Does your dept. advance a dry or wet line into the fire building from the front door?

What are your thoughts on the two, advantages and disadvantages?

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It all depend upon the situation at hand. Fire showing on the 1st floor (SFD) then a charged line would make the most sense. Fire on the 2nd floor, dry line in at least to the stairs, up the stairs if its confirmed in the back end of house. Basement fire, charged line prior to making entry. Strip mall/commercial, depends on the situation but if there is light smoke or haze I'd bring in a charged line (at least to the door) and be checking the dropped ceiling while advancing. Some of it might be guided by SOP's others by common sense.
Uh. . .wet. Need water to knock down the fire. Having it charged and bled off allows you proper stream, ensures that you don't have kinks to impede flow,etc. We do use "House Lines", a leader line system-2 1/2" line with a gated wye, then 1 1/2" bundles connected. You can stretch the wye up to the door or inside an apartment to the stair landing and then charge lines from there. I guess its all dependant on the situation, but I'm of the thinking of charge it and then enter. My .02 worth.
John Norman mentions this in "Fire Officer's Handbook of Tactics" - lines should be stretched dry if possible, to a safe area nearest the fire. In other words, just as Jack described. The reason is that a dry line weighs about half as much as a charged one and is much easier to maneuver into position.

Our SOP is that we charge the line and ensure good flow and nozzle pattern before entering the building regardless of the fire location. Your mileage may vary.
Our SOP is also a charged line at the door. And allow me to quote your one sentence that is the reason for my disagreement of this practice in every single scenario.

The reason is that a dry line weighs about half as much as a charged one and is much easier to maneuver into position.
It is standard procedure that we do wet line everytime.. get air out of line and check gpm on nozzle. We deal with only 1 and 2 story structures.
Blair, are you saying that you think that it should be a dry line right up to the fire?
Our pre-cons are 200 feet long.
We go in wet. Always.
Added insurance.
If you struggle with a pre-connect, then what other fireground task is going to cause you a problem?
Think about it; everyone exits the engine, you grab the pre-con and head for the front door. By the time you get there, the engine operator has given you your liquid safety blanket.
I will gladly tolerate a whole lot of "awkward" rather than to take a beating from the fire and heat.
Why would you want to squat there and watch the fire grow? Why would you want it to climb towards flashover before you got water to cool it back down below flashover temperature?
High-rise; dry-wise.
Farmhouse? You are going in wet.
TCSS.
Art
Fully charged with all air blown out....We don't have any high rises so for us to go in without a charged line is like going to a gun fight with no bullets in the gun...advantages...? well e are ready for most anything that can happen fire wise....Disadvantages...? well, other than having to pull it there aren't any....Stay safe....Keep the Faith.....Paul
But what have you got if things change in a hurry...? as I stated it is like going to a gunfight with no bullets in the gun....sometimes the only thing we have between us and the fire is the wet stuff....to me it is worth the effort...we have 200 ft preconnects......Paul
Art, if I have someone to run the kinks and I'm going to the 2nd floor I'm going in dry, to a safe point and then call for water. Yea I know, pump failure, missed kink, rapid fire growth, but I can always back out til I get water. We use 2" for our attack lines, if I can drag it in dry, even for a bit, I'd rather.
We have mostly singe story homes in our area. For us it's dry to the door, then wet from there on out. For all the reasons Art gave above.

TCSS

Shawn
Fire showing we go in with a charged line always. Size of the fire determines how big the line.

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