Training Notebook ❘ By Dennis Reilly
Anytime life is in jeopardy, time matters, and human beings in large part are not naturally inclined to make good decisions in such pressure cooker type environments. The more we can “preload” our decisions, the better chance we have for a more successful rescue.
Starting the Conversation
From what I’ve seen, not many fire departments engage in comprehensive advance discussions about how they will execute vent-enter-search (VES). This article will provide suggestions on decisions departments can make before their people arrive at a scene where they need to perform VES. As Howard Rinewalt, chief of the East Montgomery County (TX) Fire Department, says, “When seconds count, we need to count seconds.”
The opening for this conversation includes two parts:
- Accepting the value of VES operations.
- Debunking some of the myths many of us hang onto.
Data from Brian Brush, chief of training, Midwest City (OK) Fire Department and the Firefighter Rescue Survey Project, should erase any doubt about the effectiveness of VES operations. If you have not taken a deep dive into this information, I strongly encourage you to do so.
Figure 1. Search Type vs. Total Recorded Rescues
This pie chart demonstrates the effectiveness of VES. (Source: Firefighter Rescue Survey.)
The Data Speaks for Itself
Hundreds of reported rescues show that every fire department’s playbook should include VES. Another important factor that plays into this conversation is about what we don’t see. While we hear about concerns that VES operations are overly dangerous to firefighting forces, there is a lack of substantial findings supporting this concern. Most people refer to the last LODD attributed to a search for victims that started from a window as the one experienced by the London Fire Brigade in the 1940s. And we’ve heard reports of another LODD attributed to VES, which increases the LODD from one to two. I grieve for all firefighters lost in the line of duty, but two deaths over the span of eight decades is not enough data for me to say VES poses an unacceptable risk to firefighters.
Wise Perspective
The following examples help demonstrate a few key benefits of preplanning VES operations.
Benefit 1: Feeling Prepared
With 30 years of experience commanding working fires, I have always told my members that I am much more likely to give you room to operate if I know where you are and what you are doing. Here’s an example: Let’s say you respond to a working fire at 0200 hours in a two-story, single-family dwelling. The seat of the fire is located on the first floor in the family room. It extends into the kitchen and first-floor hallway.
Your first-due truck splits and sends two members to start a VES on what appears to be a bedroom window on the C side of the structure. As bad as this fire appears at first glance, your rock star engine is first due. They deploy a handline and make a very aggressive push on the fire.
Within seconds, they announce on the tactical channel that they are making good progress and conditions are improving. From your position at the front of the dwelling, you agree with what you hear on the radio. Your next step is to think about the following:
- Do the members who are doing the VES hearing this transmission call you, the incident commander (IC), and say they are going to extend across the hallway to another room?
- Are your members trained and prepared to make this move?
- Are you, as a chief officer, willing to give them the latitude to make this decision?
Being able to make these calls could very well save a life. This is something every department should address, and if we are going to be successful, then these questions must be answered ahead of time—not at 0200 hours.
One of the most profound comments I have ever heard about VES operations is that entering through a window to perform a search is just a starting point for search operations.
Benefit 2: Understanding the Space
Before getting into specific duties, you’ll find some additional decision-making situations to address before the dispatch. For example, if you were to do a VES into my bedroom, you would be confronted with three different doors. There is a door to a walk-in closet, a door to the en suite, and a door to the hallway. To be effective in your operations, be sure to discuss this with your members and decide how to best handle that type of situation.
Your young firefighters might still be living at home, and they don’t have three doors in their bedroom. You’ll need to ask yourself the following questions:
- Are you confident that at 0300 hours your firefighters will understand what they are confronted with when they find multiple doors inside a large primary suite?
- Do they know what to do and what your expectations are?
- Will they operate in a way that does not cause confusion for those operating on the scene?
They might think they are extending into a hallway and then find themselves in a large walk-in closet. How confusing will a situation like this be? And is it a situation that could pose serious problems for the IC, who is trying to account for the whereabouts of all members?
Benefit 3: Having Clear Responsibilities
Predesignating specific riding positions with specific tasks goes a long way in making VES operations more efficient. And increased efficiency means time saved, which could very well translate into a life being saved. As an example, let’s look at a three-member crew and what each member’s specific responsibilities would be.
