Friday, May 22, 2009

Tactical Evolution #4

Our final tactical scenario is here. After recovering from some mild heat exhaustion from our third scenario, I'm given the job of being the engineer for engine 1401 on this last structure fire. As I've mentioned before, I really enjoy pumping, so I'm looking forward to this.

Climbing into the cab, I glance around at the crew on board with me. 3 other recruits, all shoving their shoulders into the seat-mounted SCBA brackets, ready to pile out and fight fire as soon as the air brake deploys. I can't help pointing out here that I love this stuff.

The dispatch quickly comes out over the radio, and it's become very familiar by this point:

Radio: "Commercial Structure Fire, Big Bear Blvd. Engine 1401, Engine 701, Tanker 805, Tanker 905, Squad 104, Medic 111; Commercial Structure Fire, Big Bear Blvd. Engine 1401, Engine 701, Tanker 805, Tanker 905, Squad 104, Medic 111; Commercial Structure Fire, Big Bear Blvd, cross streets of Rangeline and Dead End. Timeout 18:33 KLK 578 KJY 848

Letting off the air brake with one hand, I use the other to press the talk button on my headset radio:

Engine 1401 Responding, Times 4


We're only a short way up the street, so it's only 60 seconds or so before we're parked in front of the building. The other recruits pile out as I transmit my size up back to "joint":

Columbia from engine 1401

1401, go ahead

Engine 1401 is on scene. 2-story commercial structure, light smoke showing, mark this Training Center command, all units check in on the white channel on arrival

receieved 1401, establishing Training Center Command, all units check in on white.

As I jump out of the cab, I come face to face with the other three recruits who rode in with me, all with airpacks on and ready to go. I quickly grab their accountability tags from their helmets:

"Alright, you guys will be Crew Schaefer. Take crosslay 1, enter side 1, do interior fire attack and primary search 1. "

"Crew Schaefer will enter side one for interior fire attack and primary search 1"

"Affirmative"

The lingo feels stilted, but it means we know what to say and what it means. The three of them run off around the other side of the truck while I throttle up the pump and wait for them to be ready for water. It doesn't take long before I see Jeff's hands in the air, so I pull the gate for their hose and watch my pressure gauges as the line charges with water. Just then, the fire chief taps me on the shoulder. Prepared for the transfer of command, I hand him the tags for each of my crewmates, and tell him what they're doing. He nods briefly, everything going according to plan, and radios into "joint communications" that he now has command of the incident. Knowing that more people will be coming in soon, I grab a tarp from the engine and lay it on the ground, then start throwing every air pack and tool I pull off the truck onto it. This way no-one will have to dig for anything, every item they need will be in that staging area. The radio in my hand crackles as the supply engine declares itself on-scene. I know they'll be grabbing the hydrant right now, so I start pulling off my supply line for them to hook up to. Estimating about a 200 foot distance, I pull the first 2 sections of hose of the back of the bed and break the connection, dragging the near end over to my pump and hooking it up to the inlet. 30 seconds later, I realize I've made a big mistake. The recruits from the supply engine are taking the other end of the hose to their truck, and it's definitely not going to be long enough. Dammit, should have waited.

oh well, they're trying to make the best of it, stretching that thing as far as it will go. I'm considering pulling down another section of hose, but there are 2 more crews around me asking for stuff, so i have no time to worry about it. One crew is taking the second crosslay in to go down the stairwell, so I charge their line, and gate down the first crosslay to equalize the pressure. At the same time, another crew wants to pull down the horseshoe load to take around the side of the building. I tell them to go ahead and pull the hose down, and I hustle around the far side of the truck and open an outlet for them to hook up to.

"Reddick, I've taken the cap off discharge 3!"

"Discharge 3, got it"

before long they're attached, and they want water too. Unfortunately, it's at that exact moment that the coach standing over my shoulder says "your tank is dry".

I look up at my tank gauge: 3/4 full. Confused, I turn to the coach and motion towards the gauge that indicates I am definitely NOT out of water, but he places his gloved hand over the indicator and insists again that the water is gone. Not wanting to argue, I pull the radio from my shoulder:

Command from engine 1401

1401, go ahead

1401 is apparently out of water


The chief is clearly unhappy

.....ok.....1401 out of water

The guys on the supply engine are still struggling to get the too short hose I pulled positioned so that they can get water to us, so until they figure it out, all the crews are effectively stuck outside the building, as you can't go in without a charged hoseline.


