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What would you do?
Ok I have a question that is pretty good. Here it goes. If a crew was inside of a working fire and IC,Safety Officer orders the air horn normaly three long blasts to evacuate the building and the crew of three inside does not here the air horn and no one has radio contact with the crew how can you get there attention to inform them to get out of the building? Just remember there is no wrong answer. I just want to find out what others would do in this situation.
Thanks and Be Safe,
Robbie Cox
Thanks and Be Safe,
Robbie Cox
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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I don't agree with activating your own PASS device. As RIT, it is your responsibility to locate a downed or in trouble FF, part of that is listening for their own PASS device. You will not hear theirs if YOURS is activated.
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Only problem here is if you are activating your OWN PASS device, that is indicating YOU have a problem. There is NO discern with PASS devices on the fireground and that your intentions were only to make noise to get someone elses attention.
A PASS device is there for YOUR own personal safety and to indicate YOU have a problem. Not for notifying others or to make noise. If you are not in trouble and are activating your PASS device, you are no better than they boy who cried wolf.
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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Robbie, I want to play devil's advocate with what you feel is your first choice of techniques.
I teach strong command presence using CRM and we operate with an interior and exterior safety officer. This is a FETC program I teach for running a safer fireground. Command would contact the Interior SO and he would acknowldge the company in which has a radio problem. Problem solved.
Now if you don't use my concept, you would pull the hose three times from the exterior. If the crew actually feels the tugging how long do you think it will take for them to get the hint, then tell each other somethings up and identify that they should leave the building.... Then actually leave. Do they take the line with them or bail without it, as if they heard the evac signal to begin with. My guess they would be trying to back out with the line thus increasing the evacuation time. So this time to positive acknowledgement is too long. Probably longer than anybody would be willing to sit outside and WAIT.
So you wait...... and wait..... and wait..... how do you know they actually felt it? How do you know the reason for no acknowledgement is because they are now in the basement and unconscious? HOW LONG are you going to wait brother? If they didn't hear the evacuation signal gut instinct is something is wrong. That is pretty loud unless you are working in a below grade vault or something. Others have a policy of toning that department and having dispatch announce "evacuate the building" this works for volunteer brothers who are wearing their pagers under the gear too.
Are you waiting so long that whatever caused the change in fireground operational modes, (offensive to evacuation to defensive) takes so long that it happens, ie. flashover, collapse, etc.
Strong commanders, (without my interior safety officer concept) would have the usual constant communication with 15 minute PAR's. The real answer to your question is for command to activate a MAYDAY procedure himself, declaring the LUNAR for the missing company.
MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAIN STREET COMMAND ANNOUNCING A MAYDAY FOR MISSING FIREFIGHTERS...
L-Last known location, therefore others working in the same division who are right next to them or in the next room could resolve the issue first hand. Announce the last known location of the missing company from a previous PAR.
U- UNit or Company. This would identify who we are looking for
N-NAMES -Command would announce their names.
A-Activity - Command would announce their last known activity. Engine COmpany with a hoseline would be easier to find if they were on the line.
R- Radio Lack of one or a working one.
RIT would be deployed but most likely the mayday would be terminated before they made entry because the interior SO would have identified the missing company is OK and no need to add a RIT company to a building in which we are attempting to evacuate.
I teach Mayday Management for Incident Command- FETC Program and most departments do not have a policy on how to handle this exact situation or if the company is missing during a PAR. There is about 15 other steps command needs to do once the Mayday is announced but that is my response to tugging the hoseline and IMHO should be retired with more modern command and control technique.
TCSS FETC
www.fetcservices.com
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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I agree, and would add the following:
Hoses get tugged all the time - every time a coupling catches on a corner, a stair lip, or a big piece of furniture. If you count on tugs, you'll never get the line in to any of your fires.
Another consideration is the reason for the evacuation. If the building is actually collapsing, or if the reason for the evac signal is a global flashover or a missing Initial RIT that went after other missing firefighters (think Charleston Sofa Super Store and the Worchester cold storage fires here) then sending RIT into the structure may actually just add the RIT to the body count.
Another important activity is to either have a chief officer assigned to the rear (Division C) or to have a team with a radio do a repeat 360 survey. It is possible the missing firefighters exited to the rear where you can't see them, and once again, you'd be unnecessarily risking RIT in this situation.
How about attached multi-story structures like the attached Type IIIs in many cities? Some of them have horizontal communication on the 2nd or 3rd floor, and the missing firefighters may have bailed into an adjoining structure.
