Many of you have taken Firefighter Survival Training.  While it varies from place to place, depending on the instructors, the core information and intent is the same, to prepare firefighters to save themselves when things go wrong.  From bailouts to low profile maneuvers to breathing control, all these things are taught to teach firefighters what to do when things gone wrong and they get stuck. 

But what about not getting stuck in the first place?  What if we went about things in such a way that we didn’t allow ourselves to get jammed up in the first place?  Chief John Norman talks about never putting yourself in a position where you have to rely on someone else to get you out, in his book “Fire Officer’s Handbook of Tactics”. 

It is critical that every firefighter perform a size up of the building based on their assignment.  As part of this size up, we should determine what tools we need to accomplish out tasks, how we are going to get to where we need to go and how we are going to get out if we have to. 

It is critical that we don’t blindly rush into the building before we get a good look at it.  How many stories is it? Where are the windows?  Are there other entrances?  Are there fire escapes?  Do we need ground ladders?  Have ladders already been thrown? 

We also need to be concerned with the conditions.  Where is the fire?  Where is it going? What are the smoke conditions?  It may seem like a lot of information, but it is information that you cannot afford to miss.  Many of us answer these questions without consciously thinking about it.  We have considered these things at every fire we have gone to, and they are part of our muscle memory.  But often, especially in departments that are going to less fires, these thoughts and observations do not come automatically. 

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