Come Up for Air: Exit the building before the low-air alarm activates
By Chief Gary Morris

Editor's Note: This article was originally published in the July 2009 issue of FireRescue magazine. Read a letter to the editor, and Chief Morris' response, about this article.

Since 2001, as I have lectured about firefighter safety and survival at fire service conferences, I routinely ask audiences the following question: What does your SCBA training teach you regarding when to leave a building? Nearly 100 percent of the time, the answer is “when my low-air alarm activates.” Although a firefighter may have enough air to safely exit a small residential property, he will not have enough air to safely exit a large, deeply penetrated building. Plus, there will likely be times when there isn’t enough air to exit even a small structure.

Case in Point
In 2001, failure to monitor air pressure turned to tragedy in Phoenix at the Southwest Supermarket Fire that killed firefighter Bret Tarver, who ran out of air in a 27,000-square-foot building. I know. I was there that day and participated in the initial investigation.

A week later, during a series of meetings with captains, Chief Alan Brunacini asked the same question—“What does your SCBA training teach you regarding when to leave a building?”—and got the same answer: “when the low-air alarm activates.”

Phoenix changed its culture and now has a very aggressive, and much safer, air-management program for operating at fires called “On Deck.” Firefighters now closely monitor their air pressure while sector officers closely monitor their work time in the building.

Over the past several years, I’ve also been asked to review a number of accident investigations involving near misses or fatal incidents involving SCBA use. In one case, two firefighters were surprised when their low-air warning devices activated almost simultaneously as they reached the bottom of the stairs at a residential basement fire. They had been operating aggressively for 16 minutes on a “30-minute bottle.” They immediately started their emergency exit.

Before they could get out of the smoke-filled, 1,200-square-foot residence, both bottles went dry. One firefighter stumbled out a door and was treated for smoke inhalation. The other collapsed on the interior and had to be rescued. He was hospitalized and later had to take a medical retirement due to respiratory injuries.
The investigation revealed that neither firefighter had monitored their depleting air supply, nor did they check the pressure level (to confirm a full bottle) upon donning their SCBA.

This example is consistent with other cases I’ve reviewed where firefighters failed to monitor their air supply. These incidents and the common practice of waiting for the low-air alarm to activate illustrate a cavalier attitude about SCBA air management that must be changed.

Learn from the Divers
The SCUBA industry takes a strong stance on the safe use of breathing apparatus. The standard training curriculum for SCUBA diving mandates that the diver plan on surfacing with at least 500 lbs. of air remaining in the bottle. This is a decades-old standard of practice meant to ensure reserve air is available for unexpected underwater emergencies, such as entrapment or strong currents. Additionally, professional dive boat operators prohibit divers from making further dives if they surface with less than 500 lbs., unless there was an emergency. Interestingly, the same standard is applied to fire department dive teams, but not crews fighting structure fires.
Have firefighters ever been entangled or trapped in a burning building? Disorientated and lost? Has their planned exit been blocked by fire or collapse? You bet! Records indicate 79 firefighters died of smoke inhalation between 1995 and 2004. That’s a significant number of firefighters! With an extra 500 lbs. of air reserved for emergencies, the chances of survival are much greater.

Evaluating the Standards
The new NFPA 1404: Standard for Fire Service Respiratory Training (2006 edition) attempts to apply an approach to reserve air similar to the SCUBA industry. The standard states “Exit from an IDLH atmosphere should be before consumption of reserve air begins” (before the low-air alarm activates), thus ensuring some reserve air should the firefighter encounter a problem. As a safety professional, I’d prefer a more aggressive approach to firefighter safety by using the phrase “shall exit.”

Further, NFPA 1981: Standard on Open-Circuit Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus for Emergency Services (2007 edition) now recognizes the reality that firefighters actually consume more air during hard labor than the old bottle rating. The standard changed the consumption rate of 40 liters per minute and increased it to the more realistic 100 liters per minute. All SCBAs are designed to activate the low-air warning at 25 percent pressure remaining. With the new consumption rate, this means that a 1,200-liter 30-minute bottle may only have 300 lbs. of reserve air remaining or 3 minutes or less once the low-air alarm activates. That’s not a lot of time to get out of a building. Even the 1,800-liter (45-minute) bottle may only provide 450 lbs. (4 ½ minutes) of reserve air at the time of alarm.

What We Can Do
There are three things the American fire service must do to increase firefighter survival when wearing SCBA. First, adopt NFPA 1404, and implement standard operating procedures and training that mandate exit from the fire building before the low-air alarm activates—and monitor compliance.

Second, implement an aggressive training program that requires firefighters to constantly monitor their air pressure. The new heads-up display technology in SCBA should make it easier for firefighters to monitor air supply and plan an exit before the alarm activates.

Finally, there should be no shame leveled at any firefighter who leaves a tactical position before the low-air alarm activates. In fact, it is just plain stupid to allow a firefighter to intentionally push the safety envelope and routinely suck their last bit of bottle air as they stumble out of the building. If that’s happening, someday “Murphy” will get them. Together, we can change our SCBA culture.

Chief Gary Morris retired as an assistant chief from the Phoenix Fire Department after a 30-year career. He also served as fire chief for the Seattle Fire Department and the Rural/Metro Fire Department in Arizona. He is a director-at-large for the IAFC Safety, Health and Survival Section.