Close Call - Near Miss - PPV chases brothers out.

The strategy and tactical decision making process to use PPA or PPV when crews are operating at a dwelling fire should not be taken lightly. We have discussed this topic on FFN before and some have stated using this technique is quick and uses less manpower. But at what cost?

I wonder how much strategic / tactical /and right application training was done when these fans were first put into service to every firefighter? The firefighters interviewed mentioned it was supposed to get cooler when the fans were started. Which is true with a good sized exhaust point. I asked myself while watching the video though, where did they expect all of that CFM to go on a SF ranch with a basement fire?

What are your thoughts?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL0auzmkokQ

PS: My hats off to the three for having excellent personal discipline to wear all of there PPE, and the training to recognize the change in environmental conditions. Glad to hear they lived through the rapid fire increase threat.

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Permalink Reply by Leland Lavender on June 9, 2010 at 12:01am

To my understanding attack one, went in and knocked the fire down,left it smoldering in the basement and called for ventilation. Watching the footage I saw another fan being pulled off to the left of the screen possibly to the back yard, my original thought was they were trying to make a Positive Pressure Attack and started to think of the possible reasons it went wrong.

1. The Structure is bigger than what the cfm output can effectively push.
2. The fan was too close to the door and was causing the churning effect, introducing oxygen to fuel in an already heated atmosphere.
3. The basement doesn't have a vent opening and the fire would be smoldering adding all of the pieces of the tetrahedron causing re-ignition.

from the looks they were trying for sequential ventilation. I agree on the search being done without the fan. If your department has a T.I.C. use it.