Positive pressure attack!

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to see victims, dangers, and your way around during interior attacks? It is possible in some cases with a technique called Positive Pressure Attack. This is a new concept to me, in fact I had never heard of it before a recent class on the subject. This technique is, to me, easiest but unused approaches to fire fighting. It increases a victims chances of survival and firefighter safety. Like I said this is a new concept to me but is one I feel so strongly about that I had to get the word out about it. Visit www.positivepressureattack.com for more info, take a class and form your own opinion. This is a good way to become more effective at saving lives, doing less property damage, and increasing firefighter safety all with a piece of equipment I would bet 95% of us already have on our apparatus. Please take the time to atleast look into this, I believe it will truely change how your department will conduct interior attacks. Thanks for reading and be safe out there!

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Permalink Reply by Bill Muehsam on October 4, 2008 at 11:47pm

Any tactic, poorly executed, will not end well. You are correct, i should have qualified my statement abou thte fire spreading. For that, I apologize. PPA will not work in every incident, and for the record, no, it wouldn't have worked in Charleston, based on my limited knowledge of the incident. I do not believe that I said it would work in every situation. If you think that I have misled anyone, once again, sorry Chief, that wasn't my intention.

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on October 5, 2008 at 6:07am

Bill,

I don't think that you intended to mislead anyone at all. I just wanted to point out that there are a lot of firefighters on FFN who have little or no experience with PPA/PPV, and that the qualifiers are important. In a couple of the instances where I've seen a house or strip mall burn down after inappropriate use of PPA, a contributing factor was that the guy that taught those firefigter's PPV/PPA classes told them things like "you they couldn't spread the fire with PPA."

The way to keep that firespread from happening is to know the building construction, know if you have enough fan CFMs to pressurize the building, read the smoke, and make sure that the fan is quickly shut down if the exhaust point doesn't start venting like it should within a few seconds after the fan(s) are cranked and properly set at the intake point.

Here's one situation where PPA will not only spread the fire, it will cause a flashover;
The fire is nearing the flashover point, and it is located in the center of the structure. "Black Fire" ( as defined by Dave Dotson) is pumping out of the structure. The fan is set up pumping air into the front door. The pressure pushes the fire into the Black Fire venting out the rear. Presto - you have a flashover that is now a fuel-controlled fire fed by forced ventilation. The reason - Black Fire is very hot, black smoke. It is dense and is moving fast. The only thing it needs to become a flashover is a short contact with an ignition source. The PPA fan pushed the fire into the smoke, igniting it.

In that situation, if you only have a three or four-firefighter engine company leading off with the fan, the one handline they will be able to put in service by themselves may not have enough water power to extinguish the newly-flashed over and now rapidly-moving fire.

PPA and PPV have their place, but there are times when it their use will be ineffective at best and accelerate the fire at worst. My perspective is one from being a member of a pretty progressive department that has had LDH for over a decade, doesn't have booster lines on our engines, and uses PPV on a regular basis. We don't use PPA much, because our response times are excellent and we get to most fires when they're incipient and PPA isn't a factor. The few free-burning fires we have are the result of late 911 notification, and once the fire has autovented, PPA generally doesn't help you much.

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Permalink Reply by John Kriska on October 5, 2008 at 7:25am

Ben: For the benefit of others viewing these posts, I would like to address your example cited in your previous post. Since the fire is in the center of the building and the building is full of black smoke, the person performing the size-up should come to the conclusion that the area of fire origin is unknown, therefore, providing that they are well trained/educated in the use of PPA, they would not use the tactic. As an instructor of PPA, I teach a very basic rule of PPA and that is "you must know where the area of fire origin is in the building and you must be able to quickly ventilate that area before starting the fan". If you cannot locate the area of fire origin, then PPA would not be used.

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on October 5, 2008 at 8:13pm

Chief Kriska,

My posts were largely for those who missed the previous thread on the topic as well. One of the things I've seen regarding PPV/PPA - and a lot of other topics - here is Training, Training, Training...then the content of that training isn't described. In fact, a lot of PPV training out there leaves a lot to be desired. When there were four or five PPV instructors in the entire USA, the training was consistent, even though it was oriented at Phase 1 or Phase 2 fires near a window or door in a one-floor, single-family dwelling.

Now fast forward 20 years or so, exponentially multiply the number of instructors, reduce the number of fires and chances to use PPV fans on real fires, and you get training whose quality varies a lot. I'm not questioning your instructional ability with PPV/PPA at all - obviously you're a subject-matter expert. But...there are some PPV/PPA instructors that aren't in your league. That doesn't stop them from teaching, and it doesn't stop them from including their unspoken assumptions into their spoken classroom or skills instruction.

The fact that a lot of PPV/PPA training videos are little more than thinly-disguised - or undisguised - sales pitches also makes some of what's on the market a little suspect from the end-user standpoint, because those videos are oriented at selling PPV fans. Sales pitches don't usually do a very good job of letting prospective customers know about the limitations of their product or situations where using their product is more harmful than helpful. One of the reasons more departments don't use PPA is because some of the instruction simply doesn't build confidence in the tactic to the point where chiefs and company officers are comfortable using it.

As always, I value your opinion and input.
Ben

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Permalink Reply by John Kriska on October 5, 2008 at 10:20pm

Ben your points are well taken. Back in the late 1980's, only John Mittendorf was teaching the PPV concept, I learned from him. In 1989 I began teaching PPV and one other that I was aware of, Larry Hughes in NC. I eventually ventured into teaching PPA. There were probably others but I was not aware of them. Currently, Kriss Garcia from Salt Lake City has started a PPA training academy which I think will be a great asset. I think it is important when teaching this subject to include the pros and cons, what can go wrong if it is not used properly and the correct way to use the tactic. Also, I think that other methods of ventilation must be discussed so that the students understand that PPA is not the only way to ventilate a building. It cannot be taught in a two hour drill. I am concerned that there may be some people out there who may view a video or slide presentation and then go out and teach without any further instruction, that can be dangerous. You may know John Sachen, he and I have done much research on PPV/PPA over the past twenty years and have recognized from that research and practical use of the tactic, many incidents where PPA should not be used. The recent NIST studies on PPA have validated John and my conclusions about PPA. In my view, Training and Education from qualified instructors is mandatory before anyone goes out in the real world and attempts to either teach or use PPA.

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Permalink Reply by Trainer on October 6, 2008 at 5:19pm

Man you guy's hit it right on the nail. Someone brings one to a live burn and says watch this, and it's impressive. They then procced to buy one. It's just another tool in the bag, but this one can backfire in a hurry, it's all about right time, right place, right people. Oh and booster lines work great.....to wash ldh.