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.

Firelink Article

I have a new article out on firelink, check out the link here:

http://www.firelink.com/benefits/articles/7245-why-screaming-at-probies-is-the-best-way-to-show-love

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.

Cold Water Rescue

Training was not too tasking last night. Mostly what we're focusing on right now is knots and ropes. This should have worked out well for me as I'm an avid amateur rock climber, but it turns out that tying knots in fire gloves while under pressure is just a bit different from tying knots on a cool breezy day at the base of a rock face. I'll get there, though.

One of the more interesting things we got to play with was the cold water rescue suit. This is the piece of equipment that a firefighter dons when they need to go pull somebody up who has fallen through an iced over body of water. It's this big red piece of rubber that fits your body like a glove, stretching to fit all the way over your head, reminding me of a kid's onesie with a hood, entirely made out of 1-inch-thick-waterproof-thermal-insulating-material. Attached to the back is a large D-ring that a rescue rope is tied to so you are tethered to shore by your crewmates who are manning the rope, and in your pocket you carry an extension of that rope with a carabiner at the end to clip around your patient before pulling them out.

Once you're in, you have to start moving over the ice so that your weight is as spread out as possible, otherwise you'll just break through the ice in another spot, making it hard to get to the victim. In essence, they've found one of the better ways to do this is to lay flat on your side gripping your tether over your head and just to roll out to your victim like a bakers rolling pin. We practiced this in a grassy area, rolling out to rescue each other from the middle of a field, and it's a bizarre feeling. The suit holds air well, so as you roll from one side to the other, the pressure can change in the area around your head causing your ears to pop; your fingers don't move right because of the thickness of the material. I can only imagine how much tougher this would be on a cold day, moving over slippery ice, into a freezing hole in the center, all under the pressure of getting to a person who only will last mere minutes in that sort of environment.

Another interesting fact: we are taught a hand signal that means "I need help!". Sticking one arm straight up in the air means that you are in trouble and require assistance. My thought is, how is anybody going to help you? There's only one suit on the truck. You'd at least have to wait until the next due engine arrived for anyone else to get out there and lend a hand.

Firefighting is not always about fire, but it sure does seem to involve a lot of running straight into places most people should never go and doing things most people would be crazy to attempt.

What a cool job.

Water Supply for the layman

Without water, it's going to be pretty hard to knock down a fire; that's why you need so many more people to fight a fire than just the few people running into the building with hoses. Where does all that water come from?

Well, you might say, the fire engine of course! That's where the hoses are coming from, so that's where the water is. Great job, you'd make an excellent detective! But consider this: each one of our fire engines contains 750 gallons of water. That sounds like a lot, but it actually won't last as long as you thing. One regular hand line (a hose carried into a building) is usually configured to spray 125 gallons per minute. That's about 6 minutes of water for 1 hose; that's not that long, and it's not likely that you're fighting a large fire with just one hose. On anything larger than a regular room-and-contents fire, you're going to need a little more than that 750 gallons showing up in the first engine.

That's one of the reasons you send more than 1 fire engine to a fire: you need to be getting your water somewhere, and the engine pumping water into the house (the "attack" engine) doesn't have time to find out where the best place to get water is. So the next engine to show up (the "supply" engine) hooks up a large supply hose to the intake of the 1st engine and sends all the water in it's tank shooting into the tank of the attack engine. Alright, now you have about 1500 gallons of water, that's pretty good. Except you might have 3 hoses being used by this point, so you could possibly be using somewhere around 500 gallons a minute. In fact, some of the larger deck guns can shoot up to 1000 gallons per minute just by themselves. If you have a hydrant around, that's super, and in most metro areas you do. A good hydrant can flow over 1500 gallons every minute by itself, which is pretty good. However, not all hydrants have that level of pressure, and if you're in a more rural area you may not have a hydrant near enough to hook the supply engine into. Now what?

Here's where the well-oiled machine of teamwork comes into play, and it's a pretty impressive operation when it's running smoothly. Picture this:

The attack engine is pumping water onto the house as fast as it can. The supply engine is sending every drop it has available into the tank of the attack engine. By the supply engine are 2 large "fold-a-tanks", big steel frames with tarps inside of them that basically form a small pool that can hold over 2000 gallons of water. The supply engine has a suction hose dipped into the nearest tank and is sucking water in from it, but how is the water getting into the fold-a-tank?

From the tankers. Tankers are big firetrucks who's main job is to shuttle large amounts of water from one place to another. Each one (on our department) holds about 1500 gallons of water, and can dump it all into one of these tanks in about 30 seconds. So you get 2-3 of these tankers that are driving a circuit to the nearest hydrant or other water source: Fill up the truck, drive to the supply engine, dumpt the water, drive back to the water source. As long your water source doesn't go dry and your trucks don't break down, you can now put water on the fire all day if you need to. It's a marvel to watch when it goes right and this system is clicking like an oversized bucket brigade.

So you see, the heros running into the building are depending upon a large team on the outside to keep them in action. Pretty cool, huh?

New Article on Firelink

I have a new article that's been posted on firelink.com, this one regarding integrating into the crew as the new guy. Check it out at the following link:

The Brotherhood

My kind of firefighting

This week is all about pumps. Maybe that doesn't sound that exciting to you, but for me this is a great week. You see, most of the necessary skills for firefighting have to do with physical ability. You need strength to move a victim, balance to climb and work from a ladder, endurance to spend time working in the heat of a fire environment without collapsing. I'm not BAD at that kind of thing; in fact, I'm in pretty good shape. But working the pump on a firetruck is mostly about simple math and abstract thought -- yes!

For those who are not part of the fire service, you should know that using the pump on a firetruck is more than just turning it on and letting the water flow. There are at least 8 points from where an engine can be discharging water, and each one of them has to have their pressure adjusted properly for the task at hand. Let me give you a simple example:

For a house fire, you might have 2 lines deployed off of the truck, both 1 3/4 inches in diameter. One might be 150 feet long because it's going in through the front door, the other might be 200 feet long because it's being taken in through the side of the house. Each one needs water pressure of 100 PSI (pounds per square inch) at the nozzle, and they each are running 125 gallons per minute of water through the hose. How much pressure does the pump need to be discharging at?

Well, when you push water through a 50ft stick of 1 3/4 inch hose at 125 GPM, it loses 12 PSI. So if you are pumping 112 PSI, by the time it reaches the end of that 50 foot length, it's down to 100. The longer of the 2 hoses deployed off the truck is 200 feet, which is 4 50 foot lengths, so the pump will have to be discharging 148 PSI to make sure that the longer hose has enough pressure. However, the shorter hose (the 150 foot one) only needs 136 PSI to have 100 PSI at the nozzle, so you would have the pump discharging at 148 PSI, and gate the shorter hose down to 136.

Now, there are many more complicated scenarios than that when you get into having multiple hoses of different sizes at different flow rates, and when you start incorporating things like standpipes to raise water up to a higher story in a building, and managing the intake into the truck at the same time from the water supply operations. This is the kind of material a geek can really get into.

Moral of the story: don't go thinking that firefighters are just brute muscle, they need some brains to get things done as well.