2 minutes go by. Three. Finally my inlet hose charges up, and I quickly tell command that we're flowing again. Without losing any time, all the staging crews charge inside and get back to work.

It's all over too soon, really. The recruits are back outside, all the dummies rescued, all the fire out. That was it, our very last piece of training. Supposedly, we're now ready to go out and do this for real. The chief calls us back around, and we talk about upcoming graduation and beyond. Are we really ready to do this?

Looking around, there's no way to give a good answer for that yet. Training is one thing, but under the real pressures of a real call, it could all fall apart. Only experience will tell. I'm truly excited to get out there and find out.

Tactical Evolution #3

It's time for our third of four tactical tests, and this time is going to be really cool. For the last two scenarios, I've been one of the grunts, a guy focused on just one part of the overall incident. Today I've been assigned the role of Incident Commander, which means that I'll be directing the whole evolution from the side line as the first "officer" on scene.

This information, which I only received a few minutes ago, is both exciting and intimidating. I like strategy over tactics, anytime; that's my kind of thought process. However, there's a lot of responsibility involved in the IC role, and your mistakes are very glaring and evident.

But I'm never one to back down from an interesting challenge, so when it's announced I'm secretly quite thrilled to be in that role.

Because we've done so much at our burn building already, the chief tells everyone to get to their assigned apparatus and to start driving in convoy. We don't know where we're going, but we know that our next "commercial structure fire" isn't going to be in the same "commercial structure" that we've been practicing in for the last 5 months.

It should be noted that according to the NFPA standards, you aren't allowed to have a training fire in a building where you haven't given the trainees a full walkthrough. However, in a real incident there probably won't be a walkthrough time available before the fire breaks out, so the instructors got over this problem by using theater smoke and flares to simulate a live fire, choosing to give us some experience with the unknown layout problem, since we already have plenty of practice just shooting water at real fires.

So it's with excitement that we arrive at the training academy for our mutual aid department, the career department who works the metro area that our county surrounds. The instructors have us stop a ways back from the entrance while they all move in to the facility to get things prepared. While waiting, I lounge in the sun with my gear hanging open, not too concerned about heat or hydration as I won't be going into the structure myself. Every few minutes one of the other recruits in an apparatus or POV will motion me over to chat for a few minutes about the scenario that's about to start; you can tell we're still all as excited as we were for our first tactical evolution.

After maybe 15 minutes of waiting, the radio fires up as all the stations check off their preparedness:


"Dispatch, on blue?"

"..[crackle]..on blue."

"Interior Safety on blue?"

"On blue"

"Exterior Safety on blue?"

"Exterior is On blue"

"1401, on blue?"

"On blue"

"701 on blue?"

"701 is on blue"

"Dispatch, go ahead"


Time to get started:

Radio: "Commercial Structure Fire, Big Bear Blvd. Engine 1401, Engine 701, Tanker 805, Tanker 905, Squad 104, Medic 111; Commercial Structure Fire, Big Bear Blvd. Engine 1401, Engine 701, Tanker 805, Tanker 905, Squad 104, Medic 111; Commercial Structure Fire, Big Bear Blvd, cross streets of Rangeline and Dead End. Timeout 18:33 KLK 578 KJY 848

I wave as the recruits in Engine 1401 put themselves in as responding and drive up towards the building. After giving them a few minutes to get started, I start walking through the gates myself, and pull the radio on clipped to my chest close to my face:

"Columbia, this is car 1418"

"Car 1418, go ahead"

"Columbia, Car 1418 is on scene, assuming Training Center command"

Just as I'm arriving at the command post to assume my position, a new face appears next to me. It's the fire chief! The current top dog at our department is standing next to me, and he has on the same green vest and clipboard that I do, indicating Incident Command. He looks surprised as he sees my outfit, and comments quickly:

"Vizitei, are you initial command? Did you ride in on the engine?"

"No sir! I was assigned to play IC for the incident"

"Do you want to do that? Be in command, that is?"

Honestly, I do want to do it, but somehow when you're staring at somebody with that many bugles on his collar, it can be tough to articulate your exact intents and desires. My "Yes sir, it is my most compelling wish this evening to remain in command of this incident" somehow turns into "No sir, I have no preference, what do you need me to do?" by the time it reaches my mouth.

Damn. I'm probably going to be going inside now, aren't I?

Chief: "Alright, Vizitei, you'll be crew leader. Take Jones and Brandow, I want a primary search of the second story, left hand search"

Me: "Yes sir, Crew Vizitei will perform primary search 2, left hand search."

