The Social Network & Community JUST for Firefighters
When do you turn on air?
Get some discussion going on here. When do you turn on your air, as soon as you get off the truck and leave mask hanging or wait until you get into a condition you need to mask up and turn on air then and put on mask. Matter of personal preference? Do you have a SOP towards this?
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Michael A. Pimental on
-
Our stations sop's say we turn on air when we don our packs then leave the mask hanging untill needed. It's one more thing you would need to do when seconds could be extremely important. Also turning on air activates the pass divice in some models which could help if something unexpected was to happen. We were also taught to turn on air prior to doning pack otherwise you would have no idea how much air your tank actualy has. Or if the vibration of the truck happened to loosen the line and now leaks. It would really suck to get into the action turn on your air and find out the tank was low and you are now useless. Basically ALWAYS BE PREPARED!
-
Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on
-
FETC,
Once again, the best answer is the one based on common sense. That being said I suspect that it falls to the bottom of the list of when to actually turn the bottle on.
Turning the air on before you know you are actually going to have to go on air means that you are going to have to bleed it off when you stow your pack. Do that 4 or 5 times a day and you're going to loose a significant amount of working air...IMO
-
Permalink Reply by Harold Richard Hair on
-
i personaly am masked up and wait to hook air up until i go in the door
-
Permalink Reply by FETC on
-
You see I check my pack at the start of every shift, test the pass and the flow regulator, then top it off to the maximum allowable quantity of air.
Therefore turning it on and going to work is common sense. I have 10 minutes of pre-knowledge in a controlled environment that others I guess do not.
Common sense answer to a common sense question Jack
-
Permalink Reply by Demps on
-
My air usually goes on upon arriving on scene and exiting the apparatus once I am able to reach the knob to turn the bottle on. I will not mask up until I need to go on air. However, the pack is on and ready to go for when I need to mask up and go to work.
-
Permalink Reply by Zeke Harman on
-
We pack up on the truck but have to wait until we get out because the dregar packs are synched into the masks so if we turn them on in the truck the masks could possibly synch into another persons pack and we could really be seeing our buddies read out of air on their pack instead of ours
-
Permalink Reply by DUST on
-
One of the guys at my station told me a story of when he was responding to a mutual aid call for a fire in a neighboring district. They had about a 10 minute drive to get to the scene. About 2 minutes into the drive my friend who was in the officer's seat hears heavy Darth Vader breathing behind him. He turned around and saw a new firefighter packed out & actually on air in the back seat!
-
Permalink Reply by Mark Harrington on
-
This is a very good question in deed. I use to in the past, everytime the bell rang for a fire call of some kind, soon after the S.C.B.A. was secured to my body then i put my mask on as well. It has pro's and con's just like anything else? or wrong? Yes if you pull up in the rig and do a good fire going on then you wait until you finshed getting dressed, what is the time limit it takes to don a face mask? I was at the Tennessee Fire Academy taking the best hell pounding class every Smoke Diver and i put on my mask before every drill until i was asked to do the 360 hot lap when arriving on the scne of a single story fire, the ground in the front was flat with some grass and lots of payment, but you go around back of the house and there is almost a 30 foot drop off with a full basement under the home that you could not tell from the street. Now with the facemask on it would be fogged up by the time i have worn it to the fire, then getting out and then i would either have to take it competely off or turn my purg valve to give me some air to clear the lens, or just hook you MMR and be useing your air you may need once you get inside. So I don't place my face mask on until right before i go inside the door. The bottle will be on but not in use to use any air.
On the SOP standpoint of things, no we don't have a policy written on it weather to wear it or not en-route to a fire call. It is up to the crew or the captain riding the truck for that shift.
In my own opinion i think it should be up to the firefighter them selves.
-
-
Do you not check you packs at the beginning of the shift? If paid department. Not trying to be smart, many departments have differents ways to do things.
-
Permalink Reply by Jake Massey on
-
I will usually put my pack and mask on with tank turned on while i am on the truck but i do not go on air until it is determined what conditons and assignments are. i you go on air before that all you are doing is waisting air.
-
Permalink Reply by Dustin J. Millis on
-
No SOP's on this... I think its pretty much common sense, pack up in the truck, turn the bottle on when you jump out and let your mask hang until you need it. Like a few other people have said, your PASS isn't on unless your bottle is on and there are plenty of times where you want the PASS but dont need the air.
-
Permalink Reply by Ken Smith on
-
My company sop's required the air pack be donned and turned on while responding to verify the status of the scba to include leaks, bottle capacity etc. but not breathing air until arrival at the scene and the ldh is layed, attack line pulled and stretched, a complete size up is done and commands given. Then mask is donned and breathing air upon entry or attack. Back in the early days prior to this sop I can remember hopping off the rig breathing air and the mask would fog up, you could barely see and it made it hell until the masked cleared up. I learned the hard way and revisions were made to alleviate that problem years later.
- ‹ Previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- Next ›
© 2024 Created by Firefighter Nation WebChief.
Powered by
