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Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on January 27, 2012 at 11:57am

Cassie;

Not to put too a fine a point on it but; right now you really just need to learn and do your job because, as you put it you are "...still gaining mastery of the skills..."  And mastering the skills only means you will be able to do YOUR job.  There's a lot more to being a fire service leader than simply 'mastering skills.'

You mention there are discrepancies between what senior firefighters teach and well-experienced officers and scientists dispute.  But without including any details the only thing one can really say about your dilemma is to follow orders.  You can't go around parsing everything you're told. 

 "...experience has its limitations." How so?  Experience is learning from trial and error; from having been there and done that. If you think firefighting/fireground experience has its limitations you really do need to further explain.  I KNOW that an officer with ample fireground experience and training is going to make far fewer *mistakes* than someone with little or no fireground experience but a lot of lab experience.

"Experience can only help so much when facing a new type of call or rare disaster."  Such as when a UFO crashes into the school playground?  Well, we know how to deal with the basic incident; stabilize, mitigate, rescue.  If it's a UFO I don't think your level of physics is going to be much help.  "We're gonna need more cribbing!'

"And experience may have gotten firefighters killed because they relied on experience and knowledge that is becoming less relevant"  Less relevant?  Not at all, only that new building methods means gaining new, additional knowledge.  The tactics to fight a fire in a lightweight building are still essentially the same, they just need to be modified to accommodate the hazards inherent in  lightweight construction.  There is nothing "less relevant" about previous experience, the new knowledge would be useless WITHOUT the previous, 'less relevant' knowledge.

Experience is based on what does and doesn't work, how things happen and in what order.  Getting killed because one approached a lightweight constructed building as though it were a legacy constructed one is a result of encountering new methods/materials that hadn't previously been encountered, understood or tested.  If you read you find that as a result of early collapse/failure of lightweight materials AND subsequent LAB studies we've learned the reason for these early collapse/failures and have modified or changed our tactics based on these results.  In no way does it mean the previous knowledge (and skill set) is obsolete, only that needs to be added to.  Isn't that what both learning and experience is about?

"(fire behavior is changing as building construction and content, etc changes)."  Fire behavior isn't changing.  As a 'physicist' you more than anyone would know that fire is STILL going to follow ALL of the (relevant) laws of physics.  Having fewer materials in the house made from natural products (wood, cotton, wool, etc) and more products made from petroleum products/derivatives ONLY means that certain things may happen sooner/faster, such as flashover.  But flashover is STILL going to occur in exactly the same manner regardless of the fuel driving that process.

Building construction and content is both going to affect how quickly something burns and fails as well as increasing the danger to firefighters.  But knowing this means tactics can be adjusted.

Even without ANY UL lab tests/studies, experience firefighters knew that building constructed of lightweight materials were collapsing quicker.  The greater danger wasn't from the use of these materials or methods, but simply from the failure to recognize this technology present in a burning building.  The UL studies confirm these observations and show WHY it occurs (faster burn-through of lighter/thinner materials, gusset failures, system failures).  Personally, I would lend greater faith in NIST, NIOSH, USFA, and UL as they are...wait for it...Scientific and not (just) anecdotal reports.

"I guess I like to understand WHY we're doing something."  This is the crux of the matter and there is nothing wrong with wanting to understand why we do what we do. 

How about this as an example: capcityff can attest that using 1 1/2" attack lines works very well for his department.  Yet the 'physics' of fire would suggest a larger line for greater water flow for extinguishment.  But if you can show up early enough, with enough personnel, water supply and experience, stretching a smaller line (while anathema to many in here) allows the firefighters to move more rapidly to locate and knock down the fire. Essentially: It works for them.

On the other hand, their tactics wouldn't necessarily work as well in my area because we won't have as quick response times or personnel numbers and we have buildings that are now mostly constructed of lightweight materials/methods.  Fire behavior (and physics) between the two departments hasn't changed but only the external factors that allows for faster fire growth.

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