Chief: "Good, get to it".

Nothing for it now but to get to work. I quickly pull on my hood and gloves, and zip up my coat as I walk to the attack engine to pull on an airpack. As it drops onto my shoulders and I busy myself with the straps, I start thinking about the tactic ahead of us: moving hose up an interior stairwell just sucks. I remember that from the first night when the attic attack crew went up 2 stories just to be stuck in the stairwell because their hose was caught up. Now we're going to do the same thing, and hopefully come back down with a victim. However, that's the reality of this kind of work: it's tough.

I finish up my internal pep talk to myself just as I'm arriving at the door where my crew is waiting:

"Ok, guys, we're on primary search II. Brandow, take the nozzle, Jones, tools. Get on air now, let's go".

My crewmates snap their regulators onto their facepieces, and I hear their masks pressurize. They start moving up right next to the door as I call back to command to confirm orders:

"Command from Crew Vizitei"

"Crew Vizitei, this is command

"Crew Vizitei is entering side 1 for primary search II up the interior stairwell"

"Crew Vizitei, entering side 1, primary search II"

"Affirmative"

I wave to my crewmates to get inside as I hook up my mask to my airsupply and stand in the doorway. We're going to need a lot of hose to get up the stairs and around whatever rooms we find up there, so I start pulling hose into the first room, pushing about 50 feet into a coil along the ground by the door. As soon as that's in place, I follow the wall to my crew, who's already at the foot of the stairs. Already I'm breathing a bit too hard, so I concentrate on slowing it down as I help them pull the hoseline up step by step. About halfway up, we stop moving. No amount of pulling is getting us any farther, and we aren't even into our search zone yet. Signaling my 2 mates to stay where they are, I hustle back down the stairs and find that the first coupling on the line is caught around a corner. I dislodge it hurriedly, cursing the luck, and move back to the stairwell yelling "Keep Pulling!" up at the guys moving up the stairs. Just as I reach the top with them, the hose catches again. Under my breath I mutter a string of profanities while I key up my Radio:

"Command from Crew Vizitei"

"Crew Vizitei, this is command

"Crew Vizitei is unable to advance up the interior stairwell, hose is caught. We need assistance."

"Crew Vizitei, need assistance moving hose"

"Affirmative!"

30 seconds goes by, then 60. Unfortunately, any victims overcome on the second story just don't have that kind of time, so I get up and bolt down the stairs again, only to make it to the front door and see that the next attack crew has laid their line directly on top of ours, making the 2nd coupling catch solid against their line. I want to yell in frustration, but I know it won't accomplish anything, so I kick their line off a little bit, grab ours, and haul into the doorway. I can see that the line is pulling up the stairs a bit, so I know my crew is moving on, and they don't have a light since our flashlight is strapped around my shoulder. Frustrated and breathing heavily, I power up the stairs a third time, arriving beside them against the back wall in the first 2nd-floor room just as they're turning around to ask for direction. grabbing each others coat tails, we spread out on the floor to search, and no sooner have I moved away from the wall than my boots come into contact with our "victim" (a big red canvas dummy). The nozzle man needs to keep his head up for fire, so Jones and I each grab a shoulder and start dragging as I key up my radio again to let command know we're coming.

"Command from Crew Vizitei"

"Crew Vizitei, this is command

"Crew Vizitei has a victim found, 2nd story, Charlie quadrent. Making exit first floor 1, side 1"

"Crew Vizitei, victim found, exiting side one"

"Affirmative!"

My lungs are starting to burn. My head is acheing. Gotta keep going, though, nothing more useless than sitting back and resting in the middle of a fire. I try to set little goals in my head to keep focused. "Just a little farther to the corner, you can make it that far. Ok, now, it's only 10 feet or so back to the stairs, you'll make it". Just as we gratefully arrive at the top of the staircase, the dummy's legs get caught around the corner. I see the light on my Heads Up display blink yellow, meaning I'm down to half a tank of air.

