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17 May 2024
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Featured FRI Magazine article: Advancing handlines in structural firefighting by Colin Deiner (FRI Vol 2 no 3)
As far as possible, attack teams should attempt to advance the line in an uncharged state
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When next you need to write the specs for a new attack pumper, consider the fact that you need to deploy your handlines quickly and effectively
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Many services will also preconnect nozzles to the end of the attack lines
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https://www.frimedia.org/uploads/1/2/2/7/122743954/fri_vol2_no3_final_combined_proof.pdf
This week’s featured Fire and Rescue International magazine article is: Advancing handlines in structural firefighting written by Colin Deiner, chief director, Disaster management and Fire Brigade Services, Western Cape Government (FRI Vol 2 no 3). We will be sharing more technical/research/tactical articles from Fire and Rescue International magazine on a weekly basis with our readers to assist in technology transfer. This will hopefully create an increased awareness, providing you with hands-on advice and guidance. All our magazines are available free of charge in PDF format on our website and online at ISSUU. We also provide all technical articles as a free download in our article archive on our website.
Advancing handlines in structural firefighting
By Colin Deiner, chief director, Disaster management and Fire Brigade Services, Western Cape Government
One of the most common incidents our fire services respond to is family dwelling fires. In most cases the fire department will arrive at such a fire to find that the occupants have already evacuated the structure. The need for an aggressive interior fire attack may not always be necessary and could be hampered by a number of conditions such as security, roof construction and ventilation considerations. When it is, however, required to enter the structure rapidly in order to reach trapped occupants and save lives, an aggressive interior attack will be your most potent strategy.
The focus of this article will be to provide some advice on how to do it effectively and hopefully save a few lives along the way.
The one single thing that has saved more lives in structural fires than anything else has been the rapid and effective deployment of the first handline. This must be the primary consideration of every first responding unit to a fire with a potential life risk and all initial activities must be focussed on achieving this objective.
The next important consideration should be where to deploy the first line. Assuming your service is focussed on an aggressive interior attack doctrine and will always consider this as the first option, it would be advisable to deploy the first handline through the front entrance of the house. It is usually the most accessible and easiest to reach and provides a means of access to the rest of the structure ie main passage and stairs. It will also generally be the obvious route of escape for the occupants.
Thirdly, the amount of hose to be deployed needs to be considered. The attack line must have sufficient length to reach the fire and provide for enough manoeuvrability to allow the hose team the freedom of movement to any position they need to take inside the structure. Sometimes hose teams tend to deploy too much hose fearing that they might not have enough to reach the seat of the fire. This will cause excessive kinking of the line and in a confined passageway, will limit movement of, not only the initial attack team, but any other teams conducting rescue, ventilation and forcible entry activities.
Determining the amount of hose required cannot be the result of educated guess work and should be the result of some thorough preplanning where buildings within a particular station area have been visited and a general understanding of the types of structures have been achieved. It is obvious that not all homes are the same and that we won’t get it 100 percent correct every time. It is, however, a fact that most dwellings in a specific residential area are of similar design and should roughly be the same in terms of construction. Take a trip through your station area, have a look at the dwellings and offices situated there. Ask to visit places where you might anticipate a problem. In the end this might just be the difference between success and failure.
Before starting an interior attack, fire fighters must determine the exact location of the fire. A fire might not necessarily be in the same location as where it was first reported. If it was reported on one floor and it turns out that it is in fact several floors higher, it could cause significant delays in getting the attack started.
Estimating the amount of hose required will entail determining the length of hose line needed inside the structure, as well as the amount needed from the fire pumper to the point of entry. This will be determined largely by how far the building is located from the street and the position of the engine in relation to the building entrance. The landscape ie lawn features, fences etc will also impact on this.
A single vehicle response to a structural fire is at best not ideal. Staffing on these vehicles generally totals four fire fighters; six at most and then you are very lucky. Each of these four will assume the following roles:
1 x officer (incident commander)
1 x pump operator
2 x fire fighters
This will limit your attack to one handline deployment with no back-up, which will mean that your hose team will enter the structure without any ventilation, forcible entry or rescue support. The result…..loss of life, more smoke damage and the possible entrapment of fire fighters. You are also reliant on one fire pump that, if it fails, could compromise your entire fire attack. Single engine responses are for dumpster and car fires….end of argument.
