Like many other firefighters, when I entered the fire service I was taught that vent-enter-search (VES) was a targeted search for known victim locations. The scenario goes like this: It’s 0200. You’re dispatched for a report of a structure fire. You arrive on scene to find a two-story home with fire out the front door. An occupant grabs your company officer upon arrival and states that his child is still in her bedroom. He states the fire started in the kitchen and cut him off from making it to the stairs to get up to her room. Your officer orders you to perform a VES of the child’s bedroom because he knows that is the quickest way to the confirmed location of the victim. Sound familiar?
How about this scenario? You arrive on scene to one-story ranch with fire out the Charlie side near the garage. Knowing construction, you know this is most likely a kitchen fire. Your officer forces the front door, the engine moves in, followed by your truck crew. You follow the engine to the fire where your crew splits for a split search and you start searching away from the fire back to the rest of the house. Why did or do we still perform like this? Because we were taught to. Recruit schools and curriculums have been teaching for years that the most dangerous areas are next to the fire and above the fire, so we start our search at the fire and work our way back.
- Civilian Rescue: The Reason We Exist
- The Search Reformation
- Aggressive and Practical Search: It’s Still About the Victim
Today we have much more information available at our fingertips. This information can be used to help drive our search decisions at all the house fires we respond to. Thanks to sources like the Firefighter Rescue Survey, we have all sorts of new data. While many texts still teach to start near the fire and work our way back, I believe that data shows that we should be starting our searches with the bedrooms and hallways. The first 2,000 rescues recorded by the Firefighter Rescue Survey show that victims were found in bedrooms 45% of the time, hallways 10% of the time, and bathrooms 6% of the time, for a total of 61% of all rescues. I include bathrooms with these because bathrooms generally are located attached to a bedroom or in a hallway. Of the first 2,000 rescues, the victim(s) were located by a crew performing VES only 21% of the time. Of those, only 11% were conducted with no reports of victims trapped. Time of day for the rescues is broken down into three-hour increments for a total of eight samples. Bedrooms were the winner of all eight sample groups with the lowest percentage being 34% at the time of 1800–2059 hours. Surprisingly, bedrooms weren’t just the largest percentage in every sample, but were consistently over 40% regardless of time of day.
Often in classes we are taught that we do a search size-up upon arrival. We look for things like cars in the driveway, toys in the yard, and take into account the time of day. The data shows us that time of day should play no part in our decision-making process about whether someone could be home. How many people work shift work and sleep during the day? How many people don’t work and keep odd schedules? These are things that need to be considered beforehand and the data backs it up.
It is time we change the idea of what a targeted search is. With data out there showing us that bedrooms, bathrooms, and hallways are where the majority of our rescues are likely to be, we should not view a targeted search as a known victim location but instead view it as a search of the areas of highest probability. Often time there is no quicker way to these target-rich environments than VES.
Clay Magee is an instructor with Magic City Truck Academy and a lieutenant with Birmingham (AL) Fire and Rescue. Clay began his career with the East Oktibbeha Volunteer Fire Department in 2004. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Mississippi State University and a master’s degree in Emergency Services Management from Columbia Southern University. He has been published in Fire Engineering and other fire industry media, and is an organizer of Deep South Fire Conference. He has taught hands-on training at the Alabama Fire College, various fire conferences, and multiple departments across the state of Alabama.
This commentary reflects the views of the author and not necessarily the views of Fire Engineering.
