Engine Company Officer

On arrival at an emergency scene, the engine company officer has a lot of things to manage and consider. The most important responsibility is the supervision and operation of your engine company throughout the fire, in addition to selection, placement, and operation of the initial attack line.

While there are many more areas of responsibility on other responses and at the firehouse, the operation of the initial attack line is one of the most dangerous and most important tasks the engine company will perform. This requires a tactically sound and proficient team of firefighters under the direction of a technically and tactically proficient company officer.

TRUST

Before the alarm sounds, trust should be established between the crew and the boss. This doesn’t happen overnight and sometimes takes a lot of time. If it’s your first day working with a group of firefighters, then this is impossible to establish in one day.

Your reputation as a firefighter and company officer does precede you as you work with a crew. However, reputations can be a lot of rumor and false feather ruffling but do sometimes hold credibility. Along the same line as reputation are certifications and qualifications. Often these aren’t worth the paper they are printed on if not achieved in hands-on tactical firefighting operations.

While training, education, and knowledge of our craft is extremely important, everyone, including the officer, must get dirty and master the hands-on portions of our craft for success and earning of trust. Personally, we have a hard time following the empty shirt officer down the hallway–the officer with lots of certificates and no practical knowledge or experience (everyone knows who those people are in our worlds).

Initially, you must trust your training, the training of your personnel, and your equipment. Just like the famous firefighter quote states: “Let no man’s ghost ever say his training let him down.” You have to ensure your crews are proficient, train constantly, and develop their craft to prepare them for situations encountered on the fireground. Plan A will not always be feasible or work, so you must have a Plan B and C that flow as seamlessly as Plan A. As an officer, you must lead by example; be proficient, safe, and sensibly aggressive; and simply not be stupid to gain the trust of your personnel. They want to do their job and they want to go home, and through training and aggressive operations that come with preparation, you will achieve and gain trust.

Unfortunately, you can lose trust in one split second, when it can take years to develop. You can’t expect to get a second chance in a profession that involves the lives of your personnel and the citizens we are protecting. Do it right and strive for being your best–you’ll likely keep the trust of your personnel.

BEING THE BOSS

The biggest mistake officers make is trying to be everyone’s buddy. There are times you have to be the boss. It’s not always a good job to have, but you most likely are getting paid to be in charge. As an officer, you have to make decisions, and sometimes the outcome of those decisions results in life or death.

We feel you can associate with your personnel, be their friends, and still be their boss. Some of our best friends in life come from the firehouse. We obviously have a very unique set of working conditions: living together, risking our lives together, and spending more time with each other than our families sometimes. If you truly have friends in the fire department you supervise, they won’t make you have to wear the officer shoes and invoke discipline or they will understand when it’s necessary. You must also not play favorites in these situations; people will call you out instantly, and this also affects trust and respect.

In addition to being the boss, you have to determine and communicate expectations for your personnel. When expectations are set, you have to lead by example, follow them yourself, and ensure compliance if you want them to mean anything. Some common expectations are as follows:

• Be on time.
• Let the officer know first if something happens–no surprises.
• Always be dressed and ready for fire runs–no complacency.
• Be present at work when you are there. You have to avoid distractions that come with personal life, finances, relationships, alcohol, etc. If there are problems, make sure your people realize it and get help.
• Know your job and do your job.
• Give everyone your game plan for response.
• Get on the apparatus fast so we can get out the door.
• Do what I say on the fireground.
• Open the line when I say, unless you feel its extreme heat, preflashover, etc.
• Know how much hose to take, know how to estimate stretch, and how to execute the stretch.
• Know which hose we’ll use for various fires (1¾ inch, 2½ inch, standpipe, etc.).
• If you don’t know–ASK!

TRAINING

One of the most important functions of the engine company officer is to ensure the training and readiness of your personnel. To initiate this, you must ensure a mastery of the basics, which should focus on practical skills. If you notice deficiencies or issues, fix those first.

