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Assignments, Where Do You Deploy These Crews?
Here is the scene. You are the officer in charge here and when you arrive this is what you see.
You have reports of possible victims in an early morning fire.
Now, this house is approximately 1600 square feet with a basement. Single story about 25-30 years old.
Based on your tactical priorities, start assigning these crews where it is most appropriate. Explain where and why you sent your crews there. Keep in mind you are a medium sized department that is a suburban island. Meaning that basically you have three trucks on the scene with this number of personnel.
Your next truck in is 10 minutes away. You have public water supply.
The neighbor got up to go to work and noticed smoke coming from the house next door. Exposure B and D are about 15 feet away on both sides.
What do you do?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jason Hoevelmann on
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Jeff, your doing fine. This is how we learn and my combination department gets placed in this position quite a bit. It is all about training and training. Nobody is right all the time and nobody is wrong all the time. I constantly learn from a lot of sources, newbies and old guys. Don't stop posting, if you want to learn, you will, let the rest roll off your shoulders.
I appreciate you contributing as I do all the posters.
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Permalink Reply by Vic Oleson on
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Ok I'll give this a try. Using the picture and what i can see in it. To the far right I see a basement window,
I would check thru it to see if i could see flame down there. none seen there, I would assume since there are numbers on the wall this is the front of the house leading me to believe that is the living room that the smoke was pouring out of. Using just what i can see in the picture and those 5 guys i would have that guy next to the garage force that door, make entrance thru the garage with the guy who forced the door and two guys on the hose. now our dept has ppv fan so the guy next to the wood pile would be ppv. and set it up in that garage door. and the guy with the yellow strap on his helmet would be getting a roof ladder and a saw or ax. i think the ppv would help to get the smoke and some of the heat out the front door till the vent on the roof was done. The nozzle guy can hit the nozzle a couple of times on fog to help knock down flash heat with steam conversion and third guy with them can start search with them off of the hose. now when the ppv is set and going, the roof guy has the hole cut, those two guys can stretch a second line for backup, and standby outside to backup the interior search or rit if they have to till more help gets there. now this is just by the picture and I'm just making my guess at what i see in the picture. would that work that way?
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Permalink Reply by Jeff Cole on
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I'm not comfortable with the PPV use on this. Look at the smoke condition. Turning dark, and likely very quickly. What's that mean? Where IS the fire? We can't tell. And so, with so little actual information, and so few firefighters available, why would we risk accelerating the fire, and pushing from where (we don't know yet)and into where ever, when we do NOT have enough personnel to suppress the fire in the first place? The fan will accelerate the fire. We haven't enough people to dedicate to the search to cover the place fast enough, therefore we may be forcing it all onto where any victims may be.
It's a frame dwelling. PPV requires strict coordination with suppression efforts and constant vigilence by the IC, with the ability to change tactics immediately should things not go as planned. Again, we do NOT have that ability here with 5 people. In fact...should I assume that the IC is in'fast attack' mode, as in all-hands working? Simply put, that means the IC is being hands-on to complete some of the tactical tasks required for the primary search/vent, and initial hoseline.
Therefore..you've lost your ability to keep the eys where they should be.
The objective here is straight-forward: Make the primary search, as rapidly as possible, using the hoseline to buy you a quick couple of minutes, hopefully. Venting stratgeically from the exterior will allow for some degree of smoke, and heat to be vented, along with removing barriers, such as doors, and windows, so the primary search team can GET OUT, if necessary, and get in, too. Rememeber, THEY are the crew venting first, then entering, so they should be familiar with exit points.
It's a quick in and out, period. 5 firefighters. A fair amount of work, under somewhat punishing conditions, considering the situation. Help is TEN MINUTES away! IF you get lucky with that hoseline, and manage to get it to where the fire is, and get a knock on it, you're well ahead of the game. DO NOT consider these actions as a fire attack, or attempt at extinguishment. I'm all for multi-tasking, especially becouse most of us ARE short-staffed.
