Surrounding Awareness on the Fireground

As we all know, being a firefighter can be a dangerous or even fatal profession. Each of the following scenarios is based on real incidents that either cost a firefighter his life or resulted in serious firefighter injuries. They are presented as a focus on applying the updated fire attack that has been sweeping the nation and to make sense of some of the controversy connected to it.

Assuming that there is a significant fire coupled with a significant wind and the lack of water, the fire attack may be held back prior to indiscriminant venting or opening up of the fire area. Vent, enter, isolate, and search (VEIS) procedures; setting up portable ladders; stretching additional lines; accessing the roof; and conducting size-up-including survivability profiling-can all be accomplished while getting the water ready to go.

Scenario 1

Dryer fire: Occurring in the basement of a 2½-story private residence, the fire extends from the dryer to the plastic laundry bin sitting on top of it. As the laundry bin breaks down and burns, it gives off thick, black, acrid smoke, which fills the wide-open basement with huge amounts of unburned fuel. The heat buildup intensifies by the second, spreading throughout the basement and up the unenclosed wooden stairs to where it meets resistance at the closed wooden door. The highly pressurized smoke then quickly banks back down into the basement. This chemical chain reaction feeds the fire and starts to use up the available oxygen in the space. The fire becomes oxygen limited within just a couple of minutes and enters what is now known as an early decay stage.

The elderly male occupant on the first floor smells something burning and sees smoke and soot pouring out from around the door leading to the basement. He inquisitively opens the door, allowing a rush of fresh air to enter the space at the bottom of the doorway. The thick, unburned fuel instantaneously and violently rolls out from the top two-thirds of the same door opening. This action creates a flow path for the smoke, fire, and heat to travel from the enclosed, highly pressurized basement to the lower pressured open area of the first floor.

In less than one minute, the basement flashes over. Flames with temperatures in excess of 1,100°F fill the entire basement and first floor, engulfing the elderly gentleman. Out of fear and surprise, his instinctive reaction is to take a deep breath. He immediately gets burned on his face, neck, and torso, and his upper airways are incinerated because of the superheated smoke and toxic gases. He drops and succumbs to the byproducts of combustion.

Not meeting any obstructions, the fire continues to spread and feed on the available fuels. It enters the first-floor kitchen area, extending to the cabinets. The progression that has already occurred in the basement is now starting to take hold on the first floor. After unsuccessfully attempting to reach her husband, the elderly wife is also quickly overcome as she attempts to escape toward the side kitchen door. On hearing the activated smoke detectors and seeing smoke, neighbors call the fire department.

A volunteer fire chief arrives several minutes later. At the urging of the neighbors, and with the assistance of on scene police officers, he manages to remove the unconscious female who is just inside the kitchen door. The first-arriving engine company forces and chocks open the front door as a 1¾-inch hoseline is stretched. After donning their gear and charging the line, they enter the structure to begin their fire attack.

Suddenly, the first floor flashes over, driving them out the front door and down the steps. By not controlling the front door prior to entering the building, the firefighters created a flow path similar to that of the elderly male victim. In not conducting a 360° size up, the department did not initially know that members were battling a basement fire (with no exterior entrance) that had extended to the first floor.

The first-arriving company officer (or acting officer) should have quickly performed a 360° size-up (assuming the rescue attempt was completed and the first-arriving chief was otherwise engaged). Then he could have either maintained or ordered the controlling of the front door while waiting for the attack line rather than allowing for the door to be chocked wide open and creating a flow path.

Scenario 2

Bedroom fire: Occurring on the top floor in a rear apartment of a three-story, 25-foot wide by 60-foot deep nonfire-resistive multiple dwelling. The first ladder company arrives and initiates a primary search. The extinguisher firefighter operates his water can to hold back the flames in the rear bedroom as the engine company advances the attack line up the stairs. The roof firefighter accesses the roof via an aerial ladder and, on examination, sees flames intermittently venting out of what looks like a double hung window on the top floor. The roof firefighter then vents the bulkhead and skylight above the interior stairs to alleviate smoke conditions for the members below.

