What do we see in a photograph of a fire scene? I want to keep echoing this comment until more of us begin to use these pictures to talk about our own personal fire response and not to criticize or compliment others.

This shot of fire escape operations and extending fire is a great example. Let’s use our imagination as if this were a movie.

What is going on?

Firefighters are on fire escapes for a few reasons:

1. To gain access to the fire apartment or compartment. If the fire escape is attached to one of the compartment windows, it affords us the opportunity to get to the rear of the fire rapidly, to enter and search the area that the nozzle at the hallway door is advancing to before the stream makes this area untenable too.
2. To ventilate for the reasons above.
3. To stretch a second line to the floor below and to the interior stairs without hampering the movement of the first line.
4. To stretch a third line if needed to protect and/or extinguish targets from an alternate side of the fire.
5. To gain access to the roof of a structure or to the floor or floors above the fire floor.
6. Lots more!

What about the portable ladder? What is it there for? Is this the best place at this time? What is the best place usually?

A portable ladder to the second floor balcony (first) is a good practice (and one that is going by the wayside because of poor manning on our trucks). It is for a lot of reasons, including:

1. Assured and safe access for us. Counter-balanced stairs are becoming difficult to use and unsafe because of age and lack of maintenance. Drop ladders are most times chained or wired at the second floor because of security from “street people” and dropping them to the ground by use of a fire department hook is more and more dangerous. Drop ladders are jammed and are out of their tracking system and, when unhooked, can fall over and onto our firefighters at the sidewalk level.
2. Assistance in relieving the removal of civilians. Victims on fire escapes take a great deal of time in clearing the area. A portable ladder gives them an additional route “out of the problem” and us an unrestricted access to assist them.

Position for the ladder is usually one of preference to the region or department practice. But ... the best position for climbing to and over the balcony rail to access the landing and the position most secure and securable for the ladder is against the building to the side of the protruding balcony.

1. The ladder has more of a tendency to slip or move horizontally when only resting on its beams on a metal edge of the railing as in this photo.
2. It is more secure with the tips of the ladder resting equally on a vertical surface – the side of the building. The ladder in this (the building) position can only move by accident in ONE direction.
3. If you work in a department that steals ladders from users after they are placed by you, a simple hose strap from the beam of the ladder to the balcony railing will make a very secure ladder for you until you return.

What about the position of this ladder in the photograph? What would you do here should you arrive on the sidewalk at the base of this scene?

1. As usually happens, what was once an acceptable location for portable ladder access and exit has become untenable by extending fire in this case. Access to it by the firefighters on the balcony is questionable at best.
2. Access and egress from the ladder to the third floor (second-floor balcony) is no longer possible.
3. The ladder – one of our most stable – is wooden and combustible. It makes no sense to leave a ladder — portable or aerial — exposed to direct flame contact (except for extremely extenuating circumstances to be discussed at another time).
4. The ladder must be moved to the left and toward the life hazard — the firefighters on the balcony. If it were me, I would move it beyond them to an area where they can access it by simply turning away from their work. The ladder is in a “cooler” area, more stable, and the tips are not in the way of advance if that is still possible.
5. A second ladder can be placed for access to the other side of the extending fire should any other fire department tactic be required — access to an adjacent occupancy to that on fire, ventilation from opposite interior penetration operations and more. Contact those firefighters, tell them you are moving the ladder and then TAKE ACTION!

Hmmm, maybe that is what the firefighter halfway up the ladder appearing to want to jump into the flames has in mind.

Let’s look more at the picture. What if this were an apartment building with this fire on the second floor?

Is anyone alive in that room? NO! But where can life exposures be found and truly rescued?

1. In other rooms, surrounding the fire room in the same dwelling unit. They may be accessible to the search team from the front door or maybe not. Alternate entry to these people is by breach of the wall from the adjoining occupancy. The best access to that apartment and exit from it is the fire escape balcony. Remember that one balcony usually serves two apartments! Owners and builders are cheap!
2. The next most severe exposure to human life is anyone who has exited to the fire escape system from above the original fire unit. The chance for them to survive is to get them back into the building or past the heat of the fire to the relative safety of the second-floor balcony. The best and only way for firefighters to gain access to the fire escape ladder from the second-floor balcony to them is to pass the fire. PASS THE FIRE?

You need to drive the flame and most of the heat away from the ladder and the victims you see (though not in this photo) AND not punish the interior advance crew unjustly. This is where the variable-pattern nozzle is better than the solid bore (though both will work). Use a 30-degree pattern from the side of the opening from which you wish to drive the flame. Sweeping it across the top edge of the opening from which the flame is issuing will give the best results and the only chance for survival for the victim and the rescuer AND cause less chaos inside the occupancy.

This is an especially good tactic when life is exposed above heavily secured light commercial occupancies such as one or two floors of dwellings over a row of stores.

See how much you can talk about one little photo? We can fill an hour of discussion and create a company drill in which everyone participates. Use your imagination; solve the problems; and enhance your experience without actually “getting” the fire.

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