UL Firefighter Safety Research Institute – When you’re on the fireground, it is important to understand the basic fire dynamics principle that gases flow from high pressure to low pressure. As a fire burns in a compartment, hot fire gases expand resulting in an increase in pressure. When a ventilation opening is made (doors, windows, roof) a low pressure exhaust is created, allowing gases to flow toward the low pressure outlet.
A flow path is the volume between an inlet and an outlet that allows the movement of heat and smoke from the higher pressure within the fire area toward the lower pressure areas accessible via doors and window openings. When you make ventilation changes to a structure, the flow of gases can either be used to for your tactical advantage or your detriment by making the fire environment worse.
This series of videos will bring you tactical considerations from firefighter research and will feature members of the UL FSRI team and Advisory Board.
A Tactical Consideration is an evidence based concept for the fire service to consider implementing into their department to enhance efficiency, effectiveness, and increase knowledge to accomplish their mission. With all of the measurements made during UL FSRI experiments as well as the vast experience of our project technical panels, several consistent themes have emerged that may be helpful to the fire service. Each of these themes is packaged as a tactical consideration with supporting text and visuals.
The application of tactical considerations depends upon many factors such as:
- building structure and geometry
- capabilities and resources available to the first responding fire department
- availability of mutual aid
There is no silver bullet tactic for structure fires and these considerations are meant to increase the knowledge of the fire service and to be incorporated into training and procedures, if deemed applicable.
Follow @UL_FSRI on social media and share the videos with your fire service friends.
