January-February 2010

IN THIS ISSUE: (CLICK TITLE TO READ ARTICLE)
Tactical Safety: Shortcutting the Stretch Eventually Stings . . . Ray McCormack Reading Smoke, Part 8 . . . John Mittendorf Vent, Enter, Search: Safety Essentials . . . Larry Yoell	Goals and the Sporting Life: Decide Upon . . . George Burk Flashover and Backdraft: Seconds to Disaster  . . . Mike Healy Why Do You Resist Change . . . Richard Gasaway
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Tactical Safety – Shortcutting the Stretch Eventually Stings

By Ray McCormack

There are many ways to get a hoseline where it is needed. Some methods follow sound fire tactics and are examples of knowledgeable hoseline management and tactical safety, while other moves are short sighted, risking firefighter safety where it should be at its highest — on the hoseline.

The overwhelming effect of a solid engine company performance is not just about targeted water delivery; it is about heightened fireground safety. There are many safety gaffes which occur that will never add up to a tragedy; however, when errors occur that violate fundamental engine company operational standards then a tragedy is now within the mix of possible outcomes.

Shortcuts shave time; they often shave safety as well. Engine company close shaves on the fireground are usually rooted in poor leadership and misguided tactics. Some people profess that there are no absolutes in the fire service when it comes to tactics. If you believe that then you could possibly be swayed into using poor engine company tactics and risky shortcuts.

First, the engine helps no one on the fireground without water in the hoseline. Secondly, engine company firefighters with a dry hoseline do not belong in the fire area. Can you get away with it? Sure, but eventually your shortcut will catch up to you; and you will not like the results. True story: an engine stretches dry into a single-story home and makes it into a bedroom before calling for water. Fire extends from a room opposite theirs and traps them until the back-up line with water puts out the fire. The first engine was trying to save time. My question is, how much time is your life worth? Waiting for water is time well spent, it worked for second engine.

Egress is to be protected. Have you ever been told that the front entrance of a home that has fire showing from it would be best protected by ignoring that area? And that you should work your way to the back as a starting point? That plan should give you pause. “No one could make it through that doorway alive,” they will say, and that may be true; but with a rapid knockdown, anyone still near the main egress hub will have a much better chance of survival, now that we are able to directly enter the home.

Hoseline placement that bypasses the interior stairs in favor of a fire-floor window can leave us wanting, if the fire forces us to back out. Time to slide the hoseline! Your stretch may have been shorter but you eliminated safe egress from it. By using that stretch, you really didn’t look after your crew like you thought you did. You saved them some work, but you didn’t protect them as well as you could have.

Tying up an aerial ladder to create a makeshift standpipe riser is another option that shortchanges rescue capability as well as engine safety. This tactic does it all, and it can seem so benign. True story: a department had a large apartment house and wondered the best way to get the first line to the upper floors, so the ladder company boss suggested using the aerial as a standpipe riser. When asked what about losing his exterior rescue capability, he stated that it was okay because the department had another truck company. He just couldn’t see it.

Doors that are not wedged open, lines that are not thoroughly flaked out, and lines that are undersized all lead to problems on the fireground and are a form of shortcutting that does not protect our people or the public to the best of our ability. We must take care of the little things in the engine! There are no little things in the engine! You must know what to look for; you must see it; and you must fix it.

Firefighters and officers who operate outside sound engine company tactical boundaries need to examine the "why" behind their choices and methods, and, it is hoped, they discover in the process the underlying role of the engine company, which is to raise everyone’s tactical safety level on the fireground.

A special THANK YOU to Captain Erich Roden, Milwaukee FD, for allowing us to reprint this article from his excellent website THEHOUSEWATCH.COM