The Social Network & Community JUST for Firefighters
Using the deck gun or The Keyboard Officer...
I'm using the term of Keyboard Officer because of responses to fire we had in New Castle County. There was a 3 alarm fire in Claymont that received alot of coverage on Statter911. Now if you haven't seen the video it shows a fully involved townhome and car WHEN the neighbors come out of thier homes. The first engine was onscene within 4 mins and had supply line laid and attack lines pulled within 2 1/2 mminutes.
The first Keyboard Officer said "Wagon Pipe..." Then others jumped in questioning why a wagon pipe, Stang gun and many other deravations of a Deck Gun wasn't used. It didn't matter that they contained the fire to the orginal fire unit. It didn't matter that no lives were lost, It didn't matter that a volunteer company during the day made the respoind in under 5 minutes with the 2nd unit within 7 mins and GREAT unit placement leaving room for special service units (remember when they were called ladders and resuces). None of that mattered to these Keyboard Officers.
So, I'm, asking the church, How often do you use a deck gun in a year? My old station has a Squrt, We didn't use it for four years, then it was utilized twice in a week. Another year went by before the boom was used again. In ten years I can count on 2 hands how many times we used the boom for working alarms. As far as using a deck gun in 30 plus year I think we used it twice, 5 times if you count keeping kids cool during civic events....
But once again, how many times has your company, station, department used a deck gun during the year on average?
Oh Merry Christmas
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by capcityff on
-
Obviously they handled that that big fire pretty easily. It was also better to do that than pour water aimlessly inside which I'm sure wouldn't have handled the fire. Saying its "situational" is pointless. You could say that about everything in life then.
-
Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
-
'Saying its "situational" is pointless.' That is an oversimplification at best, and inaccurate, regardless.
Every situation is different, and if we're smart, we won't try to apply one set of strategy and tactics to situations where other choices are better.
You also used another false dilemma - you seem to be enamored of that particular logical fallacy. You proposed a single alternate of "pour water aimlessly inside...".
The entire point of a Transitional attack with a deck pipe is a TARGETED, quick knockdown of the main body of the fire if it's easily accessible from the outside. Deck pipe Transitional attacks are not something that's appropriate for every fire, but there are times when it works and works well. I've personally done a few and commanded a few more, when the SITUATION was right for it.
You are right about one thing - everything in life IS situational. The trick to handling life - or fires - is to use strategy and tactics appropriate to the situation, not to just have one way to deal with every problem.
The bottom line here is that if the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, you tend to try to make every problem look like a nail. Sometimes you need a screwdriver, or pliers, or a hacksaw, or maybe just a different perspective. In those situations, the hammer won't help much.
-
-
No my point was quite clear. I'm sure many departments would have made a defensive attack on that fire that I showed. My point was that many places(especially slower ones with less training/experience) don't understand how much a small hand line can handle.
Yes, things are more clear cut around here for us. You have to remember I'm answering how "I" would do things in "MY" department. You don't/never did work for the DCFD. We are a protocol run department. I don't wait for the battalion chief(our IC) to get on scene and give a size up or 360(which isn't done since he stays in the buggy and takes information from the firemen). First due pulls up and goes to work on the fire floor. Second due pulls in the rear and checks the basement. Third due completes first due water supply at the hydrant and backs up first due. Then the list goes on. This is easier to do in our department due to our staffing and quick response times. I've seen the first four engine companies arrive on scene within 30 seconds of each other. Because of this, we can hit our fire before it grows to more than a room and contents fire. Spending time making decisions outside would actually make fires like that worse.
So we should just get rid of this forum then since I can just answer every post with well its situational.
-
-
Logical fallacies might seem clear, but they are not.
You used another one in your reply - a straw man. Your straw man was "I don't wait for the battalion chief (our IC) to get on scene and give a size up or 360(which isn't done since he stays in the buggy and takes information from the firemen)."
No one said anything about waiting on the battalion chief to do a size-up. In most places, that's the responsibility of the 1st-due company officer or acting officer.
The fact that I've never worked for your department has absolutely no bearing on this conversation. DC is a one-of-a-kind outlier when it comes to city government, let alone the FD. DC is the nation's capital, it does not have to contend with a state government or state taxes, it gets funded from the federal budget in quantities that most of the rest of us can only dream of, and even you admit that your station density, manpower, and response times are unequaled in most places.
With the amount of manpower you have on scene, are you REALLY trying to get the rest of us to believe that having a single company officer in command on the exterior (until the B.C. arrives) is going to make your fires worse?
How your department does it is apples and oranges to the vast majority of FFN members whose local situation is much different from yours.
As for protocols (or SOPs, or SOGs, or whatever you want to call them) lots of other departments have them too. The problem is that protocols should be the starting point, but you seem to be convinced that they're the end point.
