The Lost Art of Using the Deck Gun
The Internet has been the best and worst thing to happen to the fire service. Some very talented firefighters in our business are doing fantastic training and sharing it online. There are also a lot of trolls who post things to get a reaction or, even worse, because they are genuinely clueless and believe in what they are saying. The latter is where the problem lies. Firefighters are now making some of their fireground decisions based on whether someone will see them in a photo, video, or online and then totally crush them.
Case in point: We had a fire a few years ago in which a ladder company returning from a previous run showed up as the first-due ladder. The chauffeur of the truck was wearing only his bunker pants—not his full ensemble. On arrival, they found a naked man hanging off a second-floor porch with fire over his head. The firefighters in the jump seats threw a ground ladder, and the chauffeur, standing right next to it, climbed up, grabbed the victim, and carried him down (bit.ly/3SAzptM).
The next day, the news posted the video online. Someone reposted the video to social media and critiqued it. He commented on how they didn’t have two ladders next to each other and how the firefighter didn’t have all his gear on. Instead, the critic should have said, “What a great grab and, with a very aggressive interior attack, they saved the house from burning to the ground—solid work.”
This situation applies to firefighters opening any line from the outside being terrified by somebody potentially posting a picture of them online with some catchy caption such as, “Why take the heat when you can hit it from the street?” or “Oh, look, a transitional attack!”
The transitional attack has been around for hundreds of years in the fire service, but once they put a name to it, firefighters started getting hammered online from using it, which began the decline of the deck gun. I’m not saying open a deck gun for food on the stove or fire coming out of two or three windows. I’m talking about fire blowing out of multiple windows into the street, autoexposing up the side of the house, or a large volume of fire in an alleyway catching the exposure.
I’m not going to get into the weeds about how many gallons of water it takes to extinguish so many square feet of fire or the Btus. I’m keeping this simple and to the point: A lot of fire is going to require a lot of water.
I work in a community with predominantly three-story wood-frame houses with balloon-frame construction, sometimes situated within feet of each other. Once the fire has a good head start and you roll up, you’re already behind the eight ball. Thirty-five years ago, it was common to “dump the deck gun” on arrival to buy yourself enough time to stretch handlines. With the time required for you to stretch the line into position and get water on the fire, you have now fallen even further behind. You might be unable to catch up and have several houses burning.
My department’s standard operating procedure states that the second-due engine company lays a supply line to the first-due engine. No one says that while that line is being disconnected and connected to the first-due engine, the second-due can’t use its deck gun with its 500 to 1,000 gallons of tank water, just as the first engine did. They can then park their apparatus out of the way since it will probably not be used at the fire. I’ve never heard a chief say, “You used too much water to put that fire out and, by the way, you saved the block by doing so,” or “We saved the house, but the resident drowned.”
This tactic requires coordination and communication between the truck company and the first-due engine. The engine should generally give the front of the house to the truck so they can get the roof; however, some situations may dictate that the engine company takes the front of the fire building to position the deck gun properly. In these cases, if the truck doesn’t get the roof as quickly as usual, it’s a moot point because you might end up burning the roof off the house anyway if you don’t put the deck gun to work.
If you see a lot of fire, you need a lot of water and fast; don’t hesitate and dump the deck gun in those situations. It might not be the perfect plan, but, as General George S. Patton once said, “A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.” Violently execute your plan; ignore the online trolls and take comfort in knowing that you performed your sworn duty to protect life and property.
Dan Rinaldi
Firefighter
Providence (RI) Fire Department
The Downhill Slide to Complacency
If you spend any time around a firehouse, you will hear people talk about complacent firefighters. Complacent firefighters don’t take their job seriously. On a good day, their skills might meet the minimum standard. They are a liability on the fireground and cannot be counted on in serious, life-threatening situations. There can be little doubt that complacent firefighters pose some real problems for those who ride the rigs with them and the community they serve. The “easy button” approach to this issue is to lay the blame for their bad behaviors squarely at their feet. My experience tells me there is a lot more to this problem.
First, to become complacent, you must at some point have had a certain level of skill and ability. If you never had the skills, then you are either unconsciously or consciously incompetent.
Second, complacency develops over time. No one wakes up one day and says, “Hey, today is the day I become complacent at work.” Chief Scott Thompson, from The Colony (TX) Fire Department, says that for every substandard firefighter, there is a senior member, company officer, battalion chief, and ops chief who allowed the individual to drift toward failure. I think complacency in the firehouse is a learned behavior, and a lot of members factor into the equation, not just the complacent firefighter.
To understand how firefighters become complacent, we need to go back to the beginning of their career, their interview. I do not think any member of the fire service said in their interview: “Just so you know, Chief, I am going to give you the minimum effort for 365 days. On the 366th day, I am gonna start to mail it in. I am going to ride this gravy train like a pony until the day I can put my papers in and start being a burden on the retirement system.”
Sounds outlandish, doesn’t it? A series of factors line up that create the environment for complacency to happen. If we can identify these factors, we can develop strategies to deal with them.