"Grab his Legs, Jeremy!", I yell. Right now we're pushing and pulling on his trunk, and he ain't moving THAT way. Jones moves behind the victim as I get my arms under both shoulders and we start moving down the stairs one at a time. It's all I can do to stay focused, I feel like steam is forming inside my gear, pressure cooking my body. It's with great effort that we go through the pattern what seems like countless times: "one, two, three, pull!" down one step. "one, two, three, pull!" down another step. Reaching the bottom at last, I fall over backwards, tripping on a hoseline and coming to rest looking face up at a crew of 3 recruits waiting for their assignment at the front door:

"Help!" is all I can manage to yell at them as I point towards our victim at the foot of the stairs. Like the good guys they are, they don't waste a second charging in and helping haul that dummy to safety. I ask Jones to take over "CPR" while I call into command telling them that we're safe:

"Command from Crew Vizitei"

"Crew Vizitei, this is command

"Crew Vizitei has exited the structure side 1. We are par, plus one victim."

"Crew Vizitei, exited structure, par plus one"

"Affirmative"

I tear my gear off as quickly as I can manage, sighing gratefully as a cool breeze sucks some of the heat away from my body. We don't have time for a break, though.

"Crew Vizitei, rehab your air bottles and check back in with command"

Damn. I'm hurting. I don't WANT to check back in with command, I would be happy just to avoid puking. That's not the way it works, though. I repeat the order over the radio, and relay it to my crewmates, who both look amazingly un-exhausted. What's wrong with me? Why am I so tired?

I manage to drag all my stuff back to the rehab area, and I go to my knees to change out my air bottle. Somebody is trying to tell me something about my airpack, but I can hardly understand what she's saying. Why is she talking so loud? Oh well, I think, she has a lieutenant's helmet so I guess she can talk as loud as she wants. I mumble something that I hope sounds like "OK" as I swing my coat back on and throw my airpack onto my back. With my crew walking ahead of me, definitely somehow in better shape, we trudge back towards the command post.

My steps slow down, then stop. I don't feel so good. A wave of heat and nausea washes over me, and I go down to my knees for a second trying to rest enough to let it pass. It's not passing. One of my crewmates turns around and sees me. He's probably asking if I'm ok. Am I ok?

"I have to get out..." I mumble

I am definately not ok.

"I have to get out...."

I'm pushing ineffectively at my gear, trying to peel it off again. It feels like I'm drowning in heat, like I'm desperate to just have nothing against my skin. Three recruits rush over to help and my gear is soon off and I'm somehow sitting over on the grass with bottles of water surrounding me. Sombody is telling me to drink. Seems like good advice.

As a few bottles of water get pored over my head, and into my stomach, my lucidity returns. Realizing that I got overheated, I look down at the ground hoping no one else is noticing. It's a little embarrassing to be sprawled out and half collapsed while everyone else who just went through the same thing you did is standing around just fine. Glancing up, I realize that contrary to my hopes, EVERYONE is noticing, and I can now see my brother and the lead instructor for my crew sauntoring over to see what's up. One of my recruit buddies kneels next to me and asks if there's anything I need. Unhappy at the situation I'm in, I crack a wry joke:

"If you see my dignity laying over there on the asphalt somehwere I sure would appreciate it if you'd return it to me".

Now my brother is kneeling in front of me.

"You ok?"

"I've felt better."

"Did you make it out of the building first?"

"yeah"

"With the victim?"

"yeah"

"Good job. Guess you got too hot"

"yeah"

He smiles a bit, knowing that I'll be fine after a few minutes cooling down, and tells me to keep a cold water bottle against my groin to cool down quicker.

By the time I'm back on my feet, the tactic is over. I'm still a little shamed-faced over collapsing like that, but there's no point in dwelling on it. Pulling on my pants and helmet, I trudge over to help load the hose back on the truck. Evolution #3: partial success; I did find a few shreds of dignity discarded on the pavement after all.

Tactical Evolution #2

Radio: "Commercial Structure Fire, Roger I Wilson Memorial Drive. Engine 1301, Engine 701, Tanker 105, Tanker 505, Squad 104, Medic 231; Commercial Structure Fire, Roger I Wilson Memorial Drive. Engine 1301, Engine 701, Tanker 105, Tanker 505, Squad 104, Medic 231; Commercial Structure Fire, Roger I Wilson Memorial Drive, cross streets of East County Road and East Prathersville Road. Timeout 18:33 KLK 578 KJY 848

Sitting in the cab of Engine 1301, I listen to the dispatch go out over our local training center channel. Our second evolution is beginning. This time I've been assigned to the attack engine as the engineer, so instead of going inside the building with my fellow recruits, I'll be operating the pump from the engine. It also means that until the first "officer" shows up, I'll be in command of the incident.

