By Russell Sykes
Dragging a boat anchor throughout a home while conducting a primary search does absolutely nothing for the speed or efficiency of the search. The boat anchor that I’m referring to is the common fire attack hoseline. Why would I call a tool that is unquestionably the backbone of the fire service a boat anchor? For the purposes of a primary search, it’s slow, cumbersome, and prevents the crew from moving swiftly. The movement of a hoseline will make the search inefficient, as the crews will shift their focus on moving the boat anchor, not searching for victims. That shifting of firefighters’ focus could change your rescue into a recovery.
- The “Prime” in a Primary Search
- Search and Rescue by the Numbers
- Covering the Essentials: Training in Search Techniques
- We Go to Fires to Search
A hoseline for the search team is generally taken in the name of safety. Safety for who? Safety for the professionals, whether career or volunteer, with a fire-resistant ensemble worth $10,000+ and hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of training? Or for the safety of the citizen that went to sleep with the comfort of knowing their fire department was on duty that night? Does the search team take a boat anchor because it’s a departmental policy? Why would that be a policy? How old is your policy? Does your policy need to be updated? Was your policy written by a training officer from 30 years ago who has spent his or her entire career on the training ground? If so, they may be out of touch with responding to working fires. Your department’s approach must evolve. I’m not advocating reckless behavior, but we must use our training, knowledge, and experience to complete an expeditious and methodical primary search. We spend our entire career being told that time is of the essence. Being late is the cardinal sin of the fire service. We do everything quick. We’re timed getting dressed for fire calls. We’re timed on how quickly we get out of the station. We’re timed on how quickly we get on scene. Interestingly, we aren’t timed on how fast we can search and declare a structure to be clear.
An engine company staffed with three firefighters seems to be the current accepted standard in the career fire service. In my 20 years in the fire service, I’ve been able to work at departments that staff fire engines with two, three, and four. It goes without saying that four people on an engine can get quite a bit done in terms of extinguishment. A two- or three-person engine company can only search one area of the home at a time. A four-person engine that is assigned to search can get quite a bit done operating without the boat anchor. With the boat anchor, a four-man engine crew will generally break down to one person managing the operation, two folks focusing on moving hose, and only one detailed to search. Now break that down to four people searching without the boat anchor. Two two-man teams can be formed, meaning that two different areas of the home can be searched simultaneously. The separate teams can search the two areas when victims are in the most danger: one team near the fire and one team above the fire. These crews will be limited only by conditions. As conditions improve, so will their pace. In such instances, there is nothing to drag along, nothing to get caught on furniture. As conditions begin to worsen, the crews can help control conditions by closing doors, therefore controlling the flow path. Without a boat anchor, controlling the flow path won’t be inhibited or prevented by unnecessary hoselines blocking doors, preventing them from completely closing.
What happens when the first-arriving crew is in a true ladder truck (no booster tank or hose) or is a heavy rescue company? Their only means of extinguishment are water cans. Are they supposed to wait for an engine company to arrive before initiating a primary search? Are they to wait for the protection of a hoseline? Should they initiate a primary search to protect the occupants from the quickly growing fire and its byproducts? They should begin a search based on information gained from a search size-up/walkaround, bystander information, or possibly information being directly relayed, via the dispatcher, from the caller who is still in the home. Having a capable truck or rescue company waiting for an engine company to arrive is a public relation nightmare. There isn’t a quicker way to lose the trust of the public than the appearance of an incompetent fire department. Please don’t interpret these comments to mean that I’m advocating for “quint” fire apparatus (I’m not). My point is that the public needs and deserves crews that can conduct primary searches without a hoseline in austere conditions.
- Searching Off a Hoseline–A Necessary Risk?
- Search Mission Prep: Size-Up, Methods, and Tools
- Residential Primary Search: Their Lives Depend On It
- Aggressive and Practical Search: It’s Still About the Victim
If my opinion isn’t enough to challenge your traditional approach to a primary search with a boat anchor, check out research done by the Underwriters Laboratories Firefighter Safety Research Institute. The below is an excerpt from their report, “Impact of Fire Attack Utilizing Interior and Exterior Streams on Firefighter Safety and Occupant Survival: Full Scale Experiments.”
Although survivable spaces exist at the time of fire department arrival (Section 7.4), the survivability potential decreases as the time of exposure increases. When resources permit, interior search and rescue operations can and should proceed simultaneously regardless of the fire attack tactic selected. Removing any potential victim from the hazardous atmosphere as soon as possible after arrival is essential to minimizing the Fractional Effective Dose (FED), therefore increasing their chance of survival.
