Let me start by saying this is in no way a jab against any fire department in particular, or those men and woman, paid or volunteer, that risk their lives doing the job: chill out lol.

One of the things I've noticed in my area, coming from a volunteer department that trains regularly, staffs the house VOLUNTEERILY on a daily and nightly basis, and works exetensively to educate our members, that more and more companies are forgetting why we show up ot the call and fight fire... TO PUT THE FIRE OUT...

I'll explain this by referrencing an incident that took place in a town near mine. My Company was dispatched as the RIT for a neighboring village as they were responding to a structure fire. Upon arrival and check in, this is what we witnessed. There was a fire company that had a single family one story wood frame dwelling with a small fire that had started on the back porch and has now extended to the cockloft. Simple right? Vent the roof, perhaps a trench cut to get ahead of the bastard, go in from beneath and breach the ceiling to reveal the almighty flame, and attack. Push it through the top. Well, this department saw it differently, or perhaps their chief did.

Upon first sending a crew to the roof, ventilation is delayed by a lack of proper equipment for the job; yes, four guys climbed on the roof without saws or axes and only one means of egress. Fire soon spreads to the entire cockloft with flame venting out of either end. Upon seeing flame breach the outer walls, the chief directs his crew off the roof and into a small huddle near the front of the structure. No more than 30 seconds later, each man grabbed a tool of some sort and began to knock out windows.

There was no smoke in the rooms under the roof... yet. Soon by-products of the burning roof begin to vent smoke and gas into the living room. You can just see it seething in there. The fire spreads from the roof in an unusual way into the living room. Even still, this may be a salvageable house, with an aggressive attack, but the chief needs to make a decision quickly. He orders everyone away from the house and declares a defensive attack. He has the Quint crew spray water onto the roof, which is now venting heavy flames, pushing the fire further down into the house, causing the roof to cave in and fire to extend into the rest of the residence. Complete, utter loss this house was. At the end of the day, the only thing that was left was a family of six without a home.

In that entire awful description, water was mentioned once. Even then, in real-time, just about 15 minutes passed before all was said and done. I know that the above story sounds exactly like that...  a story. But I remember it so vividly because that was the point in my career when I realized just how much we, as a whole, have forgotten about firematics. I remember thinking in my head about how we would have handled that job... how we've practiced these events over and over again so this sort of thing wouldn't happen to us. Not to mention how close we would have come to rescueing brother firefighters as they wander about directionless in that mess...

I guess my point in all this is that somewhere along the line, we've forgotten the goal...PUT OUT THE FIRE... Yes there may be a certain way you may want to do it, but the bottom line is that flame can no longer exist in that space... PERIOD. I think that due to lack of training and lack of sufficient leadership, some places are losing sight of that ultimate goal. Surround and Drown is slowly and creepily making a comeback... and I don't like it... thoughts?