I release the air brake with one hand while I pull the radio off the dash and up to my face:

"Columbia from Engine 1301"

"Engine 1301, go ahead"

"Engine 1301 is responding, times 2"

The guys in 701 (the supply engine for this incident) give a good-luck wave to me as I ease the engine in to gear and make the loop towards the burn building. I'm a little nervous, because I know that for the first 3 or 4 minutes, everybody who shows up will be asking me for everything. Beyond anything else, I don't want to look overwhelmed; quiet competence is my goal.

I have one other recruit riding with me, Anya, the only female in our class, and as we approach we quickly split up the work that needs to be done as soon as we reach the fire. Stopping at the spot where we know the supply engine will stationed, she jumps out of the cab to pull off a supply line and leave it for them. That way, as soon as 701 shows up, they can hook up to it and be feeding us more water quickly.

As if on cue, the radio crackles and our buddies in the supply engine come on the air:

"Columbia from Engine 701"

"Engine 701, go ahead"

"Engine 701 is responding, times 2"

It takes a little longer than I expected, so while I wait for her to get back into the cab, I go over my size up in my head, wanting to make sure that my radio traffic sounds professional when I actually perform it. Then Anya is back in the cab and we pull up to the building, the supply hose playing out behind us from the bed of the truck.

The building is tall and bland, made out of concrete and other fireproof materials, with metal window coverings all shut to give all the heat, smoke, and darkness of a real structure fire. I know the coaches are in there stoking up the flames right now, but from where I'm sitting there's no outward indicator of the inferno raging inside, so I pull up the radio again and go through what I'd been rehearsing in my head ever since I got my assignment to drive:

"Columbia from Engine 1301"

"Engine 1301, go ahead"

"Engine 1301 is on the scene. This is a 2 story commercial structure, nothing showing. Make this Training Center command, all units check in on the White channel on arrival."

"Receieved, Training Center command. All responding units check in on White on arrival."

I don't have time to be pleased with myself, this is the most critical time block for a real fire. 30 seconds is how long it takes for a fire to double in size, so we need to have a hose line in there as soon as physically possible. Anya is already throwing an airpack onto her back as I switch the fire engine from drive into pump mode. Realizing that it's going to take her a few seconds to get everything on and fastened, I grab the hoseline that she'll be using off the truck myself and run it up to the building, flaking out the kinks so it will be ready and waiting for her when she is ready to go inside. Just as I arrive back at the truck to start pulling tools off for her too, Carl (one of the other recruits) shows up at my side. For this scenario, he's playing the first lieutenant to show up at the scene, so I turn command over to him:

Carl: "What do we have?"

Me: "Nothing showing yet, Tveritinova and I are the only ones on scene. She'll be leading the first attack crew"

Carl: "Have you done a 360 yet?"

Me: "..No, I'm on it!"

Damn! Missed that one. Instead of pulling tools and hose for Anya, what I really should have been doing was walking around the building to see the fire signs from all angles and to see if there were any other hazards or exposures present. No time to dwell, though. As Carl sets up his command post, I take off around the building. All the window coverings are shut tight, so not much is visible, but as I pull around the last corner I can see light smoke pushing from an attic vent on the 4th side (the right side of the building).

Getting back to Carl, I notify him of the smoke, and he tasks the first attack crew with getting inside. I make it back to the pump panel, and this is when it gets crazy:

The first attack crew is at the door. They need water. I pull open the discharge valve for crosslay-1, and the hose they're holding fills quickly with pressurized water. They're off and into the building just as the next crew on scene grabs crosslay 2 and makes for the door. I'm setting them up with water too just as the supply engine calls up on the radio asking if they can send water yet. I tell them I don't have a supply line connected yet and to hold off for just a minute. Finishing flowing for the second crew, I make my way to the back of the truck, dodging incoming recruits who are pulling airpacks and tools out of all the compartments. I almost collide with another crew who's pulling off the large 2-and-a-half hose to pull around back and make entrance through the back of the building. They ask me to hook them up with water as soon as possible, so I grab their line instead of the supply line from 701 and dash back to the panel. I'm just finishing hooking them up to one of the exposed discharge outlets as another recruit taps me on the shoulder asking urgently for a thermal imaging camera. I try to help him find one, but it looks like the first attack crew took it with them, so I send him down to the supply engine to grab theirs while I run back to grab the supply line again and get it hooked up to my tank. Before I can pull the supply line around to the inlet on my panel, the crew going in the back door is calling for water over the radio, so I drop the line again and run back to the pump, charging their line as quickly as possible while trying to remind myself to open the water gate slowly to avoid damaging any of the internals. Once they're set, I go back and grab the supply line again, and finally get it dragged around and hooked up to my pump inlet. Breathing a little heavily, I radio the supply engine and ask them to charge the supply line, which quickly makes the hose at my feet leap to life as it pressurizes against the closed inlet on my pump.

