Things I learned in Firefighting essentials...

This was not what I was going to start this journey into BlogLand with, but following a conversation I had with some fellow firefighters, I decided it was as good of a place as any.

Consider this scenario:

You are dispatched to assist a neighboring department on a structure fire in the early hours of the morning. En route you hear reports from the dispatch center of a working fire in multiple structures. Your engine crew, which consists of 5 members (including the engineer), turns down the road on which the fire is located. You can see the tell-tale orange glow in the sky even though you are still about 3 minutes out. You call for your orders and are told to stage your engine in the lineup and send your crew to the command post for orders. You and your crew pack up, grab your tools, and head toward the incident commander. Once you are close enough to do your own personal size-up you find a two story residential structure fully involved, and the neighboring house has had its' siding melted off. The front portion of the house has already collapsed inward, and this is obviously a defensive fire. Nothing too special about it except "surround and drown".

It is then that you notice that there are 4 engines on scene, 3 tenders running shuttle operations for water supply, and only two 1 3/4 handlines deployed to fight this fire. You and your crew ask the IC for permission to advance a 2 1/2 inch line for a more direct attack, and are given the OK. You deploy the line and make a good hit on the fire from the front, despite the fact that whoever is supplying your hose is running at a higher pressure than needed, as your 4 person crew has great difficulty in controling the line. The fire has been knocked down considerably when the IC orders all hoselines shut down and every to the front of the building to "regroup" and change tactics. At this point your thinking "We have big fire. I have big water. This is working, why are we changing it?".

I don't need to continue. The fire was eventually put out, but it could have been accomplished much quicker. I'm not saying that nothing went right at this fire. No one got hurt and everyone went home. But there were some MAJOR issues at this fire. The most critical issue was that the person who was in command was seriously inexperienced. The commanding officer was a Lt. who was just elected and only has 3 years in the fire service. Officers are supposed to be able to handle situations as needed, but there were two of his chiefs also at this fire just standing around and watching. I'm not saying one of them needed to take command away from him, but someone definately should have been at his side as an "advisor". This incident took twice as long as it should have if the proper tactics had been employed. There was no need for the shutdown of hoselines, as if we had been given another 5-10 minutes we probably would have had the fire under control. There was no danger of collapse onto crews and no one was on the interior. During the 10 minutes that we were "regrouping" the fire had a chance to take a good foothold again.

The second issue was the use of improper handlines. The "home" department in whose district this particular fire was in does not carry any 2 1/2 hose on their engines. They only use 1 3/4 handlines. Had they had a chance at an interior attack this might have been OK, but this alarm wasn't even called in until the fire had self-vented through the roof, because the homeowners were away on vacation. Another problem was the establishment of a water supply. The IC asked for 5 departments to bring tankers for a shuttle, and they ran out of water twice before someone noticed that THEIR ENGINE WAS PARKED RIGHT NEXT TO A HYDRANT. This only demonstrated the importance of knowing your district.

I also mentioned we had an issue handling the 2 1/2 line because the pressure was too high. It was later discovered that this was because of an unqualified person operating the pump. The driver who was supposed to pump decided that he wanted to go play so he told a rookie, who just finished his basics and has no pump training at all, to "handle it". These kind of incidents are going to get someone hurt or killed. It didn't happen this time, but I think we were just lucky.

If I had pulled up to this scene I would have hit the hydrant with my pumper, have the next in engine lay in from the other end of the street from that hydrant, and only used my initial pre-plan companies without the need for extra aid. I would have set up a blitz gun on all four corners of the house and just puked on it. From the beginning all we were trying to do was save the 4 walls. The house was already a total loss with no hope of salvaging anything. There wasn't even a need for a truck for a master stream because there were too many power lines to allow the setup of an aerial device.

To sum up simply, when dealing with a significant incident, such as this fire, make sure that qualified people are utilizing the proper tactics. Had someone with more experience and knowledge been in command of this incident, utilizing proper hose streams supplied by qualified pump operators, this incident would have taken half the time that it did. Knowing your fire district is important too, because if they had, they would have known they had all the water they needed 5 feet away suppied by a 14" water main.

Serve on,
The Public "Servant"