A standard operating procedure for structural fires should include two engines and one ladder truck or ladder tender. Your first engine should do a drive by of the building and get at least three views. This will assist the incident commander in his/her rapid size-up. It should then position in the most optimal position for the deployment of the initial attack line and access to the primary water supply. The second engine should be placed in such a position that it can secure a secondary water source and provide water to the first engine (tandem pumping). The front of the structure should be the domain of the aerial appliance.
Your hose deployment should take these operating procedures into account. Pre-incident exercises should always include the stretching of dry lines. This will eliminate problems when responding to an actual fire. If a specific building requires a longer hose load and will save the lives of the people living there, it must be available when a fire occurs there.
Multi-storey structures
The most important consideration for calculating the amount of hose needed is based on the building’s size and its stair configuration.
During any interior fire attack of a large structure, a fairly senior person should be designated the ‘control fire fighter’. This is a practice that has been in use by the City of New York Fire Department for many years. This fire fighter is responsible for calculating the amount of hose required needed to reach the fire and ensuring that it is properly deployed.
In two storey family dwellings, three lengths should be sufficient although it is important to stretch enough hose to cover the entire building as it may be necessary to cover escape routes. In multiple family dwellings (flats), a simple method would be to use the floor number of the fire floor to determine the number of hose lengths required plus one (four floors = five lengths). This would account for one length of hose between each floor and an additional hose for the fire floor. It would be a good idea to have an extra length available on the fire floor to cover any unforeseen eventualities.
For larger multiple dwellings it would be good to start with the floor number of the seat of the fire and immediately add one length. The distance between the entrance door and the stairs could require an additional length. In a five-storey structure, for example, you will have the six lengths needed for each floor (and to reach the fire on the fire floor) as well as the length required between the entrance and the stairs. Also consider an extra length for the fire floor in case of a large fire. When you are dealing with large rooms, long hallways and large lobbies, your calculations may need to be more generous than those mentioned above.
A second handline can be deployed at a multi-storey structure with the main purpose of covering areas above the main body of the fire and for this reason it is advisable to add an additional length to the second line. This second line could be used to protect search and rescue teams or to control fire spread. Second lines can also be used in single storey structures to prevent fire spread in adjoining rooms.
When a third line is needed, it would be advisable to stretch this line outside the building, if possible. This is to prevent the difficulties that will be created by having three hoselines lying together on the same flight of stairs and having to be moved without the risk of getting entangled. If this flight of stairs is also the egress route for internal firefighting crews, the movement of people can also become a hazardous undertaking.
The external hose can be raised up and stabilised by means of a rope deployed from a stairway or room window, a fire escape balcony or the roof of the building. Ropes to be used for this purpose should be kept in a space close to the hose deck and should be fitted with snap hook attachments to make them easy to deploy.
Aerial ladders
Aerial ladders are used by fire services for the following four reasons:
When it becomes necessary to use an aerial apparatus to deploy a handline, there are two things that should never be done:
Do not allow the handline to lie on the ladder. Rather have the line run vertically up the side of the building and secure it with a hose strap. This will lead to less hose being needed and free up the ladder for other tasks.
If your ladder platform or hydraulic platform has a hydrant outlet in the cage, it should not be used as a handline for extended attack. This will tie up one of your most critical resources and you will not be able to move it to perform any emergency tasks such as rescue elsewhere. The best thing to do is to remove this outlet altogether or put in place some really strict rules as to when it can be used.
Preconnected lines
Virtually all modern day structural fire apparatus are fitted with preconnected hose lines. The length of these lines are reliant either on a well researched calculation of the average lengths needed in the specific operational area, the maximum amount of hose that can be carried or simply no change from what was placed there by the supplier (no science, no brains).
In many cases, pumpers are fitted with ‘cross-lay’ hose beds, which run across the width of the truck and are normally located midship and close to the pump.
The problem that can be faced here is that the preconnected lines might not be sufficient to reach the seat of fire. There are a number of ways to address this challenge. The most common would be to have an additional length of hose placed close to the preconnect line, which can be carried by the nozzle operator and simply added to the line if necessary. Some services have invested in, or developed, a type of strapping to ensure easier carrying of the additional hose. These ‘hose packs’ can be taken to the entrance of a structure, dropped somewhere convenient and then reached and added when a need to stretch the line becomes necessary.
Connecting additional hose to the pump outlet becomes a problem when a preconnect line is attached to a swivel type discharge, commonly found on a cross-lay configuration. The solution here would be to ensure that the initial hose length is only around two to three metres long, which allows breaking into the line so much easier. This method can also be used on older pumpers where the discharge is located at the rear of the truck just below the hose bed.
