By Tom Kiurski
Training your firefighters on self-survival skills is a difficult concept to grasp for some. On one hand, you hope they never have to use it and they are called on to do so many other fireground functions on a more frequent basis that you hate to spend too much time on this subject. One the other hand, if this situation does arise, you want the firefighters to have had an experience to fall back on to help them out of this bad situation. Obviously, I am a proponent of training on firefighter self-survival skills.
On this training day, we did a wall breach maneuver. The need to breach a wall can come from situations where door access has been cut off and there are no windows from which to exit. With bad conditions in the room, an adjoining room may give refuge long enough for help to arrive or for another plan to be put into place, such as accessible doors and/or windows.
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Begin with a standard drywall breach, so the technique can be practiced under better conditions when the firefighter is fresh enough to understand.
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The first step is to find an interior wall to breach. Once there, take a hand tool and penetrate the wall with the tool at a low level on the wall. Once through, push the tool far into the hole you created to make sure nothing solid is blocking the wall that would be hard to overcome, such as a bathtub, built-in cabinets, or major appliances. Also, be aware of pipe chases, electrical conduits, or other obstructions that may be in between the wall. If you encounter a problem in the wall, move over to another stud bay and check in the same manner for access.
If the wall is clear on the other side, look through the hole to make sure you are going to a better place than the one you are in. If so, begin to clear the wall material out between two studs. Most drywall is fairly easy to penetrate, as is the plaster and lathe of older homes. Take out all material from stud to stud and up about three-and-a-half to four feet from the floor. Once done, take the tool and sound the floor in the other room to check for stability, then send the tool through the hole you are going to headthrough.
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| Add challenges for the next evolution of drywall breaching, such as this thicker drywall with fiberglass mesh. This challenges any firefighter who steps up. |
There are several options for getting through this confined space between wall studs. We practiced two of them and talked about the other two. The first was is to go head first through the studs, keeping tight to one stud and wiggling through. The best way to avoid the sticking point of the self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) bottle is to keep it high on your highest shoulder, which may include loosening a shoulder strap to accomplish this. Once the first sticking point is through, the rest of the maneuver usually works pretty will with some wiggling.
The second method is the backward swim method. This involves having the firefighter sit on the floor with
his back toward the wall opening. Place the SCBA bottle valve on the sill, and move the bottle into the space between the wall studs. Once ready, put one arm through the hole. Fall to the left or right side of the body, and wiggle through. This method seems to be the most preferred. We discuss two other methods of getting through. One is the low-profile maneuver, where the firefighter removes the SCBA and harness from
his body and sends it through the wall first and then follows it with
his body. We didn’t practice this method, since we did a similar low-profile practice in a recent article and class session (Training Days #22). The fourth method is to make the opening and then use a tool to take out the stud at the bottom where it connects to the sill, to allow for an additional few inches of space.
Once all the firefighters at a session have gone through both methods, we put a piece of high-impact wallboard into the training prop. This is a bit harder to find than standard wallboard, but it is important for firefighters to recognize it so
they will understand what is involved if they encounter it. This wallboard is 5/8-inch thick, with a fiberglass mesh embedded into the wallboard. It is hard
to break through, and the mesh will need to be cut out of the way to allow the firefighter through. It can be overcome, and all firefighters should be aware of it.
This is a fairly messy training day, which requires a prop, plenty of drywall, and a means to dispose of it when finished. Once the dust settles (literally), your firefighters will be glad they had a good training day.
Tom Kiurski is training coordinator, a paramedic, and the director of fire safety education for Livonia (MI) Fire & Rescue. His book, Creating a Fire-Safe Community: A Guide for Fire Safety Educators (Fire Engineering, 1999), is a guide for bringing the safety message to all segments of the community efficiently and economically.