The first stop is the training academy. We spend a lot of time in the academy developing the skills our members need to be effective on the fireground. For as good of a job we do in skill development, we neglect some of the real-world elements of firehouse life. Most recruits are excited to be given the opportunity to do their dream job. They immerse themselves into their training and work hard to develop their skills. During most academies, we spend time talking about the team, the brotherhood and sisterhood that characterize the American fire service. We make clear the need to fit into the firehouse culture once the recruits become probies. What we fail to discuss is the problem of complacency. We don’t prepare these hard-driving, newly minted firefighters to walk into a firehouse where complacency is the accepted norm. How perplexing is that situation for the new probie?
In the academy, we say that you must have excellent skills and, at the same time, you need to fit into your firehouse. Now these probies, on their first day in the firehouse, could be confronted with diametrically opposing realities. They report for their first shift only to be met by the “Recliner King.” Their introduction into the world of professional firefighting is, “Hey, kid, here is the coffee pot. Make sure it stays full, and the bathrooms are your responsibility.” Paying your dues is an important part of proving you can be a trusted team member, but, unfortunately, in a group work environment, fitting in is often the default mechanism for new people. In the wrong situation, the probies can quickly lower their standards to the group norms. If we really want to prepare our new members for success, maybe we need to talk to them about the realities they might encounter in the firehouse. Maybe we need to make sure our training staff is sensitive to this issue and not take the “Well, I had to figure it out for myself” approach.
If we agree that no one would make ridiculous statements like I mentioned in their job interview, how does one get to be complacent? There is only one explanation: Complacency is a learned behavior. Somewhere along the line, complacent firefighters learned how to be complacent. They watched their senior members ride the couch and decided that it was OK to put out the minimum effort. They went to work for officers who turned their backs on these less-than-acceptable behaviors.
If you identify a problem, you should identify some solutions. Don’t be that armchair expert who just wants to dump the hard work on someone else. Here are a couple of suggestions on how to deal with the issue of complacency. First, start at the training academy. We are putting our new firefighters in a terrible position when we don’t tell them about the realities of what they might encounter when they report to their firehouse. Maybe your training staff should talk about developing your own standard of excellence and not relying on your firehouse to do this for you. By having this conversation, at least our probies can be somewhat prepared for what they might encounter. As a chief, I was always concerned about our probies’ first assignment. Chiefs need to be in tune with what is going on in their firehouses and make sure that probies go to a positive environment.
I believe that the senior member working in conjunction with the officer can handle most problems at the firehouse level. Complacency will not exist if clear expectations are made, positive behaviors are modeled for all assigned members, and accountability is woven into the fabric of the firehouse. Doing these tasks can address less-than-desirable behaviors before they become problems. If everyone knows there is a standard, then they will know what good and bad behaviors look like. This is not just for the probies who might get assigned to your firehouse. A five-year member might be looking for a place to put it on cruise control. Setting expectations can head this off at the pass.
Chiefs: Part of being a chief is having the willingness to do the uncomfortable. If we want to fight complacency, then we need to make it clear to our officers that they have a role in this battle. Not many organizations have a clause in their discipline policy regarding a “failure to supervise.” Once we make our expectations known, we have an obligation to make sure those we entrust to carry the message forward do so. These behaviors will continue if there are no adverse consequences for allowing the drift toward failure to occur.
Officers must take command of their firehouse and ensure complacency is not an accepted behavior. To every officer I promoted, I always said the most important test they will take is the way they do their job every day they report for duty. If we want to fight complacency in the fire service, everyone must be willing to fight the fight.
Complacency in the fire service is a serious problem that can lead to disastrous outcomes. Everyone has a role to play when it comes to fighting complacency.
Dennis Reilly
Chief (Ret.)
Pittsburg (KS) Fire Department
Recognizing the Value of Professional Trades in the Fire Service
For years, promotional exams in Massachusetts fire departments covered by civil service have given credit on the “Experience and Education” portion of those exams for those candidates who have educational degrees beyond a high school diploma. (A high school diploma or equivalent is necessary to get the job to begin with.) The formula has varied, but typically, so many points are awarded for an associate, bachelor’s, or master’s degree in ascending order.
For years, I have thought that the same type of credit should be given to those candidates who possess professional trade licenses. While I do not discount the value of higher education in producing more well-rounded firefighters, at the majority of incidents we respond to, a firefighter who has an intimate knowledge of building construction and building systems probably has more pertinent knowledge and skills to help mitigate the incident. Having a member of a crew who is an electrician, plumber, HVAC tech, carpenter, builder, sprinkler fitter, etc. can often prove exceedingly valuable in helping to solve whatever problem we may encounter on a variety of calls, including structural fires.
Fortunately, for the last exam cycle in the state, the Human Resource Division, which develops and administers the exams, has added credit for professional trade licenses. The formula used is not disclosed but, as with education, there is already a built-in hierarchy in most trades with the progression being apprentice, journeyman, and master. I believe it is in the best interest of paid departments nationwide to adopt some sort of incentive for those with trade licenses, either as credit on entry/promotional exams or in the form of additional compensation.
The more we can do to recruit and retain BOTH educated AND skilled firefighters, the better the fire service will be and thus the public we swear to serve.
Steven Shaffer
Deputy Chief
Boston (MA) Fire Department