Taking a breath, I step back and examine all the gauges on the panel. All the deployed hoselines are still reading the correct pressure, my tank's about 3/4 full, there's water recirculating to keep the pump cool, the pressure relief valve is set to keep pressure spikes from hitting the guys inside: everything looks as it should. Slowly, I open the inlet valve to allow water from the supply engine to start refilling my tank, while backing off on the throttle trying to keep the discharge pressure steady as the transition takes place. Then I wait.

That's the thing about being the engineer on the attack engine: it's nuts for about 3 minutes, and from then on as long as nothing goes wrong you are basically watching and waiting. You might make some minor adjustments to keep your tank full of water from the supply engine, but basically you sit and wait for some emergency to occur (hoseline breaking, pump malfunction, etc). Fortunately for me, the rest of the evolution went smoothly. The guys inside did great, and I was able to just hang tight until everyone got back out and needed the water shut down and drained.

Although I like to keep a humble attitude when people tell me I did a good job, in my mind I was grinning from ear to ear. I'd count this one a success.

Tactical Evolution #1

We're finally into our last few training sessions, and all real "training" is in the past. Now we're starting our first tactical evolution, a situation where the coaches setup a scenario as realistically as possible and have the recruits come in to deal with it as best they can.

Radio: "Commercial Structure Fire, Roger I Wilson Memorial Drive. Engine 1301, Engine 701, Tanker 105, Tanker 505, Squad 104, Medic 231; Commercial Structure Fire, Roger I Wilson Memorial Drive. Engine 1301, Engine 701, Tanker 105, Tanker 505, Squad 104, Medic 231; Commercial Structure Fire, Roger I Wilson Memorial Drive, cross streets of East County Road and East Prathersville Road. Timeout 18:33 KLK 578 KJY 848

Here we go. This is the very first time that we aren't involved in a closely supervised "tactic", the recruit class as a whole is just going to show up to this "incident" in waves and mitigate it as best we can.

"Columbia from Engine 1301"

"Engine 1301, go ahead"

"Engine 1301 is responding, times 2"

We're all parked on the far side of the training center, waiting for our chance to respond in, a coach at the front of the line doing traffic duty making sure we don't all show up at once.

For this scenario I'm a "POV", that is, I'm not coming on an apparatus from the station, I was just out around town when the call came in and I'm driving there in my car to help out. There's no real way to know what task you'll be taking care of until you show up.

The radio crackles again

"Columbia from Engine 701"

"Engine 701, go ahead"

"Engine 701 is responding, times 2"

I watch as the recruits in Engine 1301 pull around the last corner in their route and stop in front of the burn building, our commercial structure fire for the evening. I can hear the airbrake deploy as Jones (the recruit assigned as the operator) radios in his size up.

"Columbia, Engine 1301"

"Engine 1301, go ahead"

"Engine 1301 is on the scene. Got a....2 story....commercial structure...nothing showing. Make this Training Center command"

I'm too far away to see exactly what they're doing as they setup to go inside, but I've got too much to think about anyway. Being a POV is dangerous, for a host of reasons. The adrenaline can cause you to drive more erratically than you should, and personal vehicles don't draw attention the way fire trucks do, so accidents can happen easily if you are not serious about being careful. Then, once you've arrived, you're basically putting your gear on in a roadway, where it's too easy to get hit by passing traffic, distracted by the large incident ahead. Luckily in the safety of the training center that risk is mitigated, but you have to build habits the right way by always behaving as though you're in a real incident, on a real highway, with real danger.

Upon receiving the signal from our traffic coach, I drive off around the loop to report in to the fireground. As we were trained, I stop about 150' from the incident, put on my flashers, and throw my keys on the floorboard (so others can move it later if need be). Grabbing my gear bag out of the trunk, I toss it on the ground a little off the roadway and tear it open, keeping my head up watching for oncoming traffic. After 5 months of practice, the movements come naturally. Right boot, left boot, pants up, right suspender, left suspender...before I know it I have all my bunker gear on and I'm walking as fast as I can towards the command post.

