BY TOM MURRAY
Truck companies and truck operations bring to the structural fire attack the critical tasks that must be performed if a fire department hopes to successfully save lives and protect property. Protecting life is always the number one mission at the fire scene. Truck companies accomplish this task in a myriad of ways, with primary search usually at the top of the list. The three priority areas for primary search are the fire floor, the floor above the fire, and the top floor. These are the most precarious positions for human beings. Intermediary floors will be polluted and need to be searched; however, they are not as dangerous as the priority floors.
ESSENTIAL TRUCK OPERATIONS IN ADDITION TO SEARCH
In addition to primary search, the following four major truck operations are essential:
- Laddering of the upper areas for occupant rescues and firefighters’ access. Most importantly, these ladders serve as emergency egress for firefighters when they find it necessary to escape.
- Quick ventilation. Ventilation channels fire, fire gases, and smoke out of the building, giving occupants a better chance of survival. It also removes the punishing heat off engine company hose teams while they advance to the seat of the fire.
- Forcible entry operations. They make possible firefighter access and egress from doors and windows.
- Support of interior engine operations. Truck company members assist the engine company by pulling ceilings and opening walls to expose hidden fire while the engine is stretching its hoseline down the hall to the fire compartment.
According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency Firefighter Fatality Report for the year 2000, 40.2 percent (41) of firefighter fatalities were related to fireground operations. Many reasons led to these deaths. However, all firefighters know that the delay of primary search and ventilation, prolonged forcible entry, lack of ladders to roofs and upper windows, and not pulling ceilings and opening walls to expose hidden fire can be costly in terms of the firefight and the firefighters. There must be sufficient fireground staffing to perform the vital truck company functions.
Even if your department does not have trucks, or if your trucks have only minimum staffing, truck operations must still be conducted. The popular fire service acronym RECEO VS (rescue, exposure, confine, extinguish, overhaul, ventilation and search) applies to small as well as large metropolitan departments.
Engine companies save lives by locating the fire, containing it to the fire compartment, and preventing the fire from moving down halls and up stairs in the process of extinguishing the fire.
Truck companies, however, are presented with a multitude of “must do now” tasks that are ongoing until the incident commander declares the fire under control and the last unit is ready to leave the scene.
When the fire is under control, truck operations switch from support of the search/rescue and fire attack operations to the dirty, backbreaking tasks of overhaul and salvage operations.
Much can be written on truck operations; the objective of this article is to point out the critical few do’s and don’ts of truck operations for successful, safe incident outcomes. These critical operationslisted here for emphasisare laddering; ventilation; forcible entry; search/rescue; seeking out hidden fire in walls and ceilings; conducting overhaul; searching out hidden fire; and performing the often minimized, but no less important, salvage operations.
PRIOR TO THE ALARM
Truck companies operate as a team to meet their objectives. The playbook of truck company operations calls for the unit to act as a whole sometimes and to break up into small task groups at other times. Tasks are identified, assigned, and accomplished; then, new tasks are assigned until all the objectives have been met. Truckies must know and understand these truck objectives. They must know the three “Ws” of fireground truck operations: What must be done, When it’s going to be done, and Who will do it. They must also keep in mind that the fire dictates the ever-changing sequence of priorities.
Truckies must realize that immediate fireground tasks often are equally important and that each must be done now to save lives. The issue is not “what must I do now?” but “I must do this task quickly and effectively and then move on to the next important task.”
In truck operations, there is no time to stop and take glory in what you just did because there is always much more to do. Laddering is important. But is the engine team’s entry into the fire building being stalled because of a forcible entry problem? Which is more important? Both are important. Get them both done, and then move on to the other critical truck tasks.
Training can help truck teams to perform their duties quickly and safely. Hold sessions in which you discuss past fires and fire scenarios at specific target hazards. Raise and thoroughly address all the possible “what ifs.” Determine how the truck company will accomplish these identified tasks as a complete unit or as smaller task teams.
