a firefighter at the time, and us) and has proven its value and versatility time and time again.
Components
The roof pack consists of the following:
A set of irons (pickhead ax and halligan tool).
A six-foot extendable halligan hook (a six-foot pike pole was used in the earlier roof pack incarnations).
Two 75-foot lengths of 38-inch polypropylene utility rope with spring-loaded E-Z clips on one end, coiled for service.
One 15-foot length of 38-inch polypropylene utility rope with spring-loaded E-Z clips on each end (used as the first generation carrying harness, kept in the pack for assisting in window ventilation and tactical flexibility).
A Milwaukee hose strap used as a carrying harness.
Total weight is 32 pounds. Compare that with other gear (134-inch rollup, 21 pounds; 212-inch rollup, 35 pounds; 4.5 SCBA, 30 pounds) and you will see that the weight of the roof pack is not excessive.
Initiation
The roof pack received its initial test on the day the first one was being assembled. While the members of Truck 222 were on the apparatus floor working with the pack and discussing its uses and benefits, potential modifications, and so on, the truck was dispatched to a second alarm at a large, five-story, ordinary-constructed apartment building with a flat roof.
On arrival, the company was ordered to vent the roof. This fire required a fairly extensive roof operation. Tools and hose had to be hoisted and lowered. Top-floor windows had to be taken out, the bulkhead doors had to be removed from their hinges, natural roof openings had to be vented, and the roof had to be cut. What could be a better test for gauging the value of the roof pack?
Even in its most primitive form, the roof pack passed the test. It helped us get the right tools to the right place and get the job done.
Modifications
Since its development, the roof pack has undergone several transformations to im-prove its effectiveness.
The 15-foot utility rope initially used as the carrying harness was replaced by a Milwaukee hose strap, liberated from an accommodating engine company.
A D-ring was welded to the neck of the halligan tool just below the fork.
E-Z clips were attached to the 15- and 75-foot utility lines to expedite rope-to-tool connections and utility tie-offs.
The six-foot pike pole proved to be cumbersome when negotiating stairwells en route to the roof in attached multiple dwellings. Consequently, it was replaced by an extending halligan hook, which has a carrying length of three feet. This change also lightened the package.
The original 12-inch 2 50-foot lengths of utility rope were replaced with smaller-diameter (38-inch), lighter, polypropylene lengths of 75 feet.
Anchor points on roofs of four- to six- story multiple dwellings are often set back from the rope drop point. This setback distance sometimes “eats up” a good deal of the usable portion of a single utility rope, necessitating attaching a second 75-foot utility rope to reach the ground. E-Z clips were added to one end of each of these utility ropes. This left a clip-free end for tasks requiring a loose end of rope.
Every modification was intended to expand the capabilities, effectiveness, and efficiency of the package.
Applications
The roof pack was quickly found to be useful in a variety of applications other than roof operations. For a fire below the top floor, the roof man, after opening natural openings to vertically ventilate the building, can disassemble the pack and take the irons or halligan hook down a fire escape for VES (vent-enter-search). In high-rises, the 150-foot utility rope can be used for rope-guided searches. The best feature of the pack is that when it`s around, the firefighter has the perfect assortment of basic hand tools and can get just about any job done.
Located on the Hudson River, directly across from New York City, Weehawken has within its jurisdiction large marinas that occupy the waterfront. Many pleasure craft and yachts are moored at stringers that peninsula out into the Hudson, some as far as a quarter mile. The roof pack has proved to be an excellent method for getting hand tools to these remote areas.
ASSEMBLING A PACK
To assemble a roof pack, proceed as follows:
Coil the 75-foot utility ropes for service. Use the beams of a ground ladder as the standards for making the coils. (Refer to IFSTA`s Essentials of Fire Fighting as a guide.)
Slide all coils over the halligan tool (see photo 3).
Slide the ax handle through the rope coils so that the tools “mate” (see photo 4).
Slide the halligan hook through the rope coils. The head of the hook should lie adjacent to the head of the ax, with the pole inside the adz of the halligan (see photo 5).
The Carrying Harness
Using the Milwaukee strap as a carrying harness, do the following:
Coil the 15-foot utility rope so it fits around the three hand tools. Clip it onto itself to hold it in place around the pack.
Open the Milwaukee strap fully, and lay it on a flat surface. Place the pack on the straps (see photo 6).
Bring each strap around the tools twice to secure them firmly in place (see photo 7).
–Wrap the two end straps in a criss-cross fashion around the pick of the ax on one end and the adz of the halligan on the other. This will hold the tools in place and not allow them to slide.
–Wrap the center strap around the entire tool pack twice.
Using the 15-foot utility rope as the carrying harness, do the following:
Thread the rope through the two 75-foot utility lengths so that the E-Z clips of the 15-foot rope wind up on opposite ends of the pack (see photo 8).
At each end of the pack, run the rope end around the tools and clip onto itself, forming a loop around the tools (see photo 9).
With the looped rope, secure a half-hitch on the pick of the ax at one end and the adz of the halligan at the other. Snug up the slack between the half-hitches and the E-Z clips.
–The E-Z clips should sit opposite the half-hitches to balance the pack (see photo 10).
Pull the slack in the rope through the center of the two coiled 75-foot lengths. This becomes the carrying harness.
–If the length of the harness causes the tools to hang too low, tie a quick-release overhand knot in the center of the carrying harness to shorten the harness (see photo 11).
Note: With either carrying harness method, the head of the halligan hook (or pike pole) should be even with the head of the pickhead ax and fork end of the halligan. This balances the pack and makes it easier to carry.
Chimney hitches were used to secure the pack before E-Z clips were introduced to the 15-foot carrying rope length.
There are few things sadder or less effective than a firefighter without a tool. Victims trapped in buildings on fire require firefighters with tools to eliminate any obstructions impeding departure from unfriendly environs. Buildings on fire also demand that firefighters with tools go to strategic points and intercede on behalf of structural stability. The fire service is rich in tools but usually firefighter poor. This is a reality we have to deal with. It`s like the straight-backed, white-haired, old world chief who would tell his firefighters when they were bemoaning the difficulty presented by some or another job: “Men, you must adapt to be effective, you must invent to overcome, and you must create to compensate. Now get those tools to the roof!”
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(2) Expanded view of all tools in the roof pack. (3) Placing coils over the halligan. (4) “Mating” the ax and halligan. (5) Placing the halligan hook into the pack. (6) Laying the Milwaukee strap flat and placing the pack on it. (7) Securing the Milwaukee strap for carrying.
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(8) Threading 15-foot rope through the tool pack to be used for harness. (9) Clipping E-Z clips around the tool pack onto itself to form a loop.
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(10) Half-hitch lies opposite the E-Z clip. (11) Take up the slack at the center of the pack. Tie an overhand knot (quick-release) to shorten the harness for carrying.
ANTHONY AVILLO, battalion chief, is a 14-year veteran of the Weehawken (NJ) Fire Department, where he is a platoon commander and in charge of the Training Division and the Arson/Origin and Cause Division. A New Jersey-certified Level II Fire Instructor, Avillo is an instructor at the Bergen County Police and Fire Academy.
ED FLOOD is a 25-year veteran of the Weehawken (NJ) Fire Department, where he is chief of operations. A New Jersey-certified Level II Fire Instructor, he has taught at the New Jersey Fire College and the Bergen County Police and Fire Academy.
