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Perfect Firefighters
I just watched a video of a fire. I'm not going to say what department because thats not the issue. The issue is perfect firefighters commenting on the thousands of the things the company did wrong.
They comment on how many drivers does it take to pump an engine. Using the wrong lines, etc etc.
I was in the business for 30 years. I've made alot of mistakes as a firefighter, driver and officer. But never lost anyone or had a firefighter hurt. Mostly thats from luck.
Its so easy to watch a video and monday morning quarterback. But I'm sure if they were on video people could do the same thing. Most of us know there are rules to this business. But we also know those rules go out the windows sometimes.
Pulling a booster line on a house fire. Sure we don't want a inch line but if thats all you can do and use it to protect esposures until more arrives or even stick it in the window I have no issue with that.
If it takes 3 drivers to pull lines, hook up the supply line, make sure the lines are clear and the crew gets water who cares.
And my biggest pet peeve. "They took forever to get there" I've told the story befoe how my mom called for an ambulance I called and cursed 9-1-1 because they were taking too long. I've been on all three sides of an emergency situation. As a responder going to the firehouse I didn't go slow. As a driver I didn't go slow, It feels like your flying like the wind. When I tool calls as a 9-1-1 operator I entered the calls as I was talking to insure prompt response. Bu as a person who needed emergency services...you people take forever. Or thats the way it seems.
My point of this long rambling post...think about the situation before you make a comment on a website about another company or department. Especially if your gear is still fresh and new and the closest you ever come to fire and the cigarette in your mouth. No fire department is perfect. We all make mistakes. Instead of bashing use it as a learning point.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Pierre-Louis Lamballais on
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OK, so I suggest one thing.
We can speak for years, this will change nothing because you will always argue of differences.
You think your houses are very special, and that the way we fight the fire don't apply.
So the question is "Are your fires so different?" or, in fact "Will it be possible to attack a US Fire with European techniques and get a better result than with the US ones?"
We can invite you, but this will be of no use as the tests would be made in South American or European house where our techniques works well.
So, if you want, we can came. We pay the plane ticket, and you just have to find a little bedroom and prepare some barbecue.
You find one or two houses, and we put the fire in: then we measure the team you need, the time you spend, the water you need, changes intempreature (we have all the tools for data recording) and the loose ($) you made. Then we perform the same, we measure the same and we will have a good comparison.
As you are a hight adocate of your method you will do your best, and as we are of ours, we'll do also the best.
This will give both a good answer. Because after a heavy search on the internet, I've found no test of that kind: each time European write books, artciles or messages, US FF replied that's wrong, and each time European FF see videos of the use of solid-bore, they laught. So, we must stop thinking thinks are different:if they are, we must proove it, as if they are egal.
Of course, if other guys in the forum want to invite us, that's also OK. Maybe if you say your houses are different from north to south, more than one invitation will be better.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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We've discussed this for days, and suddenly you bring up solid-bore nozzles for the first time. That makes absolutely no sense, especially when the N.A. example photos you cited doesn't say whether a solid-bore nozzle was used or not. It's entirely possible that no solid-bore nozzle was used there.
A lot of U.S. departments don't use solid-bore nozzles, or they use them rarely. Other U.S. departments use combination/break apart nozzles that are usually set for fog, but that can be used as solid-bore nozzles when large areas are involved and the fog stream simply evaporates before it reaches the seat of the fire.
You have demonstrated several false assumptions about the N.A. structures, fire involvement, and tactics in the examples that YOU chose, and you wonder why U.S. firefighters disagree? It's a no-brainer, Pierre-Louis. The U.S. uses the tactics we do because the European techniques are designed for fires in different structure types with less autoventilation than many U.S. structure fires get, a much smaller chance of having to make a rescue, and at least in your example, shorter response times. The same goes for trying to compare an urban room-and-contents fire to a suburban fire with obvious internal vertical extension, and to generalize globally about tactics from a tiny population (n=3). That's not defensibile either statistically nor scientifically.
Further, many U.S. fire departments (including mine) use 3D firefighting techniques including short bursts into the overhead when it's applicable. However, when you have 1,500 to 3,000 feet of open space involved as occurs in a lot of modern U.S. single-family home construction, that pencilling the overhead in the hallway tactic you espouse isn't going to work, because as soon as you open the front door, there is no hallway. If the fire is on the first floor, you're right at the seat of the fire, but that fire can be so large that a fog stream may not penetrate it enough to get extinguishment.
Or - the fire may be autovented to the point that it will take a lot more water to absorb the BTUs than is used in the European technique. Come to think of it, you blamed the U.S. fire department for overventing the fire you showed, yet at the height of that fire, no firefighter was ever shown venting the fire - it autovented itself.
Or - the fire may be in a lightweight engineered wood structure that is not safe for any interior entry at all.
Pencilling the overhead isn't going to work if you can only fight the fire from the exterior.
Or - the fire may be a wind-driven fire in a high-rise apartment building (the kind FDNY fights almost every day) and in which a solid bore is the only stream that will get enough knockdown power to the seat of the fire.
If European firefighters are laughing at the U.S. use of smoothbore nozzles, then that laughter simply shows ignorance of the conditions under which U.S. fires are often fought.
