What hose stretch would you use?

Here is an example of store fronts that are off of the street. This is like an alley that runs parallel to the main streets.

In most cases, these have a tax payer on the main level and residential units on the upper floors.

You can see that hose deployment is a priority and should be picked carefully.  The wrong choice could be very detrimental.  This brings up a good question: what type of hose loads do you use and deploy for non-traditional lays?

How long are they and what other uses are they good for?  What sizes and configurations do you use?  Where do you keep these loads and how are they loaded?

We have to remember that the atypical fire requires atypical tactics in some cases and the norm of pulling a 1 3/4 inch cross lay or speed load just isn’t going to get it done.

Train hard and be careful.

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Hydrants are accessible, the biggest issue here is attack line stretch. This alley runs perpindicular, not parallel like i mentioned, between two main streets.
what type of hose loads do you use and deploy for non-traditional lays?

Most likely, we would use our lead line here. (also called a Chicago lay, apartment lay, etc). It is 100' of 1 3/4 with a low pressure nozzle, attached to a wye connected to 400' of 2 1/2" hose. A high rise pack, consisting of 100' of 1 3/4" also with a low pressure nozzle, is also taken in. The line can be brought to the fire and both 1 3/4" lines can be used, one attack and one for back up. If the fire is bigger or needs more GPM then a nozzle can be placed on the 2 1/2" line.

Where do you keep these loads and how are they loaded?
Lead lines are on the back of the pumps with loops to indicate general length. The 1 3/4" line is folded so that it can be rapidly deployed. (It is layed out in half with both the M and F ends next to each other and the end is folded back to the couplings. The new end is folded on top. The lay is flipped over, couplings on top, a nozzle is attached and a wye is attached. we put webbing in the back loop to grab the line easy).

To deploy, the first FF would grab the 1 3/4" line and proceed out. The second FF would grab the loop for the best distance (100', 200', etc). The engineer would be able to tell how much 2 1/2" is out to compensate for friction loss, and hooks the line to the pump. The 1 3/4" line is easily deployed once to the door, line is charged and attack commences.


Given the picture, if more water is needed, it could be possible to deploy a portable hydrant (water thief) with LDH from the pump to they portable hydrant. This has connections for 4, 2 1/2" outlets and an LDH outlet. Hoses can be connected for monitors, extra lines etc, while the pump is away from the scene.
I would throw a couple of Cisco lays down (65mm lay gated into 2 45mm hose)
I wouldn't..Truck guys don't touch hose...Plugs don't touch tools.
Once you have your pipe at the door I'll have it all popped and ready for you to go in.
Jason? An overhead photo or link to Boogle Earth/Maps would help this one!

We don't carry hose in the same way as North America, so don't expect any of the methods most of you will understand! So, say the fire building was that first door we see on the right, and vehicle access was to the small street light up on the left.
Lengths of 65mm (one or two, depending on the distance) laid down the lane then reduced to a two length 38mm attack line for the building entry. Duplicated when personell arrive. 38mm is our standard attack line, first crews down the lane go internal with lines (if at all possible, if not then it's a surround and drown).


We need to hear from our European friends, this is likely to be the standard type of call for many of them!
For room-and-contents, we would stretch a leader line (200 feet of 2.5 inch hose with a gated wye) which should get the wye in the vicinity of the door to the fire occupancy, then add enough 1.75 inch line to make the interior attack.

If the occupancy was well involved, we would stretch enough 2.5 inch line for a defensive attack with a smoothbore nozzle.

If the situation required it, we can use a portable monitor fed by 5-inch line. The tactic there would be to back the engine into the alley, drop the portable monitor, feed it with 5-inch, and reverse lay out of the alley to the hydrant.
I would be hand jacking some LDH and some wye's plus extra 2 1/2 and 1 3/4.
Our crosslays consist of (2) 1 3/4 lines both 200'
and 3" lines 200' as well.
High rise pack is 100' of 1 3/4 horseshoe laid and strapped together in a compartment with gated wye and automatic nozzle attached.
We also have 400' of 3" flat lay in the rear hosebed.

In this situation depends on what I have on arrival and potential fire spread in first few minutes. Room and contents preconnect 1 3/4" to seat of fire with a second same sized to entrance with additional crews on roof and adjoining occupancies checking for fire spread.

Fire blowing out of 1+ windows. See above with a 3" line getting pulled for exposure protection. Crews will be getting warm in this situation quick with fire spread happening very quickly due to limited space for the heat to dissipate.

One occupancies going on arrival. Bypass 1 3/4" go directly to the 3" crosslay for exposure/defensive while a second 3" line is being put together. Once the bulk is knocked down. Pull high rise pack, break 2nd 3" line and place high rise and a 1 3/4" crosslay into operation using gated wye off high rise pack for mop up and overhaul.
I wish my department was progressive enough to even think of using 1 3/4 hose. When we amalgimated in 1998. The city of Toronto only had four pumper with LVH (4") and the crews considered themselves as specialist because of it. They were called Large Volume Pumpers. Now that we are six departments turned into ONE, every truck carries 4" hose.

Unfortunaly we still can't seem to learn that 1 1/2 hose is very limiting and needs to be no more then 4 lengths! I see too many crews pull off 6 and 8 length of 1 1/2 inch hose and then can't seem to get enough water.

I love Chief Mikes idea of laying out 4" if you have the water supply, with the right appliance at the end of it you open up so many choices for that attack!

Nice to hear ideas from progressive Firefighters!
thats almost exactly how i was thinking. Appliance at either end of alley running 64mm into the alley then down to 38mm, if rear acess is possible then attack from rear as well. If there are internal hydrants then take hose inside and attack from there if possible.
What's wrong with 400' of 1 1/2? We use that all of the time. The DCFD is very old and has seen plenty of fire and I have yet to see it not work.
This is our bread and butter fire. We go through this with 80% of the fires. Usually it isn't set up like this but we have similar situations. As most of you know, about 80% of our houses in DC are rowhomes. 2nd and 4th due take the rear and go to the basement while 1st and 3rd take the front. Many times 2nd and 4th have to stretch down an alley. If the wagon can't fit, we just pull according to how far we run. Depending on the engine company you usually have a few choices. 200', 250', and 350/400'. This is all 1 1/2 and some companies change up the length depending on their first due. Most companies have 100' on the front bumper, 2 crosslay beds of 200', and a 350 or 400' rack in the rear. Some have an extra bed of 250' in the rear as well. Then there's 250' of 2 1/2" in the rear which never gets used. We also have to high rise racks on the side that get brought with in case we have to extend the line. No time to run back to the wagon since the next company will be running right by you with their line if you take time to do that and they aren't a bad company. We actually get a lot of practice with this since we are very aggressive and pull lines for every box alarm whether there's fire showing or not and each company runs about 3 box alarms/tour.

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