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How many times have you read the smoke from ?
In sizing up a working fire how many sector officers or officers start looking at the smoke from afar and think about what stage your fire is in.How does this effect you first attack?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Norm Tindell on
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Thanks, Chief!
The most wonderful aspect of being part of the wildland fire community was just being in the great outdoors. There's something really majestic about a 300-year-old Douglas Fir. And incredibly memorable about seeing one torch in seconds.
I almost took a job in Susanville once!
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Permalink Reply by Tony P on
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Oh, you have pre-plans for every individual house do you Reg? We don't. And a pre-plan for wildfire is a generic item in most cases.
You can keep your t-shirts, I wouldn't wear one.
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You're right Ed, but it's a thing too many structure fire only people ignore -I'm talking about over here, though I suspect that attitude occurs in all countries. The fires are different, but they can both kill if not treated with respect.
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Permalink Reply by Mark Klaene on
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My size-ups start at the time the call is received and continues until we clear. Color, volume, velocity of smoke is extremely useful. I use smoke to determine what and how much is burning and how effective extinguishing efforts are. This is true on structure , vehicle, and wildland fires. As soon as I can see the smoke I start working out items such as-- how many engines I want, how many tenders I need rolling, do I need mutual aid.
smoke is a very useful tool -- I am no expert at it but try to use it whenever possible just like the other tools in our box
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Permalink Reply by larry jenkins on
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Usually, a plume of smoke from a distance will indicate a working fire. Yes, the color will tell you what is burning (ex: class “A”, hydrocarbon, structural members or room contents, electrical, haz mat ). Your final size up decision can only be made when you arrive and take a lap. Pre- plans are great except 85% of fires are in the residential structures. Our street maps will give you where the structure is located and the water supply, but that’s about it. As far as the fire attack decision, you really can’t make that until you arrive. What looks like a huge structural fire from a distance may only be an auto or a large piece of machinery like a generator misfiring.
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You remind me of a run we made in my younger days. Well-developed column of heavy dark smoke in a residential area. From a distance of a half mile or so I declared a working fire and started asking for additional resources. Got on scene to find a demolition crew had pushed an old house down, piled it up and set it on fire. Ouch! :-/
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Permalink Reply by Richard Armstrong on
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Smoke from a distance can play games with you.If you combine the info from the page you can get a little bit of an educated guess and decide whether or not to page for mutual aid for structure fires but sometimes it can be decieving like one time we got paged to a 4 wheeler on fire and we could see a large plume of black smoke from 2 miles away and we were starting to think that maybe they forgot to include that the 4 wheeler was inside a garage and it was on fire to but it was out on a road in the middle of nothing but man it was alot of smoke and another time we got paged to a car fire and we couldn't see hardly any smoke so when we got a little closer we started seeing lots of smoke and the caller forgot to say that the car was a foot from the house and now the house had caught fire.So what turned from seeing hardly any smoke and a "simple " one or two hoseline car fire turned into calling another station for mutual aid.
So I guess you can combine the info from the dispatcher and what you see on route and make a decision to tone out mutual aid cause it's easier to turn them around then get there and then tone them out and have to wait for them.But true size up i think in most cases isn't definenate till you roll up on scene.
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