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Go In or Stay Out
We're having a discussion in the area bout a recent house fire. After dispatch fire board upgraded to a working alarm. Now this is were it gets complicated. There were reports that everyone was out fo the house. A fire police went onscene with a house "fully involved" and the responding Chief told FB this would be a defensive operation.
The first reponding unit was a rescue with no water. They said they were told by nieghbors that a lady was seen going in "earlier" They attempted to enter the dwellingwith a hose line and ended getting a little burnt.
There is the question should they have attempted the rescue without a hoseline and even if they did with the fire load would it have been smart to enter the house.
My feeling is that while we are the people who are supposed to keep the public safe there is only so much we can do. I love my kids and really like my wife and want to go home to them. When do we as responders say a rescue attempt is unsafe?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by john houghton on
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That should be the chiefs call. Remember our lives are are protected before others. never enter without a hose line
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Permalink Reply by jeffrey schmidt on
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going in without a hose line has never stoped me look at what you got do your 360 and do not go beyond your training and experience
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Permalink Reply by WestPhilly on
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According to Craig, what you got in this scenario is a "fully involved" dwelling. Going in for a rescue - with or without a hoseline - it seems, is a moot point.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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My thoughts exactly. This is one of the times when you have to evaluate what Chris Naum calls the "Survivability Profile". If there's fire or superheated black smoke rolling out of the windows, there's no rescue to be made in the involved part of the house. If the house really is "fully involved", then assign the rescue team to some other duties instead of pursuing that moot point.
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Permalink Reply by Lee Drummond on
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My response is, you should never going into the structure without a charged line.
Unless you can see someone just inside the doorway. Other wise your'e just asking
for possible trouble. Hope the medics are ok.
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Permalink Reply by Richard Armstrong on
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Not true in all cases Ben.As I mentioned in a previous reply I was in a structure(2 story) first floor was a seamstress shop and right full of textiles and it was fully involved flames out the front window verrrry thick black smoke.We went to the second floor which was an apartment because people had said that there was someone in there and we could not see our hands pressed against our masks.Fire had breached the second floor and the smoke was very thick inside of the apartment just as thik as what was rolling out the window downstairs and about 3 ft. inside we found a guy unconscious and pulled him out and he lived.
There are alot of variables and sometimes size up answers them but also the witnesses giving us some sort of time line can let you know whether it's rescue or recovery.Time is a huge essence in dwellings.i totally agree but you can't rely totally how the flames and smoke are for your "Go in/Stay out" decision
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Permalink Reply by Todd on
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Really hard to say without being there.
At some point we have to look at the conditions we are faced with and realistically determine that making entry wouldn't be to save a life but be for body recovery because the conditions are untenable for life. I'm not putting my guys at risk for body recovery.
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Richard,
I believe you misunderstood what Ben was saying. The rescue he's talking about that can't be made is in the "involved" part of the structure. In the case you're talking about, you went above the fire for a rescue. That would not have been possible on the first floor, which you described as being "fully involved".
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Yes completly agree with first floor not supporting life but second floor with the smoke and heat didn't look like it would either but the time factor made it possible.
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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Misunderstanding is exactly the problem. Asking me to make an IAP and saying tactically what I or what I would order my company to do is difficult without seeing what we are facing. Chris Naum at least provides a photo or multiple sides of a structure when he does his 10 minutes in the street.
What one person calls "fully involved" can be vastly different. Fully involved on one floor is not fully involved. In a two story dwelling, it is 50% involved. Then what some progressive fire officers see as a poor "survivability profile" even without any visible flames can be considered fully involved because the entire dwelling is untenable. Everyone here will debate based of what they were told is "fully involved" - This can be a seperate arguement or debate all together.
For those saying you never go into a fire without a line, I hope you have that in writing from your Fire Chief, the guy holding the bag when people die. The fire service is about saving lives and many times firefighters are expected to do functions without a protected line... if not then people are going to die while you are on the lawn waiting for an engine to arrive or get a charged hoseline in place.
What if you first due on a ladder company and the engine company is delayed??? Sorry mam, hold your breath just a few more minutes, cuz you see we are not coming to get you... BS
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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Pease on
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I would have to say it really depends on the representing signs of the scene itself in that if the house is over come with either smoke or fire then the realization of a regular person with no PPE actually being able to survive in these conditions is not practical and the operations would be a recovery operation even if the firefighters entered and found the individual. That's why when i was being trained one of my well decorated instructors had always said what would you do if it were you in the house? using this question you should be able to determine if the person would be able to make it out alive or not.
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Permalink Reply by Robert Owens on
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Not actually seeing the house, or know your staffing levels Its hard to make a determination. I will say that Survivability Profiling training and SOG's should be mandatory in every FD.
FDNY Capt. Stephen Marsar wrote a great article in Fire Engineering about it, and taught a great class at FDIC 2010 about it.
No matter the FD we need some sort of rules of engagement for entering a structure. Phoenix uses a modle like this: 1 room involved victim survivability within the structure is high and a search is warranted, More than 1 room involved victim survivability is minimal and a calcualted search is warranted, Over 50%-Fully involved structures victim survivability is slim or none and a search is not warranted except in uninvolved areas of the structure, and structural stability has been assesed.
Bottom line is smoke kills you long before the fire ever will, I have had the chance to pull several people out of a burning building and none of them ever were thermal challanged they all died from the smoke, and displacement of o2. The human body (specifically the airway) can not withstand breathing air over 200 degrees F it will burn the airway.
I dont have the stats on me right now but in Capt. Marsars class he pulled the LODD of fireman killed in actual fire buildings and compared it to the civlian deaths in fires for the year....it wasnt even close we tripled the amount of people dying in fires.
Ill leave with this, victims or no victims doesnt matter the fire and the building its in determine our operational mode. Those are the factors that allow us to operate interior on a fire building, not the possibility that some one may be trapped inside.
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