Fire Engineering has a good little article thsi week about vacant structure fires, questioning are we brave enough to stay out?
It's a quick read but raises some good food-for-thought questions about our decisions to go interior or not. Check it out at
http://www.fireengineering.com/index/articles/display/9407237913/ar...
A read through many discussions in these and other forums seems to split the firefighters- some saying you HAVE to go interior to be a firefighter, it's what we do, etc, to those who say, no way- my (or my crews) life safety takes priority.
It's vacant, it's confirmed that everyoen is accounted for, why do we need to go interior if it's unsafe (or potentially unsafe)?
We must continuously risk assess the scene and change tactics based on what we see, hear, smell, feel, etc. You're no less of a FF if you decide to stay exterior....