I still see red lines at car fires i understood that red lines are a no-no . They do not have enough water to keep you safe . We pull a handline on all car fires . What do you use and why ??
I've never aimed one of our HP lines at a person, so wouldn't know what damage they could do (and I don't want to find out!) but I do know it's easy to blow concrete tiles off of roofs. I've read that the sort of thing we and Europe call a 'high-pressure' is very different to those 'Bean' units. Our pumpers have a two stage pump, the high pressure stage apparently flows far more water at a much lower pressure than the Beams.
First off I know I'll be in the minority of people but here it goes. On car fires we use a booster reel unless we see it will need more. Scene size up, small fire or big fire or REALLY BIG FIRE. Most of the time we respond to car fires in our mini pumper, we will use the booster reel and be done with it (unless we need something bigger). If we responed in our engine we have an 1 and 3/4 line in the bumper we will use. We might not respond to as many car fires as some people but being in the middle of redneckville with cobbled together trucks we get our fair share. Stay safe and please dont yell at me to much.
We use the booster reel off of our brush truck most of the time because we can run foam through it. It really is an issue of scene size up. If it is something really big then we will use the engine. Both roll to the scene but the brush with the foam and the booster is easier and faster. I should also mention that our brush truck has 500 gallons of water and an integrated foam system. The engine's integrated foam system doesn't work so we have to resort to a scotty foam applicator which means having to shut down lines and then recharge. It just takes more time on scene. But we do use both just depending on the initial scene size up.
Permalink Reply by Josh on December 18, 2008 at 1:15am
we always pull a 1 1/2 on all car fires. It gives you enough water psi to deal with any situation. One less thing we have to worry about when out there working
John Bean Fire Co? John Bean of Lansing, Michigan, which became FMC. Never used them on structures, but they were fabulous for grass fires. I don't know whether they wet the fire or blew it out!
At my part time FD we use a preconnected 1.75" off of the front bumper and at my full time FD we use an 1.5" rubber jacketed trash line of off the front bumper. We don't use booster reels anymore, but even the preconnected rubber jacketed lines are easy for us to pick up and get off of the street or highway and out of traffic quickly and that's what it's about for us. We have never had a problem with getting enough water from either one of these lines. Now, as far as SCBA's....I am really trying to get into the habit of always using them on car fires, trash fires, etc., but old habits are hard to break. It's a learning curve and we are really trying.
Our SOP is to pull an 1.75" attack line. Hit hard and fast, overhaul it and get the hell out of there... in 99.9% of car fires, the insurance companies are going to total it anyways.