In structures where more than one line may be required, it is advisable to consider the placement of a hose load consisting of a manifold (gated wye) running out of a 65mm line. From the manifold, a predetermined number of 45mm lines can be preconnected and bundled together with strapping; inner tubes, old seatbelts or a premanufactured belt configuration could be used for this purpose. Many services will also preconnect nozzles to the end of the attack lines.
This hose load can be deployed to the most advantageous position on the fire ground. In multi-storey buildings it could be placed in the lobby or floor below the fire, while in single dwelling structures it could be brought to a point just before the entrance and be prepared for action. The first line can then be uncoiled, charged and advanced towards the fire. Any additional lines can then be attached to the manifold and deployed where necessary. A word of caution: always ensure that you have more than one water supply to your interior hose teams. Losing your only water supply is dangerous, unprofessional and just stupid.
Advancing the handline
Moving the hose to the point of attack must be able to be done easily by one fire fighter and must be sufficient to cover the entire fire area. Trying to drag a charged line becomes difficult due to its mass. It will also probably get snagged on fences, doors, corners, vehicles etc. The traditional ‘running out’ of hoses stored on a vehicle in a coiled circle can cause any number of problems. The sudden charging of a ‘run-out’ hose could cause kinking and present many problems that need to be sorted out before it can be advanced. It is also very difficult to determine the length of the line being deployed and you normally end up with a fair amount of hose at the entrance to the fire building. This can get in the way of your positive pressure ventilation teams trying to set a blower up at the optimum position in front of the door.
As far as possible, attack teams should attempt to advance the line in an uncharged state. It is much easier and more efficient than trying to advance a charged or ‘wet’ line.
The question of when to charge the line varies according to the size and type of structure involved. In single family structures, hoses are usually deployed in an evenly spaced s-shaped configuration close to the entrance. Care must be taken here to prevent any kinking of the hose. In more confined spaces it may be necessary to deploy the line further back.
In a multi-occupancy structure, the hose will normally be deployed in the public hallway and charged at the entrance to the fire-involved room. It is, however, important to maintain the integrity of the door and to make sure that you have a control fire fighter at that door. Other than facilitating entry for the attack team, the door will also serve as an escape route and can also be used for positive pressure ventilation. Entering through a closed door with a fire on the other side can sometimes have some nasty surprises. Make sure that you are not entering a room where the fire is close to closed door on the other side. If you see any blistering or melting of the paint, or the door is hot to the touch, you must anticipate the possibility of a backdraft when you open the door.
Doors that have been left open by occupants fleeing the fire have often caused a fire to spread into the hallway, making it impossible to set up in this position. It will then, most likely, become necessary to set up on the floor below the fire and advance the attack line up the stairs. This is a difficult job but may be the only safe course of action.
If the hallway on the fire floor is free of smoke and heat and doesn’t present any other obstructions, the attack line can then be deployed here. Be careful, however, not to overcrowd the floor, especially as this might be the only walkway for all the people working the fire.
The pump discharge
In previous articles, I have often advocated the use of dedicated engine and truck companies for response to structural fires. I do, however, realise that many South African services are not able to respond to structural fires with more than one vehicle and therefore attempt to load every piece of equipment they think they will need, onto a fire truck. When designing a truck, many services also specify large compartment spaces and bigger booster tanks, which usually results in hose decks being located higher and higher, making it more difficult to reach. Not only does this cause a safety risk but could also lead to hose loads being pulled off decks in an uncontrolled way, causing severe kinking and wasting time.
When next you need to write the specs for a new attack pumper, consider the fact that you need to deploy your handlines quickly and effectively and ensure that the vehicle is so constructed as to overcome the limitations posed by modern fire truck requirements.
Fire services must continuously evaluate the types of fires they are called to respond to and ensure that whatever hose loads they are using, will provide the maximum efficiency in dealing with these fires. If you are responding to many single structure ‘room and contents’ fires on cold winter mornings that have been caused by heaters being left on and you have designed a hose load to reach these rooms, make sure your attack teams practice using them often and are completely comfortable with the way they will deploy and different circumstances.
Ensure also that your pump operators are proficient in providing adequate discharge pressures, especially when pumping to manifolds. The pump operator must continuously be kept up to date as to what is been added or removed from the line; especially if you are working a multi-storey fire where he/she is not able to have eyes on the actual fire attack.
As lines get longer, it would also be good to increase the diameter of the attack line to negate the friction loss that may occur. I have always preferred a 45mm-diameter line as the ideal interior attack line. It allows for easier handling and manoeuvring without compromising the capacity too much.
