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2nd Alarm or Not, That is the Question
I noticed that on alot of senerio's people are quickly calling from 2nd alarms. And I noticed that I read about a house fire going to 3 alarms. In our county (New Castle, DE) most alarms are 2-1-1. Working alarms brings a RIT unit which is usually the 3rd due engine. Each additional alarm brings 2-1-1. Which means the 2nd due rescue could be responding from a distance.
My thoughts on 2nd alarms. For years we had issues with officers piecemealing a 2nd alarm. By that I mean I need another engine. I need a rescue, give me a ladder, etc etc. Some felt that by pulling the trigger people would feel that they paniced or at least over reacted. Over the last couple of years more and more officers are calling the "duece" as the young'n like to call it.
As an officer you have to understand what you need and why you need it. Take a vollie company has a house fire at 8am in a hydranted development. First engine goes on location with fire showing. They have another engine from mutual aid on the road. What do they need and why? A 2nd alarm, an additional engine, ladder or rescue. Our enignes are capaable of running at least 6 lines. So another engine...no. Is there extension or ventalion issues so maybe a ladder? Need more manpower so maybe a rescue? How about just a ladder and resuce. Call for an engine cover so one is on the road.
I thing I would love to hear is someone call for a 2nd alarm for manpower and FF's respond oin Van's since apparatus is needed. I've seen many a fire when 10-15 units are parked somewhere and the FF's at the scene.
But remember you need to understand what you need and why you need it before you call it
My thoughts on 2nd alarms. For years we had issues with officers piecemealing a 2nd alarm. By that I mean I need another engine. I need a rescue, give me a ladder, etc etc. Some felt that by pulling the trigger people would feel that they paniced or at least over reacted. Over the last couple of years more and more officers are calling the "duece" as the young'n like to call it.
As an officer you have to understand what you need and why you need it. Take a vollie company has a house fire at 8am in a hydranted development. First engine goes on location with fire showing. They have another engine from mutual aid on the road. What do they need and why? A 2nd alarm, an additional engine, ladder or rescue. Our enignes are capaable of running at least 6 lines. So another engine...no. Is there extension or ventalion issues so maybe a ladder? Need more manpower so maybe a rescue? How about just a ladder and resuce. Call for an engine cover so one is on the road.
I thing I would love to hear is someone call for a 2nd alarm for manpower and FF's respond oin Van's since apparatus is needed. I've seen many a fire when 10-15 units are parked somewhere and the FF's at the scene.
But remember you need to understand what you need and why you need it before you call it
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by FireDaily.com on
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Well put. As we enter a new realm of less staffing and less resources, we all needto take a look at our plans for fighting fires, and change them to make sure we can still perform the job safely. SOP's from 3 years ago are probably no longer adequate.
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Vans? I don't just need firefighters, I need fire COMPANIES.
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Permalink Reply by Just Plain Craig Moyer on
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I will admit that using vand is not a good idea. I guess I'm looking at it has once you realize you don't need the manpower to fight fire you'll find a reason to use them. As an officer one of my main concerns is getting what I need there. Once thats done I don't worry about what esle is happening. Now that I'm older (more experienced) I realized some of the mistakes I made.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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Larry, 34 people is a whole shift for us. We generally have 14 on the box...
Three engines with three
A truck with four
A battalion chief
If we're lucky and fully staffed, we might get 16.
We keep a lot of our fires to room-and-contents, but if it's past that, we don't hesitate to call for help. It's not about our egos, it's about a) extinguishing the fire and b) realizing that we don't have endless resources. That changes the equation about how quickly it makes sense to call for help on a working incident.
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Permalink Reply by Jay Nicholson on
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Reminds me of a story. A local chief was heard saying that his dept. could handle any/everything in his city without resorting to calling for 'outside' help. Well, his ego wrote a check that couldn't be covered. Within the year they had a large brush fire with several structures lost/threatened. I think he retired shortly after that incident. Good thing too. A couple of years ago this happened to a 122 unit condo under construction. I think this would have been tough to control with 7 engines and 1 truck.
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Permalink Reply by lutan1 on
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I think this would have been tough to control with 7 engines and 1 truck.
You seriously think so? ;-)
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I think this would have been tough to control with 7 engines and 1 truck.
Too soon?
I've always been an advocate that it's easier to get the cavalry responding and cancel them as oppossed to get' em moving too late....
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Permalink Reply by larry jenkins on
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Ben,
We are a large department. We have 37 engines, 14 trucks, and 8 heavy rescues with a minimum staff of around 340 per day. We also have automatic aide with the surrounding depertments. Our resources are unlimited. On 9/11 my station responded to the Pentagon. By the end of the day a third of our department assisted with that incident and our firehouses were being covered by the outlaying counties. Here if you need something it will be there in minutes.
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Permalink Reply by Shareef Abdu Nur on
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I understand your point, but I do not think that your statement is true for all Departments. There are many smaller Departments who are really strapped for manpower and the only way to have enough manpower is to strike a 2nd alarm. So, again I understand your point but it is all relative.
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There are tasks that need to be assigned at each scene atack line, back up line, line above, search, vent, RIT, and safety. Call for enough resources to complete these tasks. I doesn't matter if it's ona alarm or three. I was just saying in our deparment we have enough on the 1st alarm to cover these. As the scene grows more tasks are required then call for more alarms.
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Permalink Reply by Trainer on
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This is a problem in our MABAS division we are working on, what if you need just manpower...First off I got to cover a couple of things; our neighboring department when called brings the whole barn, now the point of mabas is to not deplete more than 20% of your resources. Now with that out of the way, we kinda of struggle with the manpower issue as in do you call for just that....well we don't have it figured out yet but it's my opinion and what we do, you call for an engine and the sog states that and engine consists of 3 FF's and an officer, call as many as you need, actually 1 or 2 more than you need, if someone has to sit in staging and do nothing so be it, this is a tough pill for a vol to swallow.
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Can job!
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