But just how far are you gonna push your people? Hopefully not to the point of no return. It's only property at that point, and if we didn't find any victims, great. If we couldn't get to them, sadly they are beyond our help.
Work smarter, and hopefully that will translate into to working safer.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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the garage rafters is about it... how cool would it be to have a basement? maybe this is where "man cave" came from?
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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In the South Carolina Low Country, we use our garages or rent mini-storage warehouses. We build on slabs here, as the soil is too sandy and wet for basements.
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My ideas for man cave got pushed to side for the kids play area. But I do have one side for storage. It is nice, I can't imagine not having one. I guess I can't move south : )
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The rule of thumb for PPA is to avoid the use of the fan in fuel-controlled fires and to use it in ventilation-controlled fires. This fire is clearly ventilation-controlled.
The fan will indeed blow the fire around if it's a fuel-controlled fire, but this one isn't there yet, due to the lack of other vent openings.
I agree with the quick in-and-out, but with the fan, the in-and-out can be quicker and more effective due to the fan pressure reducing heat and smoke at the entry point. PPA can reduce the "punishing" from the conditions of which you speak.
If you're worried about the fire's location, take a quick peek either in the front door with a TIC, or do a quick 360 and check the windows with a TIC.
PPA can work with as few as three crew members, so the five we have here gives us a little more flexibility than the basics even if we don't h ave the number of firefighters we'd like to have for any working fire.
Remember, it's not air that ignites hot smoke, it's additional heat.
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Good point.
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Permalink Reply by Todd on
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And here above the "Fall Line" in SC you'd pretty much have to blast granite to get deep enough for a true sub-level basement.
We do have some things called basements, but aren't totally sub-level. This is where a home is built on a grade, and the first living space level is at ground level at the top of the grade. These "basements" are on ground level at the bottom of the grade, as such making entry into these isn't like making entry into a traditional style basement because it's more like entering the ground floor of any other residence.
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That would still work. Better than nothing.
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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Since much has already been mentioned, I thought of what I would do before reading comments. I agree with Ben here and would also use a positive pressure attack, especially if this was our compliment of personnel.
My reasoning is that one or two guys can open a few windows, turn the fan into the door and wait a bit for conditions to clear before making an attack. I would have a second line in place as well and a vent team can come back around to be back up.
Now I do understand we don't know the location of the fire, or other access point etc, which could be located with a 360, and I understand the hesitancy to commit to PPA, especially with reports of possible victims. My first thoughts there is what is the source of the report of victim? Neighbor? So we don't know for sure if there are any victims, correct? Now PPA can risk the life of potential victims, especially if between the exhaust and the fan.....but what about cutting a hole in the roof?
My concern with cutting a hole is to do so safely...ladders thrown, do we have a saw? if not we have to use an axe or maul. Basically looking if putting 2 on the roof to open it up, how much more time is the fire going, how much more smoke are potential victims breathing while waiting? Chances are that if there are victims, the outlook for survival is not in their favor, despite if the roof is cut or PPV used. In this case, if this was my compliment of personnel, I will go with PPA unless something else found on 360 and of which we don't know that.
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Permalink Reply by Keegan Allen on
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Pulling up on the scene i would first do a 360 of the structure to see what else might be going on. Like Mr. Busy state this fire might be contain to only one room, or certain part of the house. After i have done this i would report this information to my other crews enroute. The second crew I would get organized is a crew that can get this structure vented so smoke can clear out since it is already to the floor. My third thing as a command officer is talk to by standers and see where the trap victims might be in the house. As my other crew is arriving I would have them do search & rescue operations to find the victims. As they do this make sure that the venting team is not cutting holes in the roof. The structure might be weak and can't hold up so safety places a big role in this.
I am only a junior but I would follow those steps.
Also i see a safet concern in this picture. On the right the firefighter has a hose line but this line is not charged. I would go no futher toward the house until that line is charged.
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