Well here it is, and I would love to hear what everyone thinks of this. Let me set the scenario.

A suppression team enters a structure ahead of the truck company and begins an attack. Half way down a hallway there is fire rolling over the head of an open doorway. The nozzleman hits the ceiling in the hall then advances the line to the doorway where he can see the seat of the fire and begins to knock it down from the hall. Once it is managed, he enters the doorway, places the nozzle to straight stream, does a few circles on the ceiling and proceeds to sweep the walls of the room looking for a window to vent from. Once he finds the window he is able to knock it out with the stream and begins the vent process.

The man on the nozzle happens to be a friend of mine and the person who told the story. This was in fact backed up by unsolicited accounts from others that were there. The problem is that there was also a Captain present at the burn and he dressed down the nozzleman for his actions.

His point was that the nozzleman should not have hit the ceiling in the hallway, nor should he have fought the fire from the hall. This Captain said that he should have gone directly into the room and up on the fire to put it out with as little water as possible. Captain X also stated that using the stream to find a window was stupid and said that he had never heard of that.

The actions of the nozzleman seemed textbook enough to me, (I'm speaking as a senior fireman with an awful lot of experience), and the comments from the young Captain seem like the type of advice to get you killed. I would love to hear from everyone, especially the older veterans on what you think of this.

I've added this.... There was an unlimited water supply. They were on a good hydrant with a large main and 1500 gal. on the truck. There is a twist to this that will make it better, (or worse), but I'll keep it close to my vest for a little while.