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At bulk oil facilities you must control the flow, provide damming and diking, and extinguish the confined fire with the proper extinguishment-foam. However, these routine fires are not the problem: It’s the sixmillion-gallon tank extending to other horizontal cylindrical tanks in the same farm. The strategic factors here also are twofold and simultaneous: First, properly position large-caliber stream delivery devices; and second, supply them with foam —as much as possible, all at once, in the shortest possible time. As you can see, the key is preplanning.
High-rise operations. At fires in high-rise structures, there are many strategic factors to overcome. First, we must be able to establish an adequate water supply—a major contributing factor to the problems at recent fires in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Second, communications involve a functioning command and operations channel for the fire forces as well as an understanding of and the ability to use the sophisticated interior communication system within the building itself. We must know how to control orderly evacuation, read the detection and extinguishing system printouts, and have a readable supply of floor layouts. Ventilation in these structures is a nightmare. If it’s properly used, we can limit extension and support the life safety and extinguishment objectives. If it’s improperly used, we can have a disaster.
We must gain control of and properly use the heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning system (HVAC) to its full advantage. We must understand, assess the safety of, and be able to use the elevator system. And last, we must be able to logistically supply all aspects of the firefight.
Strategic factors are important. Once identified, they’re simple to comprehend and overcome. What are the strategic factors in your district based on occupancy, construction, logistics, and demographics?*
STRATEGIC FACTORS, CONTINUED
RANDOM THOUGHTS
There are certain strategic factors at every fire operation—those elements that must be adequately dealt with, controlled, and overcome if we are to have a successful firefight and are to support the strategy chosen to fight the fire.
In most eases, the inability to overcome them will force the strategy to shift farther down the matrix toward a totally defensive, exterior firefight. At that point a whole different set of strategic factors must be identified and additionally dealt with—the availability of apparatus and logistics and water supply to deliver large-caliber outside streams at the most effective locations. That simply equates to our ability to place and replace apparatus. It also means that the longer it takes us to overcome these new strategic factors, the longer we will be forced to play “catch up”—that dreaded term that will have us fighting fire for hours.
List month we identified some specific strategic factors at particular types of construction and occupancies. l et’s widen our scope. One strategic factor that must be accounted for at every structural fire is ventilation It is the most often overlooked, inadequate, improperly performed, and undervalued operation on many firegrounds. It is, when properly performed, the single greatest life-saving, fire control, and property-conserving technique at the scene.
Today’s fires burn hotter, burn faster, burn with more toxicity, and give off more explosive vapor than ever before. Today’s firefighters are better protected than ever before. Sometimes we feel that we are impervious to the devil and its by-products, that we don’t need ventilation to get the job done. Nothing can be further from the truth!
Ventilation reduces and redirects the interior explosive effects of backdraft. It prevents the possibility of smoke explosion—both cold and hot. Combined with effective handline movement and direction ventilation, it prevents the buildup of combustible gases that causes flashover and rollover. It allows us to move faster throughout the structure. It gives the victims we’re searching for more time to be found and removed. It finds the seat of the fire faster and provides for faster line placement and extinguishment.
Prompt vertical ventilation (in most cases) followed by controlled, coordinated, and systematic horizontal ventilation in the case of venting for fire control, or just as prompt horizontal ventilation if needed for life accountability (such as maintaining the search mode) is probably the greatest life-saving tactic.
Let’s continue our discussion of strategic factors at special occupancies or construction.
Private dwellings. Have primary and secondary strategic factors that reverse their order of priority based on building construction. If the structure is of balloon construction where the interior of the enclosure walls are wide open from basement to roof (attic space), then vertical ventilation is paramount. These roofs must be opened (cut) as soon as possible along the main gable ridge pole. The second (simultaneous) factor is to protect the open interior stair from the fire floor to the exposure above. This can be as simple as isolating the fire room and extinguishing the contents or as complicated as splitting the fire floor with a hoseline and defending the stair until additional help in the form of a hoseline joins you.
If the private dwelling is of platform or braced-frame construction where the enclosure walls have separations at least at every floor (and don’t forget that the “cats” installed in the bays to keep the studs straight also act as a flame-spread retardant), vertical ventilation can be delayed. The successful saving of life trapped within the structure and the safety of the aggressive, searching firefighter depend on protecting the open interior stair in twostory dwellings. Get water between it and the fire fast.
For one-story, ranch-type dwellings, the strategic factor is protection of the hallway to the bedrooms. Isolate the fire in the living room, kitchen, den. or cellar from it. If the fire is in one of the bedrooms, get dow n the hall fast and isolate it from all the other rooms.
Exterior, defensive operations. At large, outside, defensive operations in well-advanced fires in lumber yards, boat yards, and the like, overcoming the strategic factor lies in your ability to provide large-caliber delivery devices at enough points or exposure sides to control the fire and provide a continuous water supply for them.
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