If you don’t know where to start, it’s always good to start with the first hoseline on the engine company (1¾ inch or 2½ inch) and then worry about everything else. If the 1¾ inch can’t be deployed, stretched, flaked, advanced, and operated in the various occupancy types you encounter, then it’s pointless to move on to other things until this is mastered. There are a multitude of practice points in deploying a simple preconnected hoseline, including the following:

• Removing hose from the apparatus.
• Removing the right amount of hose (lead length).
• Carrying it effectively (shoulder or arm).
• Dumping the bed (single firefighter should be able to deploy most preconnects).
• Flaking the line.
• Dealing with obstacles.
• Staging enough hose at the entrance point or past the entrance point for ease of potential future advancement.
• Flaking nozzle and coupling appropriately for lead length advance.
• Knowing when to charge the line.
• Donning personal protective equipment (mask, hood, helmet, gloves).
• Bleeding the line and checking stream reach, pullback, and pattern.

There are so many drill topics and practice take-a-ways for the engine that we could write a book. Keep the evolutions short, simple, and worth the time of everyone. You have to sometimes get creative and stretch at various locations (multidwellings, fire station, training facilities, parking lots, playgrounds, schools, parking garages, and vacant buildings).

OTHER PREPARATION

Get out into your response district and see what is going on. Make sure you look for alterations to buildings or new construction. If you see something, take a moment to stop and check it out. This can sometimes be the best training you can do. An old Type III building that is converted into a loft apartment with lightweight construction shouldn’t surprise you. When returning from runs in your response district, on EMS responses, on inspections, and when returning from the store, talk about how to get lines into service in the various structures. This can be a few minutes or 30 to 60 minutes if you actually stretch lines. These types of drills are invaluable for the crew and the company officer to determine what to work on.

In addition to preplanning your area, talk to other shifts. If they have a fire, go look at the building and discuss what you would do if you made the fire. Additionally, when you make a fire, no matter how big or small, use the time during overhaul, cleanup, or when fireground activities are completed to review your operations with your crew and discuss weaknesses and strengths. Don’t be afraid to listen to your personnel on ideas about how to do something better or if you or someone made a mistake.

For best results, leave the ego at home. You must make the most out of the fires that you have. It’s OK to stretch, flake, and charge at a food-on-the-stove fire to keep guys on their toes–this can be training for the day! As the boss, don’t be afraid to ever call for the line to be laid; your personnel want to go through the paces.

DUTIES AT FIRES

Your first priority is the safety of your personnel. This is best achieved by ensuring competence before the alarm. At the alarm, you must be the eyes and ears of reason. Your head must be on a swivel, and you must be with your personnel at all times. You can’t supervise and command the first hoseline from the front yard. The engine company officer needs to be with the nozzle team (either as the backup or supervising the nozzle and backup firefighters). Sending firefighters into hostile fire environments without supervision seems foolish, as direct supervision during a fire is the most important job for the company officer.

In addition to safety of your personnel, the officer must size up the fire and give a preliminary report. Keep it simple and to the point, including building type and conditions (Engine 12, working fire, first floor in a 2½-story wood frame). You must determine appropriate apparatus placement. Pulling past gives you a three-sided view on arrival (which is often all you need to make decisions as to fire size, location, extent, building layout, terrain issues, etc.). Stopping short may work but has the potential to block the ladder company; it also makes it more difficult to stretch if you have lines coming off the rear of the apparatus. The engine can always stretch more hose, but the ladder company needs access for the aerial. There is one exception to the ladder company owning the front of the building: If you have major fire or exposure concerns, then the engine owns the front of the building for attack with an apparatus-mounted master stream.

You must also determine an offensive or defensive stance based on fire conditions, which will determine the size and position of the first line (front door, side door, rear door, rope stretch, etc.). As the line is positioned, you must communicate for water and communicate progress with the incident commander.

One of the best benchmarks for the company officer on the engine is “water on the fire,” as it lets others (those searching or venting) know you are likely in position and applying water. You must also indicate if you have the fire knocked down. During the firefight, you need to communicate when to open or close the nozzle and where to position the stream if it’s not obvious and stay alert (looking in front, above, to the sides, and behind you). You don’t want to pass a fire because you had tunnel vision like the nozzleman. It’s your job to see the big picture.

