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Ten Minutes in the Street: Fire on the Outskirts of Town-Rural Operations
Ten Minutes in the Street: Fire on the Outskirts of Town- Rural Firefighting Operations
Your department has been dispatched to a reported fire in single family residential structure located about six miles outside of the town. It’s located in a newer developing area that has a number of large homes located down a single access road off the main highway (four lane highway with moderate traffic and tractor trailer truck traffic). These homes were built commencing in 2001 and are large (3500-5000 square feet), are made of engineered structural systems (ESS) and are located on 2+ acre wooded lots.
The development has about twelve homes located within the boundary and there are no hydrants in the immediate area.
• There are two water sources: the closest water source is located 2.5 miles away on the main highway consisting of a dry hydrant at a static pond;
• The second source is on the edge of town, six miles away at the last hydrant on the town’s water supply grid (last tested at 750gpm flow).
• The fire is discovered by the resident, who returned home from shopping, and found visible fire coming from second floor central porch. The central porch is located between two large areas of the house and opens to the exterior (no roof) and leads directly to a central second floor foyer, balcony and stairway.
• The house is set back from the street, 500 feet with a gravel double-wide driveway leading to the house (slight incline).
• The street is a double wide paved road that ends in a large cul-de sac (circle) with a single access point leading to the main highway.
• It’s late afternoon on a weekday, temperatures are moderate, slight breeze.
• The resident; is the mother of three teenagers, who are presumed home at this time. There are two family dogs in the house.
• You have available a pre-determined task force of Type I and II water tankers/tenders ( you know, those “big trucks” that carry lots of water).
• Your response includes what you normally have available to you in your department, including staffing….on a typical day.
• You’ve first arriving (either as the commander or first-due engine, tanker or tender)..assume a position.
• Lay out your Incident Action Plan (IAP); What’s the ICS structure going to look like, who do you need and where?
• What’s your sustainable water supply plan look like?
• What at the issues, priorities, risks, needs, deployment strategies and tactics?
• What can you do? What can you not do?
• What do you need?
• What’s the overall risk profile and operational mode of this incident?
• How are you going to tactically fight this fire?
• What is the risk and safety profile to your personnel? Now, in 15 minutes, in 30 minutes?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Smoke Eater on
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I will take IC on the first in engine (Engine 71 for us). I will instruct the driver to pull up the driveway to the house. My radio report would sound like this, "Radio, Engine 71 is arriving. We have a 4 story large residential structure with smoke and fire showing on the 2nd floor of the A side of the structure. Start me manpower and tankers from stations 13, 40, and 50 as well as 12 engine. 703 will have (name of street) command."
During the day, we would have at least 4 guys on 71 so I would have my back end guys take a 1 3/4 crosslay to the second floor and begin the attack. Tanker 73 would be next in with 2500 gals. of water and probably 1 person on it. I would have him and the driver of 71 drop a dump tank beside 71 for drafting and dump 73 into the dump tank. I would have 12 engine go directly to the draft site at the pond and set up there to fill tankers. Tanker 44 is a pumper/tanker and would probably have 5-6 guys on it. I would have 44 dump into the dump tank and have 2 head to the roof on the 4 floor to vent and the rest start searching the structure for the kids and pets.
Tanker 55 would have possibly 2 on it. I would have them dump and the other person on it would be my water officer. By this time my tanker 74 would be arriving with possibly another 2-3 guys on it. If there are 3 then 2 of them would grab the other crosslay off of 71 and head towards the fourth floor to knock the fire down there.
At this time I would be calling for an EMS unit to the scene for FF rehab as well as any possible victims.
My IAP would be to start a knockdown on the fire as well as searching for potential victims.
Comming from an area with dry hydrants, I would say that my water supply should be sufficient enough to carry out this assignment.
The issues are going to be that this place appears to be wide open allowing for a faster fire spread. My main priority is to find the kids and get them out, then an aggressive fire attack.
I'm going to need alot of water and manpower due to the size and construction of the house.
At first this will be attack mode, but if it spreads this may end up defensive.
I am going to send guys in on this one to make an aggressive interior attack for now.
This is going to be a significant risk due to the light weight of the construction and the fact that there isn't much to slow the spread of fire through the interior.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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I don't have time for an in-depth analysis right now, but there are a couple of construction issues that jump out at me, and these should drive the IAP.
1) There is more than one "front door" here - at least 3 are visible. The one directly under the fire probably leads directly to an open staircase that terminates on a large, open second floor landing. With the fire location and intensity, it is critical to get a handline in that door, up the stairs, and at least confining the fire. If we lose this cut-off-point, we're probably going to lose the whole house.
