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When Do You Go On Air? Yard Breathng
Its been along time since I masked up. I keep seeing comments about yard breathing. I remember turning on the bottles in the engine, grabbing a line and going in. (yes we did check doors and windows and signs for backdrafts)
Is the new school to turn on the air at the door? And if you have a 30 min bottle, how long to you plan on being inside?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by 55 TRUCK on
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Depends on where & the amount of fire. Upstaires fire may not go on till
Your half way up the staires. Fire in living room,mask at door. If fire is blowing
out the front windows. Then I could see masking up as you run up to the structure.
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Permalink Reply by Alexander Korsunsky on
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Isn't that a bit too dangerous?
Isn't there too much of a chance making the mistake of not connecting correctly or having a bad tank or any other minor mishap. Is it worth the couple of breaths you get before the door?
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Permalink Reply by Vic Silverfish on
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I'm a big fan of staying off your air until you are about to enter the hazard. That usually means right outside the "safe zone" of a house, or even the front door of a particular apartment. If you are breathing smoke, you need to back off and get on air. You should have it on for roof ops because you never know when you will be in the bad stuff.
I do see a lot of guys fighting exterior whilst breathing air, often next to people without BA. That's a waste of air.
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Permalink Reply by Mark Oomkes on
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New school turning it on at the door? That's the way I was trained, over 20 years ago.
I saw a guy that came out of the engine breathing air which consequently gave him tunnel vision and almost got fried on the electric line from the house service that burned off.
Tunnel vision, performing a full size-up yourself (just as much your responsibility as the IC\officer) scene awareness and on and on.
Plus, a 30 minute bottle is a misnomer. Ever time yourself while really working? Performing a primary search of overhaul? 15 minutes is about max, assuming you're doing your job.
How do you know you're going to be going in? Did you do this even if you were second due? What if you were tasked to dress the hydrant or shut off utilities?
Too many reasons not to IMO.
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Permalink Reply by NOVAFireman on
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Not at all.
You should be competent enough to put your SCBA on correctly. Bad cylinders or SCBA? You should be checking your equipment out often to ensure everything is in good working condition.
If you can't mask up and breath air in 30 seconds or less, then it's time to re-evaluate yourself and your department's training standards.
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thanks for the info
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Permalink Reply by capcityff on
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On top of what NOVA said, you should be checking your SCBA every morning when you assume duty. Our morning checks actually consist of a lot. We check everything on our SCBA and test it out, check every nozzle to see that it's set how we want, test every tool, and even rerack most of our hoselines if they don't look perfect. You shouldn't have to worry about those things on the fire ground.
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I don't mask up until I need to. A way that I once heard someone describe it was once you cough for the first time, mask up.
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Permalink Reply by Robert Owens on
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I MASK up in the rig, but do not go on air until I am going inside....We have the MSA MMR which has a track that allows the regulator to hang in the track not clipped in to the face piece. This allows the user to breathe ambient air and then clip into the face piece to breathe "bottle" air, and un clip when ambient air is appropriate.
Works well for me, and the guys I work with not everyone is a beliver and thats ok, but alot of those non belivers have been left in the yard masking up while me and my guys went to work....to each there own.
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What is exactly is a waste of air? Last time I checked air was free, so how can anyone be wasting it.
Im not about breathing air when its not needed but I have been to some nasty fires where SCBA was needed outside to perform outside functions, it happens.
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Permalink Reply by Norm Tindell on
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I agree with Vic. I wait until I sense a hazardous atmosphere before I go on air. When we're ready to consider removing our masks we turn on a gas monitor to check for CO.
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Yes, air is free, but in a cylinder, the amount of air is limited. So breathing that air when not needed is wasting the limited amount of air in that cylinder.
Really isn't that difficult of a concept.
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