My heart is already pounding, not from exertion but from excitement. Even though I know this isn't a real incident, there IS a real fire in there, and the adrenaline kicks in all the same.

Grabbing the tag off my helmet, I hand it to the incident commander (recruit Stephenson in this case), who tells me to go pack up and standby for assignment. Straining to show the watching officers some professionalism, I repeat my orders verbatim out loud, and make for the rear compartment of the attack engine where I can get myself an airpack.

This used to be a complicated process; no more. Although repetition isn't fun, it does it's job, and this is coming naturally. I yank the cord securing the pack in place, pull it off the rack, check to make sure it's full, open the bottle to pressurize the system (noting the correct sequence of sounds as the vibra-alert engages and the PASS system comes online), and throw the pack over my head and onto my shoulders. Walking back towards command, I pull all the straps tight against my body and check my face piece to make sure I'll have a good seal once I connect the airpack and start flowing oxygen.

Now the only question is what I'll be asked to do. On a large fire attack, there are many options. You need crews to search the building for victims, crews to attack the fire with hose lines, crews to wait by the doors to go in and help if something goes wrong.

The Incident commander grabs a group of 4 of us and pulls us towards him.

Stephenson (IC): "This will be Crew Vizitei, I need pitched roof ventilation, side 4"

Me: "Crew Vizitei will perform pitched roof ventilation, side 4"

Stephenson: "Affirmative!"

That's a tough tactic. Basically, he wants a hole cut in the roof, which is on a slant. It might seem like this is the "easy" work, since you aren't inside actually attacking the fire. All I can say is, you have to have attempted this to really appreciate how exhausting it can be. My job wasn't going to be bad - by designating us as "Crew Vizitei", he was indicating that I (Vizitei) would be the crew leader. My primary job would be to help the crew reach the roof, and stay in radio contact with command. It's the saw man who gets the tough job as he has to wield a chainsaw while standing precariously on a combination of ladders and axes, and then clear the hole he's made with a long and heavy pike pole. I know that whichever crewmember I assign that task is going to be beat afterward.

Tough, though, is what we signed up for. Handing out assignments to the other three crewmembers (one to wield the saw, one to support him on the roof with an axe, and one to hold the ladder), we go to work. It takes about 90 seconds to get the necessary equipment assembled at our climbing point, which is the easy part, and then the ladder is raised up against the roof and it's time to get started. My 2 roof crewmen are already climbing while I perform the necessary radio traffic to let the commander know we're starting:

"Command from Crew Vizitei"

"Crew Vizitei, this is Command

"Command, Crew Vizitei is beginning Pitched Roof Ventilation, Side 4"

"Crew Vizitei, beginning pitched roof ventilation, side 4"

"Affirmative!"

I snap my regluator into my facepiece, blinking as the first puff of air pressurizes the mask, grab an axe from the ground, and start my climb just as the 2nd of my crewmates disappears up over the lip of the roof.

Once at the top, I can see my guys are doing well so far. They've got the roof ladder secured over the peak of the roof, giving them a good place to stand, and the saw man already has his chainsaw in hand and running, just waiting for the tool man to give him a foot hold.

Handing the tool man the pick-headed axe, I remain on the ladder to watch, and to be available if something goes wrong. The tool man watches as the saw man sticks his foot out onto the roof showing where he wants to step. Then the saw man pulls his leg back to the ladder as the tool man swings high with the pick head of the axe, digging it deep into the roof to give the saw man a place to put his foot securely.

Then the cutting begins. I have nothing but sympathy for the guy doing that work, but he's doing great. After seven long cuts, a rectangle has been outlined in the roof, just waiting to be breached. The saw is handed back down to me on the ladder as the saw man picks up his pike pole and starts beating and tearing, opening the hole and digging down through the attic to breach the ceiling. Once it's good and open, we all make our way back down quickly and disconnect our face pieces to breathe fresh air again. Grabbing my radio clipped to my shoulder, I report back:

"Command from Crew Vizitei"

"Crew Vizitei, this is Command

"Command, Crew Vizitei has completed Pitched Roof Ventilation, Side 4. We are off the roof and PAR."

"Crew Vizitei, completed pitched roof ventilation, side 4, off the roof and PAR"

"Affirmative!"

"Rehab your bottles and check in with command"

"Received"

Guess that means we aren't getting a break. The four of us drop our tools in the staging area and make our way to the air truck where we exchange our depleted air tanks for full ones. Arriving back at the command post, they don't waste any time putting us back in the building.