I’m fortunate to work at a large metropolitan fire department. We assign three engines and three ladder trucks (not quints) to every single-family residential structure fire. One engine company and one truck company will form the rapid intervention team (RIT). The other four companies will enter the structure. This consists of a primary attack line, a secondary attack line, and one or two search teams. It would be complete chaos to have three or four charged hoselines in every residential fire. Multiple boat anchors in a structure fire that aren’t being used for active firefighting prolong the time is takes to properly complete the primary search. Hoses getting tangled, multiple crews yelling orders for hoseline management, and the trip hazards created by the hose all contribute to killing a well-organized search.
For those outside of urban America, the initial crew may be responsible for fire attack and search. In this case, the boat anchor is an absolute necessity. It may be because the response of the next apparatus is seven or more minutes away or maybe because no one else is coming at all. For those situations, it’s completely understandable to enter with a hoseline—it’s a necessity. After all, your initial focus is on fire extinguishment. It’s prudent for the attack team to enter the structure, extinguish the fire, and begin their search where potential victims are in the most danger, closest to the fire. When we extinguish the fire, our greatest and most obvious obstacle is removed.
What are you doing with the nozzle when the fire is out? Are you leaving the nozzle manned outside the fire area in the event the fire suddenly breaks out again? You probably are. Depending on which generation you’re from, you’re probably watching too much “Chicago Fire” or too many reruns of “Emergency!” Contrary to the experiences of Johnny and Roy, burned rooms just don’t explode back into a raging inferno. We should be dropping the nozzle and using the nozzleman to our advantage to conduct a primary search off the boat anchor. The fire is out; the hoseline has served its purpose to extinguish the fire. It’s up to the officers and officers in charge to monitor conditions and coordinate the search. It’s much easier to complete without the boat anchor. No backing up to provide slack on hose caught on furniture, pinched in doorways, or being stood on by other interior companies. The absence of a boat anchor will also help to keep crew communication to a minimum. There won’t be any extra communication asking for hose movement. Visibility will be improving. Heat is no longer building. Use this to your advantage and get the search completed in an efficient and prompt manner. There is nothing slowing you down other than the contents of the home. What do you do if some fire extension is found during the search? Send one person back to nozzle to extinguish the extension. Then have them resume their search where they left off. You’ve left the nozzle where the problem was. It shouldn’t be difficult to find.
The concept of searching without a hoseline shouldn’t be foreign to most people in the fire service. Over the last 10-15 years, there’s been a big push in the fire service for a new focused search called vent-enter-search (VES), a very efficient tactic for use on the fireground. It is a tactic that is used when crews have actionable intelligence that they have a potential victim in a known area. Generally performed on a bedroom at grade or above it, VES is conducted with just two firefighters, which fits into the staffing profile of most departments in the United States. A firefighter traditionally enters the room via window, closes the interior door to the bedroom, and performs a quick search. A second firefighter will stay on the exterior and act as an instant rescuer in the event a victim is found. VES is performed without the hinderance of a boat anchor. Can you imagine how much a search would be delayed if we had to stretch a line in addition to throwing a ladder and effecting a rescue above grade? Not only would it slow or stall the search, but it’s potentially an obstacle in the event a rescue is necessary by removing an unconscious victim via the entry point. A lesser-known type of VES, the modified VES, is used to further the search beyond the initial room. The experience of the firefighters and building conditions will determine the extent of the modified VES. It is possible to search two or three rooms quickly because they aren’t impeded by having to move a charged handline.
A proper (efficient and effective) interior search is the reason that we have jobs and are revered in the eye of the public. If we don’t go interior early in a fire to verify a structure is clear, why is the public paying our salaries or contributing to our year-round fundraising efforts? If we don’t go interior to search quickly, it would be cheaper for governments to have folks from the water department staff basic trucks with modified deck guns and hit it hard from the street. Throughout history, there isn’t a residential structure fire that hasn’t gone out. There is only one organization in a community that is trained to enter a building on fire to search for survivable victims. We must continue to do our best to provide quick and proper searches; to do so, we must cut the anchor loose.
Russell Sykes is a graduate of the elite Georgia Smoke Diver Program and serves as lieutenant in a major metropolitan fire department in the southeast United States. He’s been fortunate to teach at FDIC International for the past 10 years. Russell served in the world’s greatest Navy prior to joining the fire service in 2003. He also holds an associate’s degree in fire science.