Post the truck assignments at the beginning of each shift; in a volunteer department, the firefighters should be aware of the predetermined riding assignments. Truck firefighters should know what their responsibilities will be on the fireground and the tools and ladders for which they will be responsible. Typical assignments include the following: for the driver/aerial operatoroutside ladder and vent duties; for the tiller/ladderroof vent team and roof down to fire search vent operations, entry/engine support, primary search, and ceiling/wall opening team.
Each member must know his main task and subtasks for each assignmentfor example, the driver is responsible for the general maintenance of the vehicle, driving, aerial ladder operations, outside venting, and ground ladder placement.
All firefighters are responsible for their tools throughout an operation. Before leaving the scene of a fire, the driver should be held responsible for ensuring that all the tools, appliances, and ladders have been inventoried and inspected.
In San Francisco truck companies, the driver is one of the pole firefighters on the 50-foot extension ladder. If the 50-foot wood extension ladder needs to be raised, the tiller person takes the second pole position. The driver can also be assigned to fire-escape ladder duties, front-entrance forcible entry, and exterior vent duties.
As a truck officer, I assigned one truck firefighter as a minimum (I prefer two; often, this is the officer), barring other critical needs, to support the first-in engine attack team to force entry, pull ceilings, open walls, and move interior items obstructing the hose stretch. This firefighter should have the irons and a ceiling hook to conduct these tasks.
The interior support firefighter(s) does primary search (if a rescue squad does not respond) and interior horizontal ventilation and stays with the engine hose team until the critical interior truck objectives have been met. Often, other members of the truck company will rejoin him in this location to complete the overhaul of the fire area.
This truckie must be a self-directed, strong, aggressive firefighter who is skilled in forcible entry, building construction, and search techniques and who also can carry and use door openers, an ax, and ceiling hooks.
In a truck company, maintaining equipment is a must and a never-ending task. Each tool and piece of equipment must be inventoried, inspected, cleaned, marked, sharpened, fueled, and operationally tested.
DRILL AREAS
Truck drills must address the skills needed for the most common tasks such as ground ladders to fire escapes and use of the irons (halligan and flathead ax), chain and circular saws, forcible entry tools, and portable generators. However, the truck officer must also plan and conduct drills on the less frequently used tools such as the come-along, the oxyacetylene torch, rope ties for tool and ladder hoisting, and the many other tools and pieces of equipment trucks carry.
Every firefighter assigned to the truck should know the complete inventory of tools and their locations and uses.
Equipment drills should be manipulative; the tools should be used in as many ways as possible to replicate the fireground. Examples include raising ladders on hills; taking ladders through service entryways to raise in light wells; carrying ladders vertically up exterior stairs to access building setbacks; and raising aerial ladders on steep streets, streets with uneven surfaces, and narrow streets without short jacking. All truck members need to have a complete appreciation for the multiple uses of the same tool and, conversely, how a task can be performed using any variety of tools. Truck firefighters cannot afford to be running out to the truck to get a particular tool to complete a task when the one in their hand could have done the job if only they had realized its full capability.
An example of a multiple-use tool is the pickhead ax. It can be used for forcible entry, for ventilation, as a wedge, to force through the roof to check for smoke under pressure or fire, as a foot brace on a peaked roof when the pick end is forced into the roof, and as a stripping tool to remove trim from doors and windows. Whichever tool you prefer, be sure your truck company members know its full capabilities and limitations.
Take advantage of unusual drill site opportunities. At Station 10 in the Presidio Heights area of San Francisco, we would visit local building sites to review building construction features. At another site undergoing remodeling, I had a probationary truck firefighter remove ceiling and gypsum board and interior stud walls along with the construction workers, with the contractor’s full permission and enthusiastic support.
We used chainsaws and the aerial ladder to cut away heavy branches from the tall, mature pine trees that ringed the backside of the station. It was an excellent way to teach and review chainsaw skills.
Building inspections and orientations are opportunities for viewing the building for laddering opportunities, becoming familiar with building construction materials and learning the hazards of different types of roofs. Preplan the locations of fire escapes, parapets, light wells, roof scuttle openings, skylights, vent pipes, penthouse doors, and rooftop elevator rooms.
Review the types of roof finishes with regard to the hazards and difficulties they present. Consider the different types of roof construction (flat, mansard, peak, or gable) and roof finishes (tar/gavel, asphalt shingle, tile, slate, and rolled poly bitumen).
