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Entering a Window for VES - Do You Bring the Can? Brotherhood Instructors
We're adding on to Brotherhood Instructors' latest post with an interesting question from their Facebook page:
"What do you think about taking a can in with you?"
Tools - 6’hook or pike pole & Halligan
Before making the move you want to sweep under the window with your hook checking for victims and a solid floor. Hang the hook end on the windowsill with the other end inside the window. This is your reference point guiding you back to your exit.
When entering you want to step into the window whenever possible. One leg at a time straddling the window sill keeping your torso outside until your sure you can commit. This way if conditions change for the worse you can step out. If you feel the need to go in the window head first due to a high heat condition that makes it unbearable to step in the window with your full PPE on use extreme caution. If conditions didn’t improve after taking the window this is not the place you want to be due to the high likely hood that it’s only going to get worse.
Remember you need to get yourself to the interior door and close it so you can make that temporary barrier that will give you a little more time to search. Also, if the heat is such that you can’t step in the likelihood someone is alive in that room severely diminishes. Only experience and training will help you read the conditions properly so when the time comes you are successful. That cannot be done from a keyboard.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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That's silly. The can is not intended to "fight a structure fire". It is intended to either directly extinguish an incipient fire like a single piece of furniture or to hold a contained fire via an indirect attack to buy time for the search team while an engine company gets a line in place.
However, when doing VES, the purpose is not to fight the fire - it's to ensure that there is a solid barricade between the search firefighter(s) and the room being searched and to get in and out quickly. The point of not taking the can is not it's limited firefighting potential, it's just that it's not a necessary tool and that it will slow down a search designed to be done rapidly.
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And how is this related to VES?
You don't do VES in rooms that are flashed over and autovented. There is no reason for VES, since the room is autovented by the fire and there is no chance of a live victim in that room.
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Permalink Reply by Pierre-Louis Lamballais on
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Also, I agree with the term "solid barricade" and a can is not for that. Maybe the problem is that, by saying (as we can see at the begining of the post) that a can is "good" for helping search, the danger would be that some will think a can is enought as it's not.
What we can say is that is the can is of no use, it will slow the reseach and if the can is usefull in this case it will not be "enought" :)
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The article is not about room that are in flashover state, but about room that "seems to be without danger".
A study of many accidents tend to demonstrate they happened after ventilation action and that, in many cases, the "ventilation" was not seen as a real action. From a strange "view", when we ask FF if breaking a window for extracting smoke is ventilation, they reply "Yes" but when we ask if breaking a window for searching victim is ventilation, the reply is "No". Of course that's not always the case, but our study (about 10.000 FF) show that just a few use the point of view of the fire rather than the one of the FF. And when you start to think "as the fire", you discover that in many cases, you help it.
Also, as I agree with the fact that you don't VES if the room is autovented by the fire, this mean the room is closed (the door between fire and room is closed). So in this case, why entering? You can enter by the exterior, but if people are alive, I supposed they had broken the window and are shoutting to save them.
What are the real reason for VES and how can we apply that in real situation? Not sure there are some "real cases" or we slip in the direction of "use a can" and so on, which came to be "legend" and not real life.
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That's exactly the point - waiting a few seconds gives the VES firefighter time to assess the air movement and to read the smoke. If the interior door is closed, there is usually minimal change in air movement and smoke condition and VES is appropriate.
If the interior door is open but there is not an immediate worsening of the conditions, then there is probably time to enter, close the door, and complete VES.
If the interior conditions immediately deteriorate or if an immediate increase in fire and/or smoke intensity is noted, VES is going to be either very risky or impossible.
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Once again, you're showing a flashed over, autovented fire in a discussion about VES. This video shows a scene where VES is impossible, as any occupants will be dead.
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We should absolutely view the fire from the standpoint of the firefighter. In cases where there is not enough initial manpower to both fight the fire and perform search and rescue in a large, multi-compartment building, any immediate rescues should be made first.
Firefighters should always put human life (rescue) ahead of either incident stabilization (fighting the fire).
VES is a case in point for how those priorities should be carried out.
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Permalink Reply by Jeff Cole on
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Anyways. The question was about bringing in the can for a VES operation. We KNOW VES works, because it's done and has yeilded the desired result: A trapped occupant with no other means of escape rescued from otherwise certain death. It works. It's calculated on a risk vs gain assessment, and it is not always possible. But it is tactic, it should be understood and taught to anyone riding an engine or ladder. Search and rescue is a basic skill.
But VES is a skill that requires experience, training, confidence, and coordination. Again, the question being...do we, or CAN we bring a water can in with us. I am saying it's NOT impossible, it's NOT out of the question. There ARE pro and con.
There are some disagreements about bringing the can in a job in the first place. Some large departments don't carry a can on the truck. One large department basically mastered using the can. And then there are variations of ya's and nay's in the middle on the use of the can.
ALL I am saying is that it is an option. i would NOT just discount it as an absolute 'no no". FLASHOVER changes EVERYTHING from survivability of entrapped victims to the ability to make entry at all.
We base our answers to these questions on our experiences, training, and reasoning. I too would take my introductory training information and apply my own reasoning. Through the years I have questioned some of the most basic of tactics and strategies.
And thanks Ben. You always seem to "get it".
Pierre I will respect your opinions regardless of weather or not we agree.
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Jeff,
Thanks for the nice comment. I know that we don't see eye-to-eye on absolutely everything, but I always respect your opinion even when we disagree because you have the experience to back up your comments, and it shows.
I'm a big fan of the can...situationally. It can do amazing things for those who know how to use it, and in what situations. One of my old companies used to say "Working incident equals a can job. A second alarm - TWO cans."
Obviously, that was overstated.
The question here isn't whether or not a can is a good tool - it is.
The question is what it will potentially do for you in a VES situation.
VES situations are usually so iffy that whether or not the room stays tenable comes down to one thing - can the VES firefighter get inside and close the interior door?
If the answer is "yes" then the can will just get in the way.
If the conditions are so bad that the answer is "no" or "probably not" then things are almost certainly past the point where the can will help the VES firefighter, and the can may end up being the impediment that gets the VES firefighter badly injured or killed.
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