Where were the missing firefighters operating? If they were on an upper floor and you don't have ladders thrown to that area, assign a team and throw them. Maybe the missing firefighters are cut off from the stairs and just need a secondary means of egress.
The bottom line is that a fixed connection to the exterior (hose line, search rope) is great, but firefighters can get seperated from the line/rope, a local collapse can bury the line/rope, or one of the firefighters may have become injured and his team may be struggling to free him or drag him out while trying to simultaneously protect themselves from the fire.
Just activating one RIT may not be enough. If you only have one RIT and they look in the wrong place, they may not find the missing firefighters quickly. If the structure is wide, tall, or has lots of interior subdivisions, more than one RIT will be needed. Ditto if there is restricted access to one or more sides of the structure.
What if you have more than one primary hazard...say a boat storage warehouse fire immediately next to a marina? In that case, you may need one RIT dressed for interior firefighting and one dressed for water rescue in case a firefighter falls into the water.
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Accountability is key also, the IC should know where about the crew is. If assigned to the first floor, a crew should not deviate from that assignment until completed. IE, if assigned 1st floor search and they come across stairs, you stay on the first floor.
You're right, just activating RIT may not be enough, so the next higher alarm should also be called in and tactics switched for a potential rescue operation. The missing RIT thing I'm sketchy with because that isn't the scenario here, but definately something to consider further into such an operation.
As for the ladders, that should be an SOG/P for fireground operations that a ladder is thrown upon arrival. For us, if any company is operating above ground floor, ladders are already placed.
There are a lot of considerations for such a situation and the structural and fire factors would come into play for decision making. Good points.
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Permalink Reply by Tony P on
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A method we use to call people back at a wildfire is to 'pulse' the water they are using by decreasing/increasing pump pressure a couple of times. A simple method of alerting those at the sharp end of the hose.
Oh and I'm with John C - the 'PASS' should only be activated if YOU are in trouble.
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Permalink Reply by DUST on
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I wasn't talking about wandering through the fire building with my PASS activated but rather notifying the IC and Safety Officer that I was going to activate it for a moment in hopes of getting the crew's attention as I'm making my way toward them and saving a little precious time...to me it is situational, an evacuation order has been given, things are going to the bad without the interior guys knowing about it and so time is of the essence. I do understand your points and they are good ones.
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If they can't hear the radio and they can't hear the air horns, what makes you think they'll be able to hear the PASS?
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In the Worchester multiple LODD, some of the LODDs were lost while looking for the original missing firefighters. It wasn't the scenario there, either, when they entered. It still happened.
Look at the Phoenix RIT studies in response to the Southwest Supermarket fire.
That incident resulted in multiple additional MAYDAYS due to firefighters who were attempting to rescue the disoriented firefighter getting in trouble themselves. The same thing was replicated in the studies PFD did while trying to find out why the original incident occurred how it did.
If something has already gone terribly wrong on the fireground, we can't just blithely assume that nothing else will go wrong just because we engage in a well-intentioned RIT response.
I agree that the extra ladders should be thrown if firefighters are operating above the fire, and prior to the search, but most departments just flatly don't have the manpower to throw the ladders without delaying the search. If you delay your search for five or ten minutes while throwing ladders, you may be either wasting the search effort for civilians that are now dead, starting the search with a ladder company that's expended precious energy throwing the ladders, or both. That's another one of those points Command must take into account even if nothing has gone wrong on the fireground.
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You may be right, but my MSA PASS device is 95 decibels and that's inside and getting close to the crew as opposed to the 110 decibel air horn from the truck outside the structure.
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Really? How do you know that you'd be getting close to the crew inside the structure, especially if you don't know where they are? PASS alarms can be very disorienting if you are not immediately adjacent to the PASS that is activated, particularly in smoke.
PASS alarms are also intended to indicate that YOU are in trouble. If I hear a PASS that's not from one of my crew, one of two things will probably happen. 1) I ignore the PASS alarm and stay off the radio so that RIT can communicate with the lost/downed/trapped firefighter until I recieve another assignment. The first rule of RIT activations is for committed companies to continue working their assignment so that the fire doesn't go unfought...or 2) I try to respond to the activated PASS with a crew who has partially-empty air cylinders, no RIT tools, and no idea where they are relative to the PASS alarm, particularly if the PASS alarm is attached to a moving firefighter in heavy smoke or other zero-viz. That scenario is the recipe for the multiple MAYDAY situations Phoenix describes in their analysis of the Southwest Supermarket LODD incident.
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