The venting of the skylight and bulkhead creates a flow path. The intermittent fire venting from the top-floor window is an indication that wind may be having an effect on the fire as it blows into the window and pressurizes the area. That condition is going to force the smoke, heat, and flames to go somewhere else.

From the interior, the extinguisher firefighter notices a severe change in conditions as the fire makes an abrupt U-turn (from venting out the rear window) and rapidly advances in his direction. The fire quickly overcomes the water can and causes the ladder company’s interior crew to retreat to the floor below. The fire now travels from the rear window, through the apartment, out the apartment door, up the stairs, and through the bulkhead door and skylight. The officer immediately tells the roof firefighter to close the bulkhead door while simultaneously attempting to close the apartment door. Once the apartment door and bulkhead doors are closed, the effect is similar to when the flame of a gas stove’s top burner is turned off under a grease fire. The fire immediately returns to the apartment and rear bedroom and moves out the window as it seeks the advantage of a low-pressure source.

Had the roof firefighter recognized the pulsing flames intermittently venting out of the top-floor window and considered the wind blowing toward that window, he may have waited before venting the bulkhead and skylight.

Had the interior crew been able to close the apartment door, or controlled it to begin with, they would have successfully closed off the flow path’s route and confined the fire to the room/apartment of origin.

Fire Attack 101: Wind

OK, you’ve been there and done that. You’ve been the nozzle firefighter, the forcible entry firefighter, and perhaps you’ve vented a roof or two and even driven and operated the apparatus at a working fire or three; you’ve got all that down.

Now, however, you’ve graduated to the company officer position. You have to go from worrying about yourself and your specific task to worrying about a crew (or crews) and several different tasks that all need to be accomplished at the same time. How do you do it? You do it by knowing your job, your standard operating procedures or guidelines, and the given area of responsibilities assigned to your specific company or crew. You do it by conducting size-up and survivability profiling of trapped victims and by considering the actions that you and your firefighters take and how they may impact the overall fire or emergency at hand.

Like water and electricity, fire always takes the path of least resistance. In our case, that means from an area of high pressure, which can be in an enclosed area or in an area being pressurized by outside wind, to an area of low pressure. Confining the fire area and cutting off, or interrupting, the flow paths buy time for both our fire department members and trapped victims.

Opening windows and doors rather than breaking them allows for the option of closing them if the situation changes and demands the cutting off of a flow path.

Fire Attack 201: Water

There is almost never a time where putting water on the fire, either from the interior or the exterior (at least initially), is the wrong answer. With the possible exception for large flammable liquid fires or a structure made of magnesium, putting the wet stuff on the red stuff will, in most cases, buy us time to do the tasks that need to be done in what has then become a relatively safer place to do it.

According to the National Fire Protection Association, any fire department that does not have the ability to get 16 firefighters on the scene of a structural fire for an initial attack within four to six minutes of the alarm is considered short- or understaffed. That is the case in most fire departments throughout this country. How long would it take you to get 16 firefighters on scene for a daytime working fire? Where would you get them from? How long would the reflex time be?

In the case of understaffed departments that don’t have enough firefighters on scene to simultaneously perform search and rescue and fire attack, you should consider getting water on the fire first! Once you do, everything will start to get better. You may ultimately even buy time for any trapped civilians. The exception will always be a known life hazard on arrival that requires immediate action. However even in the majority of those cases, it is rarely required for this to take precedence over water; but in situations where it does, that is where the initial efforts should go.

Remember: If victims are in tenable spaces prior to the fire department’s arrival, Underwriter Laboratories and the National Institute of Standards and Technology have proven that that area will remain tenable and may even become more tenable if we put water on the fire first-and quickly.

Fire Attack 301: Wait

Playing the waiting game is rarely fun. However, if the fire scenario dictates, slowing down even by just a few seconds may mean the difference between life and death. Those precious seconds to attempt to make our working area a little safer may allow us to gather additional information on the fire, victims, and structure we’re up against. There are also many other tasks that can be accomplished as we struggle to try to make the dangerous conditions we face a little less dangerous.

As Charles A. Lindbergh once said: “I don’t believe in taking foolish chances, but nothing can be accomplished without taking any chances at all.” Firefighters don’t take unnecessary chances; we attempt to eliminate risks.