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Drafting
I would like to know how many departments still draft from a lake or pond or river because this is part of are driver training is it a thing of the past ?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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I work for a city department that responds mutual aid to surrounding communitities without the aid of a great municipal hydrant system. Many surrounding towns will not assign water supply to a city engine as they know the training may be lacking...
I personally train all of my shift members on every aspect of drafting to include problem solving draft issues, beofre they are allowed to be a DO.
We have a very large cistern that is perfect to draft from for dry hydrant work and I use a nearby pond and river in two parks for rural drafting procedures.
Still vitally important and even if you do not have alot of ponds, rivers or cisterns, you will eventually be thrusted into drafting from a porta-tank and may have no clue how to do it.
This is definately not a thing of the past...
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Permalink Reply by Tony P on
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The way we train could be a purely Australian thing Mike - or even purely Victorian! We don't have the FF! and FF2 that seem to be your (maybe) national standard. Really just a different way of getting people trained up to the level required. But it does give us a huge pool of people able to go on wildfire. Our career people would also cover drafting in their initial training course, but from what I've seen their expertise is more on the structural side.
(And I'm quite proud of picking that truck correctly!)
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So Dennis, are you happy with the response to your question? I am, it's been interesting. There are places with all hydrant, with half and half and with none. Those with an all hydrant area can often ignore the need for drafting competence completely. In one case even when the need has been shown by a failure of the reticulation system. I can't see the sense there, and the cost shouldn't be that much of an issue, a couple of lengths of rigid hose and attachments for each vehicle wouldn't increase the total cost by that much, surely.
In my FRS all the firefighting vehicles have drafting capability and equipment, whether they're in an urban or rural locality. We have an all career neighbour whose whole area is covered by hydrants. I must ask to see if they even carry the rigid hose etc..
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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there typically are more feet on the ground, compared with those handling pumping operations and good job on the correct vehicle identification. what would you call this one?
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What would I call it? How about an "Ultra Light Pumper"?
Would have to be very useful in one of those places with very narrow streets! Have a look at it - standpipe hydrant, drafting gear, supply/delivery hose. With the standpipe hydrants, I'd put it at somewhere in Europe? We use those as well, but nothing like that pattern.
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Permalink Reply by Aaron Robbins on
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its not if u dont have many or any hydrants lol
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Permalink Reply by united 289..{Dave} on
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Tony You caught my curiousity.
What kind of attachments are in reference to.
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We use a rigid strainer and a flexible wire basket over that - both to keep the fish out of course... Rope for positioning and recovery and a tennis ball to kill any vortex. Nothing really,
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Permalink Reply by Mark Montgomery on
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Where I am we have a small number of hydrants that have a maximum 1 hours water supply then it fails (likewise if the power is off).
We practice draughting (drafting) all the time, not just with the main pump but with portable pumps as well as often the first source of water may be an above ground water tank. We also practice relay pumping using the portable pumps as well. ALL our firefighters are expected to be able to operate each and everyone of our pumps. Don't tell me that its just the driver or engineers job - what happens when something happens to them - do you shut down operations? HELL NO!
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Just to be clear Mark, all of our folks know how to draft and operate the pumps, etc. Recent wildland refresher training reviewed not just drafting but other ways for accessing water sources using Mark IV wildland pumps and floto-pumps getting water from a stream, pumpkin or fold-a-tank. As far as the defined job responsibilities, I was simply clarifying how we operate and to that, typically .its the engineers who drive and pump who have that responsibility. Your admonishment about shutting down OPS was kind of a slam...
Tonight, as I write this, my town is getting hammered by a major brushfire in the foothills. Trust me, no one is going to shut down any operations...
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Mike, no offense was intended and I hope none taken.
What I do know, and I have heard it said here in New Zealand from both paid and volunteer firefighters is "it isn't my job", I didn't drive the truck, etc. I have actually had that argument with one of my own crew at an incident some years ago when my driver was clipped by a car.
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no offense taken, my take on both our worlds, is that we are all risk firefighters, show us a problem and we will do our best to make the problem go away... take care, Mike
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