- The officer. As the person in charge, the officer will be responsible for the overall operations. He will make the call as to extending the search and will keep command apprised of the company’s whereabouts at all times. The officer will also be responsible for the initial integration. Let’s say your company is tasked with VES at a working fire in a two-story residential property. As you run up to the scene, you notice what appears to be the hysterical mother of a child reported trapped in a second-floor bedroom screaming her baby is “up there.” The officer immediately contacts the parent and asks a few simple questions: What is your baby’s name? Does the baby sleep in a crib? If she replies with a name and says yes, the baby sleeps in crib, you will ask where in the room is the crib. These simple questions have now turned a targeted search into a laser-focused search. Your firefighter now knows to look for a 14-month-old girl named Suzy who sleeps in a crib on the right-hand wall looking in from the window. If the integration tells you the victim you are looking for is six years old, we know that demographic might try to hide from a fire. The victim, in this case, might also have tried to get to the parents’ bedroom. These are not absolutes, but the more critical info we give the searching firefighter, the higher the chance for success. A teenager might be more likely to try to escape through the usual means of egress. Knowing the child’s name allows us to call out and might give a little extra sense of security on the victim’s part. Once the officer completes the integration, he assumes a backup position ready to enter and assist the firefighter conducting the search. Information provides us with a tactical advantage. And, in this situation, any advantage is worth its weight in gold.
- The apparatus operator (A/O). In the next clearly definable position, the A/O is responsible for laddering as the situation dictates. Many companies carry a “cut-down” roof ladder, which can be used to access high windowsills. These can prove very effective, and all companies should consider adopting their use. The 20-foot extension ladder is another handy tool. These ladders can reach the standard second-story windowsill but are lighter and easier to manage then the traditional 24-foot extensions ladder. By the A/O assuming the responsibility for ladders, we allow the search firefighter to save some precious energy. Removing an infant is probably manageable for one member, but suppose the victim is 250 pounds. Every bit of energy saved is crucial. Also, at a two-story residence, once the A/O places the first ladder, a second ladder should be deployed directly alongside. Moving a victim down two parallel ladders is much easier than using a single ladder. The running timeline is not just when we find a victim or remove one from the toxic atmosphere. It really is based on when the victim is in the hands of an advanced life support (ALS) provider. The parallel ladder technique can help save seconds. At a one-story property, the A/O should be prepared to convert windows to doors. This technique can be of immense value, especially when encountering obese victims. Making window conversions should be a default operation as soon as a victim is located. As has been said a hundred times already, seconds count, so save as many as you can.
- The VES firefighter. The last position—and the one where the rubber meets the road—is that of the VES firefighter. This is the member who goes through the window or opening and does the search. I recommend they carry what I call a VES setup, a halligan married to a six-foot roof hook. This is easy to accomplish by welding a link of chain to the shaft of the roof hook. This allows the firefighter to carry the tools as a single-piece unit, freeing up the other hand. This is the member who will have to break the window.The member who breaks the window will need to consider a few fine points. If he tries to break the window by beating on the middle of sash, the only thing that will happen on the newer, energy-efficient windows is that the sash will bend. It is much better to attack the window at the sides where the sash meets the uprights. This connection point is more likely to fail than the center of the sash. The operation of removing the window is why I recommend including a halligan in your tool complement. This will allow you to generate the force needed to break the window without the awkward length of the roof hook. The roof hook has many uses, but having both the halligan and roof hook gives this member more options. Once inside the room, the VES firefighter should isolate the room. But first, if conditions allow, he should take a quick look down the hallway. This could help prevent someone from dying a few feet from a door that the VES firefighter shut.Once a victim is found, the VES firefighter needs to make an urgent transmission over the tactical band stating that a victim has been found. Once we confirm a victim, the main effort on the fireground is the removal of that victim and transfer to ALS care. Command needs to know this to start the process of post-removal care and the rest of the fireground needs to know so that they do not lose focus on their tasks. Everything on the fireground should support the rescue effort.
With the information we now have, any reasonable member of the fire service will agree with the benefits of VES. If we accept this tactic, we should do everything we can to make the operation as quick and efficient as possible. Ideally, decision making for an event or action we can anticipate happens prior to the actual event. I encourage you to use this information as a starting point for discussions on VES for your fire department.
REFERENCE
Firefighter Rescue Survey, “Search Type vs. Total Recorded Rescues.” bit.ly/4b717WH.
DENNIS REILLY is a 49-year fire service veteran and a retired chief. He is also the owner of The First Line Fire Service Training Company, LLC. Reilly has served as the fire chief in Pittsburg (KS) and Sunrise Beach (MO) and as an assistant chief in North Carolina and California. He retired as a battalion chief in Cherry Hill (NJ). During his time in New Jersey, Reilly became one of the original members of the New Jersey Urban Search & Rescue Task Force 1. As part of Task Force 1, Reilly made several deployments including to New York City as part of the response to the terror attacks of 9/11. Reilly has a master’s in public administration from Penn State University and is a CFO. Outside of his fire service career, Reilly is a U.S. Army veteran, having served in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm.