2) Water supply is a big problem here. Get the Tanker/Tender task force rolling now. We're already behind the BTU combat curve for a non-hydranted area.
3) The fire has already gotten a toehold in the attic. If we can't get a quick knock on the fire and a quick search of the entire building, the attic fire may extend to the point where the engineered system that tricks the roof into thinking it's sitting on the ground suddenly fails. I can't think of a single good outcome that results from that scenario.
4) This might be a 5-line fire right now, plus backup lines. My count is: 1 line for fire attack, 1 for interior exposures toward Side C, 1 for the attick toward Side B, 1 for the attic toward Side D, and one to get the exterior including the soffit extension.
Anyone else have a different hoseline count?
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Ben I would agree with you on the hoseline count except during the late afternoon we don't have the manpower. We have had something like this and the manpower and resources I posted would be about it. If this fire goes any longer then I would be calling in more manpower and tankers from 2 other depts. close to us. Also at that point I would be putting 2 depts. south of us in the next county on standby at their stations so I could activate them if needed. Everyone in our county is volunteer except the city dept. so manpower during shift changes is a huge issue. The city dept. all but refuses to help the county depts. They also are facing manpower shortages due to budget cuts so they are severly understaffed and probably wouldn't be able to put a truck out of service to help us on this one. However, I could get possibly 3-4 more from station 13. If that is the case, then hell yeah I'm calling for them to respond and pull another line to assist in attack. Probably in the attic space since we do have smoke starting to come out thru the shingles on the A side of the house.
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Permalink Reply by Jeff Cole on
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Regardless of the lack of an immediate sustainable water supply, once again I would have to suggest leaving the smaller hseline on the apparatus. Areas without hydrants would do well to explore the use of 2" hoselines, as this fire may well be past the control of a 1.75" line already. Especially if your staffing shorted, three 'back-step guys', propery trained could stretch, and even advance a2.5" line, and flow enough water for a couple minutes to possible confine this fire.
It's hard to tell, but the fire located in the middle of the dwelling COULD mean it's near, or involving a stairwell, and if so, control of the stairwell is vital.
If you have a good, quick shot...go for it, providing you have at least the required '2 out' as this is a large dwelling covering ALOT of square footage. Easy to get disoriented in there. While there appears to be good access and vantage points, the place looks easy to ladder, it's irrelevent if you don't have the staff to cover the required tactical procedures.
Obviously the call for additonal trucked water sources is a priority.
Having gone back and reading the actual scenario again, the potential for this fire to be spreadin internally is severe. A good blitz attack, using apparatus mounted deluge gun, or even a quick shot from an aerial pipe may be best to darken-down the main body of fire, and THEN, using a easier to move 1.75" line to attempt to finish it may be effective. Either way, if your first line doesn't do the job...and if your second, third engines and additional staffing is yet a few minutes away, it will be an entirely defensive attack.
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I could see where the deluge would come in handy here, but where could you place the engine to get a good shot at it? From the drive, you would be hitting it at an angle and possibly causing more damage to the house than the actual fire.
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I know, and the problem is only one photo provided. But possibly a portable monitor in place of the apparatus-mounted, uch as 'Blitzfire'. There are those who may feel this would 'push' fire through the building, I suggest that MAY be possible, but you have limited choices here, limited water supply, and worse, limited staffing. Little, if any chance for aggressive interior attacks covering the required positions.
A quick hit, to suppress as much fire as possible, and then move in the most direct route possible. I am doubting one 1.75" handline is going to stop this beofre it extends.
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That's exactly right Jeff. Since this is a rural fire, there are gonna be some difficult challenges all around on this one.
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If you are short on manpower to the point where you can't deploy two 1.75 inch lines on this one, you're probably too short on manpower for a single 2 inch line to make a difference.
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A 2.5 inch line with a solid-bore nozzle might be a good choice for an exterior shot to the fire in the front, but you'd need a break-apart nozzle and extend it with a smaller line to go interior.
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Permalink Reply by Dustin Sandrock on
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Being from a small rural dept.this is common for us on most structure fires.
First of all if it was a confirmed structure fire when we were toned out i would strike a mabas box(preplanned mutual aid) this would bring us probably 2-3 more tankers, in addition to the 3 tankers our dept has. plus manpower and prolly an additional engine. once on scene and assuming command i believe id also try the deck gun if we couldnt use that, id prolly deploy a portable master stream to try to get a knock on the fire. once more manpower showed up and we knew we had water on the way id send a team in from the c side providing there was access b side if there wasnt and fight the fire offensively. and have a search team goin in with them.. for the water supply id probly have tanker shuttles goin to the hydrant and if the second engine wasnt needed id send them to the dry hydrant.
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