As for many places not understanding how much fire a small line can handle, that's a pretty big generalization. Got any evidence to back it up?
As for your last line, that was another oversimplification. The issue isn't that situations are different - they are - but HOW they are different. That's why forums like this one are important. It's also why trying to force every situation to fit a protocol instead of conducting a fact-finding size-up and having a strategy based on the specifics of the situation eventually gets firefighters seriously injured and killed.
There is a long list of NIOSH LODD reports that list failure to size up a fire and as a result, choosing an inappropriate strategy as key factors in firefighter fatalities. Interestingly, every one of those situations was different. Sadly, the results were the same.
-
Permalink Reply by Don Catenacci on
-
Frankly, I could not begin to pretend to care less how capcityff, or Ben Waller's FD, or anyone else's FD on here, fights fire. I may learn from you, I may try ideas you list, I may even adopt something you mention here. But YOU will not determine how we fight fire, and further, you will not berate us for not doing it the same way you do.
All three of the FDs I am on are aggressive interior fire attack fire departments. You may not think we are your equal, and pehaps in your area we would have to play catch-up until we got brought up to speed on your unique occupancies. By the same token I believe you would be lost in my area with tanker shuttles, long responses, uncetain manpower, or limited manpower, or waiting 10 to 20 minutes for mutual aid to arrive. It is awfully easy to hook to hydrants, have unlimited water, and deep manpower resources arriving quickly...Their is more to the world of firefighting than big city firefighting and to try and compare the 2 is an operation in futility.
-
-
Who said anything about changing how you do it? If I can't talk about how my department does it then why post? What else is there to say. I'm telling you how we operate. I worked for smaller cities before working in a big city. I know exactly how they work and can easily compare the two. If you don't like my opinions then don't read them. I won't lose any sleep over it. However I will continue to post our big city tactics because many do enjoy hearing about them and many learn from them. We have the capability to do things that others can not do with our size and it's interesting to many. I've got plenty of private messages thanking me for my posts on here so I'm not going to stop posting just because a couple of you don't agree/like big city aggressive tactics.
-
-
That wasn't my point. Several here posted about using a deck gun as a hard hit for a well advanced fire and you counter with we use 1 1/2 inch hose and we kick ass with it. Not in the type of fire I was talking about you wouldn't.
I'm not slamming the DCFEMS, and your ability to have massive equipment and personnel on scene within minutes of the call. In reality it is NO different than my suburb of Milwaukee career FD. Our assistance comes from MABAS box alarms from neighboring communitirs, and we too can have a ton of help on scene in a hurry.
Your tactics are not one bit more aggressive than ours. We just prefer to use a line that flows more water instead of living on the edge with the low flows of your 1 1/2 inch line. 1 3/4 lines flow 150 to 200 gpm, and 2 inch lines flowing from 160 to 300 gpm, are what we have deemed necessary for the hazards we face.
I don't want you to stop posting and I never said you should. I am just tired of your "I am a big city fireman hear me roar," Bull Shit. I think you have a lot to offer, and it would benefit many if you would get off the propaganda train and simply talk stategy and tactics. Because whether you want to believe it or not fire departments large and small put out fires every day all across this country.
Nice try at a shot at me...too bad you don't know a damn thing about me. I would bet if you were to ask firefighters that know me they would say I am as aggressive a firefighter as you may find. I believe that if it is possible to go inside and kill the fire we should do it. I am so sorry if that doesn't meet your "Big City" criteria.
-
Permalink Reply by Ken Scofield on
-
Well put!
Keyboard Officer! That is perfect!
& FWIW, I LOVE The West Wing!
-
Permalink Reply by Bob Callahan on
-
To get back to the question, my answer, in both my combo and volunteer departments is quite simple .. Not nearly as much as I would like to see.
The fact is that on my combo department we are far too often pulling 1 3/4" handlines for well involved structure fires where we should be pulling 2 1/2" lines and/or hitting it with a master stream. The common excuse is "we'll use too much water" , but in general, we are honestly too aggressive, IMO, in the way we attack fire.
We have been, at my VFD, starting to implemnt the concept of transistional attack using the deck gun or a 2 1/2" line from the exterior for well invilved fires. We have yet to use this in a real world response at fires in my VFD are a very rare event (like 1 or 2 a year), and it's still a concept that we struggle with but it is getting better with practice and training.
As far as how other departments do it, it's really not my issue. However, that being said, the fire service overall needs to start being far less aggressive, IMO, than we are, and realize that we as a service are still being far too aggressive in situations that don't demand,or justify the level of risk that we are taking.
- ‹ Previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- Next ›
© 2024 Created by Firefighter Nation WebChief.
Powered by
