OK, it's a Saturday night, you're here on the computer surfing away...
Let's do something productive...
Given the following scenario and images; Assume a key operational position and discuss what you would do. Anyone else taking a similar position, provide feedback or state what YOU would do. Think about strategy, tactics, logistics, operations, decision-making, risk managment, situational awareness, safety, command presence, etc. OK assume the position and let's see if we can put this one out.

Single Family Residential: Wood Frame
Occupied at time of alarm and dispatch
Saturday Evening; 19:30 hours
Resources: Per your Organization/Department

You develop the Incident Action Plan (IAP)
Assume a postion:
Incident Commander
Division(s)
Operations
Safety
PIO
Fire Attack
Search & Rescue
Ventilation
Utilities
RIT
Rehab
EMS
Firefighter
Etc. (You pick others..)

Company Officer, firefighter, team member or apparatus operator on a(n): Engine, Truck/Ladder; Rescue; Squad; Tender; etc- you select
You select: First Due, second due, third due, mutual aid etc.

What are you going to do, and why?
What are your priorities ?
What are your assumptions?
What are your needs?
What are your safety concerns?

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Yeah....Not on this fire! This building and from what I am seeing is an interior job with a knockdown of 10 minute's or less. This fire started on the porch and from the pics you might have fire in the attic. Open the roof, to draw the fire up and out,knokdown the fire in that room between the garage and main house. If the fire got into the attic, pull some ceillings or better yet if it has a walk up attic head for the stairs and knock the fire down. Nothing I am seeing is telling me to bail out and give up. For all we know lookingat these photos the fire is only in that front room.
Capt- about the back side, yeah you'd do the 360 size up, sorry i thought we were just going on the pictures we had and info given.

Dave- I wouldn't put firefighters at risk pulling ceilings when we can just poke a gable and look inside to see what we have from the stick. It's the hero mentality thats getting lots of firefighters killed these days because everyone wants to rush inside first thing. Maybe stepping back a little bit and looking at the big picture first would be beneficial in this case. Also, there's not always fire where there's smoke. You're very right that venting the roof would draw the fire out. Is that what we want? I'd rather not expose the standing portion of the house and just concentrate on the already envolved porch area. That construction gives the crews less than 10 minutes from the time the fire started to get up ventilate and get down safely. I don't know if I'd be willing to risk it bud.
Maybe treating the attic as an exposure first, wetting it down, THEN ventilating so the fire wouldn't travel would be best!
Thats what I forget to mention is the depts that are short on manpower. I take for granted that we are getting 28 plus guys on the box.
Why enter this one room fire then? with your first sentence why no just break all the windows and put handlines in and spray water until we fill every room? I hope you wouldnt, because if you did, why not just sit back and let the place burn to the ground and allow the home owners to collect the insurance money?

Hero mentality has nothing to do with it. This house has to be searched. to protect the search team you need handlines placed, you need to attack the fire. This building is not going to go anywhere, you hit the seat of the fire, which in this case is the porch from what I see of the pics and get in there and open up to check for extension. The fire service is getting all to caught up on time frames. Infact very few truss constructed building will last 5 minutes with direct flame .

As for do you want to draw the smoke and fire out...why would you want to keep it in? This fire in my dept will still be better attacked from the inside by opening up ceillings if no other means can be found to get into the attic, if the fire has gotten that far to began with.

we Apparently have two different ways of fighting this simple single family home fire.
We start getting Mutual aid on the 5th alarm to cover our stations. The way the running card is that Mutual aid never goes to a house alone. If a truck is covering a staion we will have a Boston Engine co at that station, and if a Engine is covering there will be a Boston truck co there with them. Rarely will you see a Mutual Aid co at a fire in the city, unless it was a line box or we have mutliple fires going.

I do see where your coming from with the out of towners and not knowing there limits and training.
Frist I would like to say that everyone has had some good ideals and i believe all would work. There are going to be risk no matter what means of attack or apporch we take. With that said I would like to add some points that I noticed upon looking at the pics.#1 time is 19:30 (7:30pm in case someone doesn't know) most people are not in bed yet. Type of vechile in driveway signals to me that that someone in the house is young to middleage, so they will probly be in main part of the house. Reason's I would consider this, fireplace(cold outside,snow on ground)watching t.v, so I would concentrate my search there.#2 the part of the house shown burning is a add on to the garage for coming into the main part of the house to stay out of the weather. #3 With the car in the drive way it would lead me to think that garage is full. What is in there? Being a Vol. Fire Dept. we are going to be at lease 10 mins.getting to scene. Upon arriving I see that the front door is closed,that part does not appear to be burning so it would lead me to think that either the people are not home or they are down.I would start a handline on the part that is burning while 2 people are doning scba's and 2 people getting ready for back up. I would have someone laying a handline for the team going in.I would want the garage doors open so I would know what's in there ( the unknowns are what gets ya, so I want to know as much as soon as possible. Just a note that we have to consider here is meth labs ( meth does not care how rich or poor or race) I have seen labs in some really nice areas so it is always a concern.If the fire is how we see it in the pics it is a baic fire that should be quickly contained and put out, but we all know that fire has a mind of it's own. I am sure what I have said can and will be shot full of holes it's just something I wanted to add.Thanks ET
Dave,

We'd only have 14 on this box - three engines with three, a truck with four, and a B/C.
The working incident call would get us one additional engine with three and (usually) two additional chiefs - one for safety and one for the rear.

Good points about checking the rear and each engine establishing their own water supply. Those are such basic points that I assumed it and didn't post it.
Oh yes...ASSume makes an ASS out of each of us!!! =) I take for granted we get so much help on the box and that very few of our fires go above the box alarm
It gets rough with a small department that is entirely volunteer like ours is. During the daytime "work hours," there are only about 3, sometimes 4 or 5, not all the time though, of us that can respond to the tones. One of those available can drive only 2 of the trucks that we have, (the pumpers). I am qualified to drive any of the trucks, (pumper, tanker, brush truck), but I always have my 4 year old daughter with me. (Who, by the way, usually is in the truck and buckled up before I can get my shoes on when the tones drop. She's as dedicated as we are, and loves it...Generation 3 of fire service in this family growing up right!) We are stuck until our automatic mutual aid station, (Lily Fire Department) can get to the scene. We pull up and get lines ready and begin an outer attack. As more arrive on scene, we add more jobs, till the overall job is done.
Becki, your daughter is in the car and belted before you get your shoes on. Do you have someone coming to the station to look after kids while you head off to the fire? I know of some volunteer brigades here where someone does just that.
My assumptions. I know I've got at least a couple of engines and a truck right behind me. A BC also. I want to hit this hard from the outside first. It appears that this is an add-on. Easier to carry the groceries right into the house. As first due I'm going to go on scene, smoke and flames showing. Passing command. I'm not going to lay a supply line. I'll have my second due do that. Pull an 1.75 pre-connect and pump off the tank hitting from the outside. I've got a couple of minutes and hope that my initial size-up is correct.
At 1930 I'm not too worried about occupants even with the car in the driveway. Unless we've received an update telling us differently, I'll assume they got out as first due. At 2200, totally different. After the initial attack, I'll let the BC worry about everything else.
As a side note, I saw a captain once lay a 2.5" supply line but instead of pumping off the engine, attatched a nozzle directly to the line and and used the pressure from the hydrant. His thought was he saved a couple of minutes and hit the garage fire hard and fast with a lot of water. Worked. Only time I ever saw it though.

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