Your challenge is meaningless, because fighting a couple of fires in one country or the other will not prove anything. I'm not sure why you have a fixation with small sample sizes, but it would take hundreds of training fires at many stages of development, many different fire volumes, different building construction methods, wind conditions, autoventilation conditions, potential victim presence and location, response times, personnel configuration, and response time to get data that was even a little scientific.
The techniques that are used in the U.S. are used simply because they work for us.
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Bovine feces. It is not only possible to claim that things are different, the differences are obvious to those who actually take the time to study them.
The U.S. has many more structure fires per year than do the other countries you mention. Show me a comparison of LODD per structure fire between all of those other countries and the U.S. and maybe you'll have a point. Comparing raw numbers without controlling for other variables - like the number of fires - is statistically and scientifically meaningless.
As for fire being a force of nature, that doesn't change simply because of the fire's location. Frankly, it's silly to claim that fire is a force of nature in the woods but not in a house. If it's not a force of nature inside a structure, then what is it? A person? A giraffe? An imaginary concept?
As for "a firefighter told you" that is a completely unreliable basis for the kind of sweeping claims you've made here. For starters, that's one of those tiny sample sizes upon which you seem fixated. (n=1) One firefighter's state of training - real or imagined - anywhere is not a reliable basis for global comparisons of the kind you've made.
You continue to show your ignorance of many things by your claim, but especially your ignorance of scientific theory and method and statistical science and method.
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"We start to educate the Belgium FF in 2007." Do you have a financial interest in teaching these techniques? If so, that explains a lot.
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No.
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I think it could be far more honest to write "I don't want to compare" and close that "discussion"
If other firefighters or fireservices are OK to compare, it would be nice.
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That's complete B.S., Pierre-Louis.
I have done nothing but compare in this discussion.
If you want to be "far more honest" for you to accept the fact that the differences I brought up in the discussion are real ones, that you have posted things that are not factual in this debate, and that you are not willing to consider any way but the one you like.
You also have no answer to my point about your fixation on small, unscientific sample sizes. n=2 seems to be your favorite sample size. Here's a hint for you, a sample size of n=30 with all variables except one controlled is generally accepted as the minimum scientifically valid sample size for comparison.
One person's opinion, based on demonstrable factual inaccuraccies, is neither scientific nor is it the epitome of honest debate.
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Here's another point where you are not correct...
"5) The European fire is at ground level. The N.A. fire is on multiple levels.
A fire at ground level has a higher propagation risk than a fire at first one without other higher level. So the propagation risk is higher for the Belgium fire than for the US one. Orange and orange."
That's not the case. The N.A. fire has already extended to the attic level, so that propagation isn't a risk, it's already occurred.
You compare the risk of vertical extension of a European, ground-level fire a meter from the street that frankly could be extinguished from the exterior with a few seconds of water from...wait for it...a smoothbore nozzle with a N.A. fire that has already extended to the attic and then claim that the risk and the fires are equal?
Frankly, that's so far wrong that bovine feces doesn't begin to describe it.
The risk of fire in one place is NOT equal to another fire that has already passed the risk stage and is into the actual fire extension phase.
Frankly, I'm wondering if you know anything about firefighting strategy, tactics, building construction, and fire department organization variables at all. Your posts certainly show no evidence that you do have that knowledge.
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You know perfectly that when I say "compare" it's in real life.
So, you do'nt want to compare, that's all.
Just for your info, in 2010, we've made more than 200 data recording of temperature under turn-out gear during burn.
So with your n=30, I think you must continue your for-next loop. And for your info, we commonly admit 100 samples as the minimum number used in scientific method. Never heard of 30!
Also, if you want to "test" quickly, just use FDS.
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6) The European fire has an obviously non-survivable seat of the fire. The N.A. fire is smoky but apparently survivable.
The US fire is at level one, with open window, the smoke will stay at the same location. The movement of smoke at one of the last picture came from the chimney effect the guys creates by ventilating the front of the house. In Belgium, the risk of smoke inhalation is great at level one. Also, if the US FF is apparentkly survival, due to the time to extract smoke from the house, I think victim would have die. In the Belgium fire, the speed of action will have save them. Orange and orange."
Wrong again, Pierre-Louis. There is zero risk of smoke inhalation at the seat of the fire in the Belgian fire. It is flashed over and there is no smoke in that room, because the room is 100% flame.
The N.A. fire had extended to the attic prior to the fire department doing any ventilation. Any chimney effect was caused by the open window where the fire auto-vented and through which the fire department conducted their transitional attack.
Steam doesn't typically push combustion - it replaces it. Steam prevents combustion - it doesn't spread it. In case you missed it, that's why water is a traditional fire extinguishment media.
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The fact a fire is at one meter from the street as no impact. If you are able to explain here, how a fire in the attic can spread higher, it would be nice...
When you have a fire at ground level, you have more risk of spread than if you have a fire in the attic.
Et comme on dit, ça c'est fait.
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The corridor in the Belgium fire, is full of heavy smoke, and so the stair.
Just as question as you seems to be a perfect scientist: why does a fire inside a house, produces more smoke than the same fire, outside?
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