Advanced Truck Company Operations???

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Permalink Reply by Jeffrey Bryant on August 13, 2009 at 11:33pm

This looks like a live burn training house, Power lines should not even be there to start with. Not a good move on his part.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Marchino on August 13, 2009 at 11:59pm

Given two distorted photos of a firefighter being lifted off a roof, and not having a narrative does not help...what is that pattern appearing on the roof shingles, is it melting snow? Where is his SCBA? Did he run out of air and ditch it?Why is he catching a ride using his roof ladder off this roof?Why is the ladder upside down? How did they attach it to the bucket?Is there a fire blocking his path down and there was no other way but ....

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Permalink Reply by will on August 14, 2009 at 1:51am

WHAT EXACTLY IS HE DOING? HE DOESNT EVEN HAVE A TOOL. IF I PUT THE STICK UP I USUALLY PUT IT WHERE I CAN JUST WALK ONTO THE ROOF.

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Permalink Reply by Bruce M Chapman on August 14, 2009 at 7:44am

Well as you know Safety second. And how is it held on to the bucket. must be a really strong operator up there.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Stoops on August 14, 2009 at 8:02am

This is one of the most unsafe acts of any operations that I have seen. I know that I would never try this. I'm trying to figure out the reasoning behind this operation. Hes not wearing a SCBA nor does he have a tool of any kind. This roof is steep enough that a wrong step or even a slip, hes on the ground. Its bad placement of the tower, ladder, bucket, whatever everyone wants to call it. Plenty of room to place the bucket at the roof. Even using 24' or 35' extension ladders on the ground would be a good idea. WOW!!

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Permalink Reply by George Leighlitner on August 14, 2009 at 9:07am

Yes the story behind this would enlighten us all. Maybe it will show up in Firehouse Magezine some day. Any way with the light smoke conditions, no extension in any part of the roof and no visible fire, my guess it could be a training scenario.
Safety first - NO SCBA, NO GLOVES and NO PARTNER? I am with a Tower company and have never experienced this situation. But when its time to improvise for life safety we must do what we must.
Be safeout there
Geo168

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Permalink Reply by Ted Bownas on August 14, 2009 at 10:27am

As mentioned by posters above, many tower buckets are equipped with locking brackets to secure a roof ladder in this manner, to facilitate access to flat roofs over parapets or marquees - traditionally a weak spot for platform aerials. Additionally, as Chris S. pointed out, double hooks are offered as an option on many roof ladders - that way you don't have to rotate the roof ladder 180 degrees while perched on an aerial or the roof peak to deploy it, should it come off the ladder facing the wrong way.

Those points aside, this particular scenario doesn't look kosher to me from a number of safety standpoints. That ladder rigging arrangement is NOT (from what I've read) intended to be used on pitched roofs, nor is it wise (as was also noted above by several posters) to be operating solo on a roof evolution - training or otherwise. And the lack of SCBA and full PPE has already been addressed - so I won't beat a dead horse. :)

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Permalink Reply by Chris Sterricker on August 14, 2009 at 11:23am

Thanks Ted, at least someone was listening/reading. And I wrote 360 but meant 180, oops. My bad.

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Permalink Reply by Kirk on August 14, 2009 at 4:31pm

i notice their was a few safty issues. gloves, what about tools, what about an airpack? never seen it done. i guess as long as the guy got down save that really what matters the most.

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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on August 14, 2009 at 7:09pm

Instead of jumping on the bandwagon here, my educated guess is the person here may be an instructor and this could be a controlled burn situation. It is hard to tell just from the picture, but it looks as though the roof has been cut before and looks like paneling was placed over the holes. There could be several reasons for the person to get to the roof this way, but we don't know.

As for the roof ladder thing, as mentioned there are some ladders with hooks on both ends. However, I don't believe the ladder was being supported by the hooks from the platform. Instead the ladder was probably tied in on some brackets that way. It is hard to tell from the lower platform lights if there is a bracket, but the gate is probably on the side of the platform, thus the reason for the roof ladder placed there.

I personaly doubt this was an emergency situation, but the FF used the ladder to climb down to the roof, checked out whatever and climbed back up. My guess is he was the only one in the platform. Reasoning for it doesn't make sense to me, heck just lower the platform.

The one thing though is was this picture just arbitrarly found on the web or does anyone know the dept in question? If they received the pic from someone, find out what dept and ask them....better than multiple people just guessing. And no, I've never seen this done, nor recommend it.

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Permalink Reply by Tim Zehnder on August 14, 2009 at 9:12pm

If this is an instructor he should be reprimanded for having no SCBA!

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Permalink Reply by Michael Huyck on August 14, 2009 at 8:41pm

The only thing i can see is the power line might have been in the way of a direct line rescue for the bucket to reach and in order to do the rescue they imporvised and it looks very dangerous but it looks like it did the job. very very gutsay to say the least

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