CONTINUING THE SEARCH
BY TOM BRENNAN
Let`s look at some of the more provocative questions you can face during search procedures.
When do you leave the perimeter guidelines (the wall) of the room you are searching in dwelling occupancies? Well, if you prepare well both mentally and logistically, the answer should be almost never. There is no room in which a firefighter, with arms extended and probing tool in hand, cannot reach an unconscious or otherwise inactive prone victim from one of the room`s four walls. Extended arms are six feet (give me four feet for weakened elbows), and a tool is at least three feet. That`s seven feet off the wall into the room–and more, if probing from furniture.
If you complete the four sides of any residence room, you will find that victim and still have your reference of the wall. Some of our traditional training texts recommend and show by drawings that you can search in a diagonal pattern through the center of the room. NONSENSE! Disciplined searching firefighters find these diagonal search guys in some sort of trouble. Think of it yourself. Where were you when you panicked during search procedures last in your career? Me? Easy. I was off my reference–the wall.
What if you come across furniture? Again, there are some fairy tale training books out there that hint that you should move the furniture. More NONSENSE! Feel the furniture–on top of it, under it, and behind it (one end of a sofa), and go around it to the wall again. Feel behind it again–especially a sofa–and move on. I have watched firefighters move all kinds of furniture and other objects that they came blindly across. In some cases, they hurled them in the direction they thought was away from the wall. I have also seen stuffed furniture moved across door openings and “flipped” on top of the victim for whom they were looking but had not yet found and never will find. Leave the furniture where you find it. Search around it. Don`t disturb the layout of the room!
What if you just cannot get into a room through an opening? This is the door or window into your objective; it is too untenable for your entry. What are your options? Communicate that fact with the recommendation of additional ventilation (usually from outside) and cooling with a more rapidly advanced handline. While the atmosphere is changing, probe the open area with the tool you have in your hand (one of the two tools if you work for me, remember?). You will be surprised at how much more heat you can take if your gentle probing touches a soft bundle that may be a person.
If all this fails (rapid succession–don`t wait forever), go another way–another door, a ladder, or an adjoining room or apartment–and breach the wall in an area to the rear of the heat condition you could not penetrate. Don`t quit, and always keep thinking to outguess this enemy, fire.
What if it is too scary–at your level of experience? Any of you laughing at my choice of the word “scary” just don`t have enough experience with structural fire yet. Anyway, this is where your 25-foot piece of rope comes into play (the one in your pocket?). Tie it to something near the opening you want to enter and “tether” yourself into the room. Your “umbilical cord” to safety will increase your courage and calmness 100 percent! It is nice to have sweeping search patterns, but for now just have the rope and get in.
You are the first member up the open stairs to the floor above the fire floor. The top three stairs are the hottest place in the building. How long do you wait there for them to cool? You don`t! It isn`t going to get better there for a long time–too long if you expect to make a difference in the lives of those for whom you are searching. You KNOW those three steps are hot. They are hot all the time at all the fires. And you KNOW that conditions on the landing above them are much cooler. You jump! Most times, that is all that is necessary to begin the primary search on the floor above the fire. The few times it is hotter than you like–you jump back! You are a firefighter, not a desk salesman or lofty politician.
What if you abort a primary search? Remember, it is always alright to abort a search. No macho pressure here. Experience will change your individual level of confidence and tolerance. You abort because you run out of air, it is too hot, or there is flame impingement. You also abort if there is collapse noise and a “mayday.” You abort because of hazardous conditions such as a leaking propane cylinder in the hallway. And more.
What is never okay is that you don`t do your best to change the conditions that drove you out and then return. It is not okay not to report that the primary search is aborted in your area. This is where the orderly quality of primary search allows you to know where you searched and, more important, where you did not search.
And, we still hear the report: “Primary search and secondary search complete and negative” even before the second engine announces that it has completed the water supply loop and is starting the second line.
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. You can e-mail him at tfb111@aol.com.
