FireFighterNation

Do you have “residential mentality?” Homer Robertson explains this “condition” and how it can put firefighters at risk when operating at commercial building fires.

Water is probably the most important extinguishing agent used by the fire service. But what if your response area has few, if any, working hydrants? Or what if something happens to your municipal water supply? Greg Jakubowski discusses how to prepare for water supply issues by conducting a drafting operation. He also discusses their challenges and the tools you’ll need to perform a draft successfully.

Sufficient water supply in the wildland/urban interface can be challenging for some departments. Chuck Sallade discusses two incidents his department responded to and how they successfully prevented a large WUI event from occurring with limited resources.

In response to reader feedback on an earlier column, Homer Robertson lists some common problems firefighters can face at the hydrant and suggests ways to prevent or deal with them.

The modern fireground requires new skills for engine operators. In this third article in a three-part series, Paul Spencer explains two more “benchmarks” for engineers: knowing and communicating water flow and water supply, and managing multiple water supplies in such a way as to deliver gpm previously thought impossible.