Firefighters need to be taught how to sound roofs for strength, how to locate any fire beneath them, and how to work from roof ladders or the aerial when on steep-pitched roofs.
Every assigned truck firefighter should have the following in his inventory: door wedges, a flashlight, an extra pair of lightweight leather work gloves, 12 feet of clothesline or webbing for tying a rolled mattress before removing it from the fire building, a carpet knife for removing carpeting and opening upholstered furniture, a personal knife, goggles for use when pulling ceilings and using power tools, an interchangeable screwdriver, and pliers.
WHILE RESPONDING
Prior to the truck’s leaving the station to respond to a building fire, all truck members should have on their protective clothing. Donning protective gear en route is dangerous and can delay immediate operations at the scene.
While responding to code three calls, only conversation critical to the incident should take place. This primarily will be between the driver, officer, and tiller person. Listening for first-in size-up reports and the initial actions taken by on-scene units can greatly help the responding truck officer to predetermine likely actions that will be needed on-scene. The building address reported can also indicate if the building is mid-block or on a corner or on the north, south, east, or west side of the block.
Some incident commanders will alert responding truck companies by radio of their immediate on-scene assignments, such as on which side of the building to place the aerial or a ground ladder for a rescue or where to set up the truck for immediate ladder pipe operations.
When entering the unit block of the incident, trucks need to slow down. An engine is typically on the scene before the aerial truck, and engine operations are underway. The truck driver must be cautious and watch for firefighters making hose leads.
Slowing down also allows the officer and driver critical time to size up the fire building, exposure buildings, and various laddering options. They must observe quickly, develop an action plan, and make assignments.
San Francisco requires that the driver/aerial operator stay at the ladder controls whenever an aerial ladder is placed so that the aerial can be quickly relocated if an emergency develops and the ladder has to be moved to another location.
For this reason, as a truck officer, I would decide whether the aerial would go to the roof of a one- or two-story building based on the location of the fire (top floor), the degree of difficulty the roof presents (serious pitch), the type of the roof material (tile/slate), and other fireground priorities before committing a firefighter to the turntable control for the duration of the fire.
The side and the rear of the building inaccessible to the aerial must be laddered. One-, two-, and three-story buildings can be laddered quickly with hand-raised ladders to cover fire escapes and second- and third-floor windows. Laddering requires full truck staffing, or the incident commander will have to assign these responsibilities to other units, as discussed below.
AT THE FIRE
At the scene is the time when it all must come togetherladdering, ventilation, forcible entry, search and rescue, overhaul, and salvage. The priority of tasks often changes according to events, immediate rescue requirements, the type of building, and the extent of the fire.
An experienced, trained truck company demonstrates its value on the fireground. There, the team demonstrates its ability to work together to accomplish multiple tasks such as throwing large ground ladders or performing roof operations. Often, truck companies work in smaller teams for forcible entry, interior operations, ventilation, and raising one- and two-person ladders.
Fire departments with single-truck response to structure fires face an overwhelming situation. The tasks to be performed remain the same. How they are accomplished must be balanced with the reality of the staffing. Truck companies that have minimum staffing need to prioritize their tasks. Horizontal ventilation by one member may be the only solution in one- and two-story structures; that same member also must place ground ladders for access and egress. The aerial can be placed to the roof for the other assigned firefighters’ use.
The other truck member(s) perform forcible entry and conduct primary search on the fire floor and the floor above the fire. The interior truck firefighter(s) also pulls ceilings to open attic areas and void spaces around flue and vent pipes for the hose team.
Two trucks responding to a working fire (or engine companies assigned these duties) enable the incident commander to meet many more of the critical life-saving assignments.
All fire-escape balconies should be laddered for civilian exit and firefighter access and to relieve the overcrowding conditions on these often weather-beaten appliances. Whenever firefighters are operating on the roof, there should always be two means of emergency exit off the roof. This could be an aerial ladder, a tower ladder, or a ground ladder. The penthouse door and building fire escape do not meet the “exit” requirement. The penthouse doorway can become a chimney venting hot fire gases, and the fire escape can become untenable should the roof collapse and heat mushroom out the windows onto the fire escape balcony.