It is our firm belief that the engine company officer shouldn’t be the nozzleman. Obviously, those with staffing issues where the officer is the only firefighter have a lot of other concerns to deal with. The officer can’t supervise operations and make good decisions for the company when he has tunnel vision as a nozzleman. There is an obvious exception to this belief, and it is when the line needs to be advanced in a hostile environment and someone needs to get more line for the push.

For example, sending an inexperienced nozzleman or a nozzleman you haven’t worked with into that environment may be lethal for them. They likely have had poor training on fire attack or control if that hasn’t been a priority of yours. Too many new firefighters are putting out fires in training burn buildings controlled by gas and limited combustibles where fire instructors don’t allow total extinguishment. This training technique leads to pulsing of the nozzle during training, which translates to similar actions on the fireground. There are times quick opening and closing of the line doesn’t work to control the fire or keep rapid fire progression from happening, and inexperienced personnel likely won’t recognize this. The line needs to be able to be opened and advanced in the open position by the nozzle team to be effective at some fires. In addition to this situation, through training and working with your company, the officer can move back on the line to stage or hump hose with a nozzleman he trusts through his training and experience. Even in this situation, the officer and nozzleman shouldn’t be out of voice contact.

The company officer can supervise from the side or front of the nozzle team, especially when the exact fire area isn’t readily noticeable. Stretching a line in and out of rooms in a building takes time and energy. The nozzle team should stage as the officer looks into areas and uses his senses (touch, sight, and sound) to determine if a fire is in an area. A thermal imaging camera (TIC) helps greatly in this situation as well. The nozzle team and officer should again remain in voice contact in these situations.

The company officer must be accountable for his company. This doesn’t involve fancy name tags or clips that go on a board; it involves knowing where your people are and what they are doing on the fireground. If you have a member moving hose a couple floors below or coming up from a hydrant, you need to have a system to know how to keep track of them. Radios help in this situation and we always tell our people to follow the hose, remove kinks, stage hose in adjacent spaces, and let the officer know verbally face-to-face when they are present. If someone is low on air and needs to be relieved, it’s a good idea for the entire company to seek relief. If I send a member outside, do I really know he makes it out safely all the time?

The size and placement of the hoseline are usually dictated by fire conditions and building/occupancy type. Through experience and training, decisions on the fireground can be made rapidly as to line size and initial position. The first line should go between the fire and victims; usually the front door is the best route to achieve this position. The line should protect the interior stairs from fire extension. As you arrive, evaluate three sides at a minimum. You can almost always tell what is going on from a three-sided view (determining walk-out basements, grade issues, layouts, etc.). Additionally, the officer can ask people on scene where the fire is and the best way to get to the fire. In a subdivided building or a building with multiple entrances, the engine officer will have to determine the best entrance point and the nozzle team will have to exercise restraint to avoid improper placement. These actions come easily with training and discipline on the fireground.

After the fire has been knocked down, the immediate fire area should be searched by the company officer as the nozzleman keeps the line ready for flare-ups. Use of a TIC greatly assists in searching for and also locating hidden fire. In our system, the engine officer carries a halligan tool, which can be used to initially open up voids if the ladder company isn’t in the fire area yet.

VITAL TO OPERATION

While we’ve just broached the numerous topics of discussion for the engine company officer on the fireground, you can see there are a multitude of things that must go into decision making and operations. The officer must be competent, strong willed, and a good decision maker and understand how to adjust on the fly and call an audible when initial plans aren’t working.

The company officer is a vital part of the operation. All efforts made by the officer and company should support placement and operation of first water on the fire. If this requires assistance, then ask or call for it. Our number one goal is to put enough water on the fire as quickly as possible to control and extinguish it. This single action on the fireground provides more benefits than any other action. The engine company officer has a huge responsibility and must ensure proficiency and excellence in operations for everyone to truly go home.