DO YOU MANAGE YOUR FIRE STREAMS?
TRAINING NOTEBOOK
It’s 3:00 a.m. You are the first engine to arrive at a fire in a two-story apartment building. Fire is out of two windows, second floor left, front of the structure. Two people are on a balcony to the right of the fire. You absolutely should expect a significant life hazard.
The interior layout of the building is such that you can place your stream between the fire and the visibly exposed occupants (on the balcony), but you cannot be certain there are no additional victims in the other rooms of the fire apartment.
Of course, you are concerned with your crew’s and your safety, the victims that still may be trapped, the extent of fire involvement, and the effect the fire will have on the structure’s integrity. However, you also should be thinking about the type of fire stream and method of attack you are going to use.
Some choices must be made when “opening” your “tire stream toolbox.” W ill you use a smooth-bore nozzle or a variable-pattern nozzle, with its options of wide, narrow, and straight-stream patterns? ion quickly must size up the incident with the question of which stream to use in mind.
SOME GUIDELINES FOR SELECTING A STREAM
The follow ing basic questions can help guide you in making a safe and effective stream-selection choice:
- Do I know w here the seat of the fire is?
- Do 1 have to be in the immediate fire area?
- Are victims in that area? Will other fire companies be operating in that area?
- Will I push the fire to an uninvolved part of the building or toward people?
- Is the fire confined?
- Is the area adequately ventilated?
- The answers to these questions give us
the information needed to select the type of attack to be used. Bear in mind that no question in itself provides the answer. Each question must be considered in concert with the others.
Choosing the most effective method of attack for a given situation is critical to the success of the operation and the safety of firefighters and others who may be exposed to the fire. Each type of attack has its strengths and weaknesses. Considering all of these questions can help you operate with maximum safety and efficiency.
METHODS OF ATTACK
Let’s pause a moment to review definitions of the various methods for attacking fires.
Direct attack. Probably the simplest and most straightforw ard approach, it “applies the w ater directly on the seat of the tire.” To conduct a successful direct attack. you must be able to enter the structure and reach the seat of the fire with your stream.
Indirect attack. The intent of this method is to convert most, if not all. of the water to steam with a fog nozzle set on the narrow to wide angle pattern. The stream is injected into the fire area with the objective of getting the water droplets into the superheated atmosphere to create the steam. The essence of this type of attack is to maximize the benefits of steam prtxluction. However, you must be aware of the effects that steam has on people You know that it is a gas created when the temperature of water goes above 212°F. When using this method, protect yourself from exposure to this hot gas.
Combination attack. This form of attack is defined differently by different people. For our purposes, let’s define a combination attack as one in which a narrow fog stream is used in a way that causes some of the water to be converted to steam and some to hit the seat of the fire; this is most often accomplished by moving the nozzle in a circular or “Z” motion. A variation of this attack involves breaking a straight or solid stream up by directing it off the ceiling and walls near the fire using the same nozzle movements as above. Of course, the limitations and restrictions of both types of attack apply.
APPLYING THE GUIDELINE QUESTIONS TO THE FIRE SCENARIO
Let’s go back to the apartment fire described at the beginning of this article and use the answers to the questions to determine which fire stream would be best for this fire.
- Yes. I know where the seat of the fire is.
- Yes, I must be in the immediate fire area.
- Yes, victims are in the area and other fire companies will be operating there.
- Yes, it is possible that I will push the fire to an uninvolved part of the building or toward people.
- No, the fire is not confined.
- Yes, the fire room appears to be adequately ventilated for a direct attack but does not appear to be adequately ventilated for an indirect or combination attack.
These answers indicate that a direct attack should be used.
The location of the fire was identified before entering the structure. In this case, the seat of the fire was established on entry into the fire apartment. Since water can be put directly on the seat of the fire, a direct attack is the most appropriate.
As already said, a hose stream can be placed between the fire and the occupants in the remainder of the building, indicating that you are on the fire floor. This being the case, a direct attack must be used, since any other choice wxiuld expose potential victims in or behind the fire in the cloud of steam that would be produced.
It is possible that victims are still present in the bedroom area of the fire apartment. This necessitates a commitment to a search of that area. If there are victims in that location and you know firefighters will be put in that area, then a direct attack will reduce the chance of injuring these people. A combination or indirect attack here would produce a volume of steam that would burn the unprotected occupants and probably drive the searching crews out of the area.
The fact that the fire is between the nozzle stream and the uninvolved area (the other apartment rooms) indicates that a direct attack, which minimizes air entrainment and steam production, should be used. A typical fog stream, for example, may move as much as 10,000 cubic feet of air per minute. This is the reason a fog stream can be used to vent a structure after fire knockdown. Since a fog stream will move a large amount of air, it follows that use of such a stream will push fire ahead of it.
An indirect attack is the most efficient method for extinguishing a confined fire in which there are no people, such as an attic fire. The fact that the fire is not confined would reduce the steam’s ability to pressurize and fill the room, thereby inhibiting its effectiveness.
Additional ventilation should support all interior firefighting operations. If sufficient venting did not occur before the firefighters’ entry, it should be ordered immediately. Adequacy of ventilation is a matter of judgment based on experience: What’s adequate for smoke, heat, and fire gases will not necessarily be adequate once steam is produced by a fog stream.
We have discussed the decision-making process for selecting the proper stream for a particular situation. Any variation in the scenario could make it necessary to use a different attack approach. It may seem that this attack-selection process is cumbersome. but it is accomplished almost instantaneously. The process is not static or a one-time exercise; it is dynamic and ongoing. Much of the information needed to answer the guideline questions is gathered during the initial stages of the operation.
How do you manage your fire streams? If you carefully size up the situation from the perspectives of the effects as well as consequences of your selected stream type, your choice of attack approach most likely will produce the desired results.
