Key Skill Areas for Engine Companies

2014 is now in full swing-how are you doing with your New Year’s resolutions? Traditionally, we make resolutions about things we want to change: lose weight, volunteer to help others, quit smoking, go back to school. It’s a fresh start, a time to reflect on how to make things better in our lives.

But this time of year is also when firefighters get promoted into officer positions, or officers are shifted around in the department, inheriting new companies. As training or company officers, then, it’s a great time to take stock of what’s happening (or not happening) in our companies. We need to step back and ask if we’re good at the things that we need to be good (or great) at-and if not, ask why and develop an improvement plan.

Let’s say you’re evaluating your engine company’s strengths and weaknesses-where do you start? Ask what’s important, to you as an officer and to your department, based on the types of calls you typically go on, and the department’s standard operating procedures (SOPs).

Following are my top areas to evaluate and develop engine company skills. Your list could have different or additional items. After you develop your own list, you can revisit it often to create daily training drills.

Deploying Hoselines

In my mind this is the most important skill any engine company should have. Getting water to the seat of the fire quickly and efficiently is the mark of a great engine company. There’s nothing that will make more of an impact on the fire and improve the safety of both citizens and firefighters than application of water directly on the fire.

To get that water on the fire, we have to select the correct length and size of line and stretch it with speed. Remember that speed comes with practice and repetition. This all has to be done at a location where, more than likely, we’ve never seen the layout, and under difficult conditions such as darkness, heat and smoke.

Fire crews that do a great job of stretching their handlines to a fire also do a really good job of loading their hose. Hose that’s loaded correctly has a much better chance of being pulled correctly. It also projects a sense of pride and ownership when the rig’s hose is loaded right. Each member should know the size and length of each bed of hose and when those beds of hose are to be used.

We have to get out in our first-due areas and practice stretching lines of different sizes and lengths. Our first-due areas are where were going to make fires, so that’s where we need to practice. Look at every type and configuration of building you will respond to and get out and pull lines until you get it perfect. Don’t just focus on the front door-pull hose to the rear of the building, down the alley, up the stairs and into those hard-to-reach areas. Anybody can pull hose to the front door, so make it challenging.

It’s during these kinds of training drills that we have the time to reinforce the basics of good hoseline management, such as having extra hose at the doorway and chasing kinks. This is where we also talk about the important task of making the line advance. If the line is not moving forward, then more than likely, the fire isn’t going out. Everyone wants to be on the nozzle because that’s where the most satisfying work is, but somebody has to push line toward the fire if we’re to be effective. Practice with the size crew you would normally have; then, try it with one or two fewer firefighters, just in case that day comes when you’re short-staffed. Remember: As firefighters, we have to work both smart and hard.

Another key area for hoseline deployment drills: making up longer lines than your normal lengths of preconnects. Most departments have their preconnected hose beds set up for their bread-and-butter residential fires-150′, 200′ and 250′ lengths. What happens when these don’t reach the fire? Where does the extra hose come from? And how do we make it longer? All of these questions need to be answered before that fire happens. Get out and find those locations where you’ll need lines longer than your preconnects and train on how to get the nozzle to the fire.

During your daily or weekly drills, get out and deploy a handline off your apparatus. Pick a line that you don’t use as often; it’s a great way to make sure the line is the correct length and is in proper working order. It’s also a good time to check your nozzle, and that whoever used it last put it back it correctly.

Establishing Water Supply

When we talk about success on the fireground, water supply is at the top of the list. Each fire department has its own way of supplying water to the fireground, including hydrants, drafting or tankers/tenders. Many departments even use all three.

Whichever method or methods your department uses, you need to be accomplished in them. If your department only uses hydrants, get out and practice your forward and reverse layouts. If you don’t go to a lot of fires, it’s even more important that you put in time drilling on these skills.

Having a well-trained and aggressive apparatus operator/driver makes a world of difference at a fire. Spend time making sure they are set up for success. It’s also important that your back-up pump operators are well trained and confident in their skills. There’s nothing more frightening than being out in that street pumping by yourself. Training becomes critical when the life of the firefighter on the end of the line is in your hands.

Throwing Ladders

I know it’s a truck company task, but many departments don’t have truck companies to help them throw ladders. Just about every engine carries a basic complement of ground ladders, such as a 24′ extension and a 14′ roof ladder. These are super-important tools to the engine company that arrives at an incident where people need to be removed from upper floors or where there’s a need to advance the initial hoseline up the ladder to cut off or knock down the fire. Throwing ground ladders is a skill we need to reinforce often.

Deploying Master Streams

A vast majority of our fires are handled with small-diameter handlines in houses and apartments. Sometimes, however, those fires grow beyond the flow range of those smaller lines, or we arrive to find a well-developed fire that requires a large-gpm fire flow to control. Having fewer opportunities to use the many types of master stream appliances will require that we practice these skills often on the drill ground.

We need to be able to bring a master stream to the party that matches the BTU output of the fire. Many firefighters believe that master streams are only used if the building is already lost. But a well-positioned master stream with an adequate fire flow can quickly knock down a fire, allowing handlines to advance in to control any remaining fire.

Master stream appliances go back to the early days of firefighting, but there are many new design innovations that are being used to improve their deployment and operations-for example, remote-controlled truck-mounted deck guns that can be raised and operated without a firefighter having to get on top of the apparatus, and one-inlet attack monitors that can be preconnected for rapid deployment. The one thing that these valuable tools need: a well-trained group firefighters that can put them to use at a fire.

A Final Word

Although this list doesn’t begin to describe all of the jobs that your engine company is responsible for, it does provide a place for you to start. Evaluate how your company stacks up on each of the above tasks. Then, get started with a new year of training drills.