The firefighters assigned to the roof should have a roof hook, irons, a saw, an ax, and a 25-foot rope with snap hooks at each end. This rope can be attached to a halligan tool for venting lower windows from the roof. The rope can be quickly snapped to the forked end of most halligan bars, lowered to a window first for measurement, and then pulled up and used to break out windows precisely at the spot to which you measured the rope.
A roof team member must walk the roof perimeter checking for trapped occupants at windows and fire escapes. The member should also look for smoke and fire from these areas and, if they are present, report that information to the incident commander.
Buildings in San Francisco, like in many major cities, often have zero lot lines that prevent checking all sides of the fire building from the ground. The roof team becomes the incident commander’s eyes for checking these areas.
When walking the roof, try to sound the roof ahead of you with a tool. Shuffle your feet as you walk, always keeping your body weight on your rear foot. Your front foot acts as a probe for weak spots that will not hold your weight. When confronted with darkness or smoke, extend your hand to eye height, preferably with a tool in front of you so that you won’t walk into cables, laundry, or phone wires. However, in severe conditions, it is safer to get down and crawl and probe ahead with a tool, lessening the chance of walking off a roof or falling into a shaft.
The smoke and heat in the building should be vented as quickly as possible with the least amount of effort. The order of priorities are, first, to open the penthouse door; then to remove skylights (be sure to warn firefighters below by tapping loudly on the glass and dropping some down to give a warning before removing the glass); then, to open scuttle holes for fire in the attic (when the scuttle is over the fire compartment); and, lastly, to cut a minimum 4- 2 4-foot hole over the fire compartment as close as safety permits.
You should cut a roof when the top floor and attic (cockloft) have fire or the building is balloon-framed. The cuts should be a minimum of 4- 2 4-foot holes. Push down the ceiling below the roof with your ceiling hook; use the handle end so the hook doesn’t become entangled.
If the roof is spongy and feels weak, it is weak. If the fire appears to already be burning through, and you know it’s a lightweight or truss roof, you must immediately get off the roof or that portion of the roof (truss roofs have failed after only 12 minutes of fire exposure). Trench cuts from a sound roof position can help cut off the fire’s spread.
On multiple-floor buildings, after roof operations have been completed, the roof team will move down through the building, venting and searching the top floor for trapped occupants and hidden fire running the walls and other void spaces. This team continues to move down to the floor above the fire for a complete check for occupants and any upward movement of the fire.
Check the baseboard areas of the floor above the fire completely for hot areas with the back of a bare hand (or a thermal imaging camera). Open hot spots. Don’t forget closet areas and walls blocked by furniture.
This is not the time to get lazy about your fire extension check. This must be done thoroughly without being concerned about opening walls or floors because of causing property damage. What you should be afraid of is a rekindle; it is a truck company’s job to prevent rekindles by carefully checking and completely overhauling the fire building.
Remove all material that has been burned and is not part of the structure. Remove all lath, plaster, and gypsum board in the fire compartment that has been charred. Check the wall studs for charring. Remove charred trim around doors and windows, and check these areas for smoldering fire.
Shut off utilities to the compartment area in which the fire occurred. Only the utility company should turn the utilities back on.
Salvage must be performed. Staffing levels often make salvage work a low priority; however, the fire service should keep in mind that salvage work is an important factor in preserving property and a community service responsibility.
Remove standing water. Remove and cover broken windows that have been stripped of glass. Cover roof holes. Store interior contents as best as possible to protect them from the effects of the fire and weather and from looters.
Truck operations bring to the fireground the fire service’s complete program for meeting its responsibility to protect lives and preserve property.
TOM MURRAY recently retired after 31 years with the San Francisco (CA) Fire Department, where he last served as captain of Engine 39. During his career, he served five years as a firefighter at Truck 2, then as a lieutenant at Truck 5 and Truck 10. He currently teaches high-rise life safety with Stationary Engineers Local 39 of Northern California and is an adjunct faculty member in the fire technology program at Santa Rosa Jr. College.
