HOSE STUFF
BY TOM BRENNAN
I keep getting letters with questions about my thoughts on engine operations. Really what they`re asking is: “What do you have to share from the days that gave birth to 134-inch hose as an improvement over the old rubber 112-inch hose? What about the nozzle “debate”?
Third line ordered to operate in the fire building. It must get there another way than by the staircase that the first two lines are using. Nothing can ruin the day of an aggressive, advancing engine company more than having the hoseline stopped just as the positive heat balance is being reversed. In fact, it is just the thing that causes painful burn injuries whose cause is never reported. The third handline on the stairs is guaranteed to throw fudge into the whole operation–not to mention the additional firefighter vertical movement on the stairs. Just try to bring equipment up a staircase with three lines intertwined on the steps.
Get in the opening! Whether it`s from the door of the house, from the door of the fire apartment off the public hallway, off the loading dock, or off to the side at the bottom of the cellar stairs, if you don`t fight from inside and to the side of the door, you are guaranteed to lose. Small-diameter hose was never able to prevent an area of fire from getting out of a door for any length of time. This is the reason for some of the recent firefighter funerals that we all have attended. Firefighters working on floors above the fire will most likely get into serious trouble if the first hoseline does not get out of the hallway (or off the steps) and inside the occupancy to fight the fire. I had to wait for skin to grow back on my hands and arms a few times as payment for violating this principle.
Yes, there are some tricks that I will share with you. One of the “stops” for the engine company is the fire that is directly above the door opening on the inside of the room–the fire that you will have to pass under and hopefully turn around to “hit.” Most times an aggressive push is necessary, but what if the fire is in the ceiling space–the cockloft, attic, or new truss loft? One of the greatest nozzle teams I ever worked with had a trick. The nozzleman would roll over once or twice as he passed through the portal to get the fire overhead. This sounds heroic, but it worked all the time. Besides, the alternative of waiting is not acceptable.
Then there is the 20- to 30-foot-long and narrow (too narrow) hallway of private living quarters at the end of which are two bedrooms–both issuing flames from a good part of their door frames. As a brand new backup firefighter, I wondered what Jack Curran would do. He was one of the best. “When I say to,” he told me, “push six to eight feet of hose down this hall as fast as you can, and kneel on it.” Then he went with three feet of hose stuck out in front of his hands and flattened himself against the wall between the openings of the two bedrooms and thrust the open nozzle into the first room. It flew around like a distributor/cellar pipe/sprinkler and controlled one room to darkness in a few seconds. Rolling his back on the wall, he yanked the hose and nozzle and they flew into the second room. We worked more easily and controlled the fire in a situation that would have put many more people in jeopardy than should have been.
Openings are not always door portals. Sometimes the fire condition has you flat on the floor, and a piece of furniture, storage containers, stock, or a countertop is between you and the fire that keeps you there, issuing below your obstacle. You have no choice: You have to cool as much as you can and stand for a moment and get control of the room.
Cellar stairs are another problem. If you want to be in the cellar to fight the fire, you must get down the stairs and out of the opening as quickly as possible. You will never inch your way in this situation. If that is the case, attack it from another opening.
Where can your preconnect NOT go? No one ever asks that question–at least not until they run out of hose somewhere on the landing between the second and fourth floors, or after they have made it to the rear of the occupancy and find that they must now make a U-turn and fight fire on the other side of the wall toward the front.
If you want to have a good drill session (or sessions), go out in your district or in the street after a fire and “square-root” places where you would fail should you automatically select the three, four, or five lengths of small-diameter preconnect.
I don`t even want to get into where you get the one and a half additional lengths of hose you need when you run out–or how you get it there. You have to know before you stretch short! No excuses. (If you want the answer, write me. Last time I tried to solve the problem, I had a deputy chief scream at me, “Reverse lays are archaic and useless!”)
Small-diameter nozzles. I have had it with this argument. We solved it long ago. In fact, we made the first 1516-inch-tip nozzle in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn in 1970. (Remember, we only talk interior attack on structure fires in this column.) If the hoseline can advance, the solid-bore tip is the best choice every time. If the fire is of nonrisk proportions in a vacant structure or if the fire is overwhelming for the small hose you have brought, a variable-pattern fog tip may improve conditions. Where is it? If you are the officer, it should be in your pocket just for that event! If you brought the right three-piece nozzle (with the useless tip), the end is 112-inch male on which the 112-inch variable-stream tip fits quickly and nicely without confusion. n
n TOM BRENNAN has more than 35 years of fire service experience. His career spans more than 20 years with the Fire Department of New York as well as four years as chief of the Waterbury (CT) Fire Department. He was the editor of Fire Engineering for eight years and currently is a technical editor. He is co-editor of The Fire Chief`s Handbook, Fifth Edition (Fire Engineering Books, 1995). He is the recipient of the 1998 Fire Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award. Brennan is featured in the video Brennan and Bruno Un-plugged (Fire Engineering/FDIC, 1999).