Stephenson:"I need secondary searches on both floors. Split into two crews of two, Vizitei, you take Brandow and search the first floor. You other two, second story"

Me:"Crew Vizitei will enter structure side 1, and perform Secondary Search, first floor."

This is a bit of a break for us. Secondary search means that the primary team has already gone through looking for victims. We're going in to make sure they didn't miss anyone. Because the fire attack has already been through this section of the building, there is no longer any fire, and all the windows are open, so we have clear visibility and can walk around comfortably. It's just a matter of being thorough, making sure no one is trapped or hiding.

We're in and back out in about 5 minutes, just in time to hear the call for help come over the radio.

"Command, there IS fire extension in the attic. We cannot make attack! Hose is stuck in the stairwell, we need assistance."

The crew checking the attic has their hose caught up in 2 flights of stairs, which is a tough haul. Now they need to move farther in to stop the fire from coming back from the attic and undoing all our work, and they can't get in there to do it. The four of us closest to the door immediately are tasked with getting their hose up the stairs, and we charge in to help.

Hoses are extremely important to firefighting, as any observer could tell you. What most observers might not realize is just how heavy one of those hand-lines is. This is not a garden hose you're pulling. The hose is thick, and when full of water it's heavy and inflexible. It does indeed take all four of us spread out along the line to move that hose around the corners and up the stairs so that our buddies on the attack crew can get far enough into the attic to get their job done.

But they do it. All the victims are out and all the fire is extinguished, all that's left is chugging water and reloading all the equipment. Evolution #1 is a success. Time to reset everything and go again.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday

What do you do, as a firefighter, if you are injured, lost, stuck, or otherwise incapacitated while inside a burning building? The answer might be obvious to you from an objective perspective: you call for help! But it's not as easy as all that when you're on the fireground. There are, unfortunately, many reasons that firefighters don't call for help when they should. Some of it is machismo, because you don't want to be the guy who others had to come in and carry out. Some of it is unavoidable: if you're unconcious, you aren't going to be able to call for help. But a lot of the reluctance to call for assistance from other firefighters is just a misunderstanding of the situation that you're in. If a piece of roof falls on you trapping you underneath, you might believe that if you just wriggle the right way you'll be able to escape. So you struggle, and push, and strain trying to get yourself free. By the time you realize how truly stuck you are, you've exhausted all your energy and are probably running low on air. The team who comes in to try to save you may only have 5 minutes or less before your air runs out, and it's going to be hard to find you in that amount of time.

A big part of our training last saturday was to be made aware of those facts first and foremost. As soon as you get in trouble of any kind, as soon as the situation stops going the way you expected it to, you need to start calling for help immediately. That at least gives the firefighters who are coming to get you a bigger margin of time to get to you, and you can always send them back if you manage to escape by yourself.

Then we got to play in the maze.

In full bunker gear, with breathing tanks on, and blindfolded with a translucent film over our facepiece, we had to crawl through a maze that simulates many of the hazards found in a structure fire. You'd be crawling along, and a large piece of wood would fall on top of you (helped along by your sadistic coach). Now you're being crushed, and you just have to hope you've got enough wiggle room to get to your radio:

"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday"

Command: "All units hold for emergency traffic. Unit calling mayday, go ahead."

"Crew Vizitei is trapped on 1st floor, Charlie quadrant, near side 3 while performing Primary Search. Please dispatch RIT team."

Command: "RIT team is en route, Crew Vizitei, attempt self-rescue"

Now in general, this went pretty well. However, none of us were actually scared or worked up. We knew that even though we were pretty well trapped, it was just our coach who was holding the weight down on top of us or tangling us up in a cord or whatever, and that if we were to get in any serious distress he'd cut us loose. That meant that our radio traffic was pretty smooth and understandable. But it isn't like that in real life. We watched a video that day that would send chills down anybody's neck.

http://vodpod.com/watch/639646-houston-texas-firefighter-mayday

If you watch that all the way through, what you hear will scare the hell out of you. That firefighter captain went back in by himself to retrieve victims and became trapped on the 5th floor. When you hear him speak over the radio, you can tell he's under real duress, and that he isn't sure if he's coming out alive, and it makes it almost impossible to understand him. Can you tell what he's saying? Where he is? I can only imagine trying to control my voice to make sure others can understand me while my mind is gradually becoming more certain that I'm not going to make it.

So although we now know what to do, this is one of those skills we're learning that I hope I never have to use.