Finally, in a large structural fire where many discharge lines are in operation and hoses are deployed in different places, it can become awfully confusing when you don’t know which discharge is connected to which line. Make sure that this is done correctly from the start. You don’t want a pump operator closing down a line for replacement of a hose when that line is the only thing that separates an interior attack team from a raging fire. You laugh, it happens!
Finally
Deploying handlines are only the start of the operation. The real work begins when you start advancing the line into the structure. I will deal with part with next time in ‘Stretching handlines’.
As a rookie, I was always surprised at how our training officers used to chase the hell out of us when teaching us how to run out hose. I don’t think any older fire fighter will ever forget the words “one line consisting of three lengths”; I’m sure some of us wake up in a cold sweat some nights with those words still ringing in our heads. Of course we were so knackered by the time we reached the fire, that I don’t know how we were still expected to fight the fire for another couple of hours.
The point is that a fire ground was not made for running. Trip hazards abound and when last I checked, Nike was not in the fire boot manufacturing business. Firefighters should know how to pace themselves both physically and mentally. The amount of time you save running on a fire ground can be lost if you fall and injure yourself or drop a hose load that has to be reset before it can be advanced.
Advancing a handline requires discipline and concentration and requires a firefighter to conserve energy, prevent injuries and maintain focus on the task at hand without losing sight of the overall objective.
This week’s featured Fire and Rescue International magazine article is: Advancing handlines in structural firefighting written by Colin Deiner, chief director, Disaster management and Fire Brigade Services, Western Cape Government (FRI Vol 2 no 3). We will be sharing more technical/research/tactical articles from Fire and Rescue International magazine on a weekly basis with our readers to assist in technology transfer. This will hopefully create an increased awareness, providing you with hands-on advice and guidance. All our magazines are available free of charge in PDF format on our website and online at ISSUU. We also provide all technical articles as a free download in our article archive on our website.
Advancing handlines in structural firefighting
By Colin Deiner, chief director, Disaster management and Fire Brigade Services, Western Cape Government
One of the most common incidents our fire services respond to is family dwelling fires. In most cases the fire department will arrive at such a fire to find that the occupants have already evacuated the structure. The need for an aggressive interior fire attack may not always be necessary and could be hampered by a number of conditions such as security, roof construction and ventilation considerations. When it is, however, required to enter the structure rapidly in order to reach trapped occupants and save lives, an aggressive interior attack will be your most potent strategy.
The focus of this article will be to provide some advice on how to do it effectively and hopefully save a few lives along the way.
The one single thing that has saved more lives in structural fires than anything else has been the rapid and effective deployment of the first handline. This must be the primary consideration of every first responding unit to a fire with a potential life risk and all initial activities must be focussed on achieving this objective.
The next important consideration should be where to deploy the first line. Assuming your service is focussed on an aggressive interior attack doctrine and will always consider this as the first option, it would be advisable to deploy the first handline through the front entrance of the house. It is usually the most accessible and easiest to reach and provides a means of access to the rest of the structure ie main passage and stairs. It will also generally be the obvious route of escape for the occupants.
Thirdly, the amount of hose to be deployed needs to be considered. The attack line must have sufficient length to reach the fire and provide for enough manoeuvrability to allow the hose team the freedom of movement to any position they need to take inside the structure. Sometimes hose teams tend to deploy too much hose fearing that they might not have enough to reach the seat of the fire. This will cause excessive kinking of the line and in a confined passageway, will limit movement of, not only the initial attack team, but any other teams conducting rescue, ventilation and forcible entry activities.
Determining the amount of hose required cannot be the result of educated guess work and should be the result of some thorough preplanning where buildings within a particular station area have been visited and a general understanding of the types of structures have been achieved. It is obvious that not all homes are the same and that we won’t get it 100 percent correct every time. It is, however, a fact that most dwellings in a specific residential area are of similar design and should roughly be the same in terms of construction. Take a trip through your station area, have a look at the dwellings and offices situated there. Ask to visit places where you might anticipate a problem. In the end this might just be the difference between success and failure.
Before starting an interior attack, fire fighters must determine the exact location of the fire. A fire might not necessarily be in the same location as where it was first reported. If it was reported on one floor and it turns out that it is in fact several floors higher, it could cause significant delays in getting the attack started.
Estimating the amount of hose required will entail determining the length of hose line needed inside the structure, as well as the amount needed from the fire pumper to the point of entry. This will be determined largely by how far the building is located from the street and the position of the engine in relation to the building entrance. The landscape ie lawn features, fences etc will also impact on this.
A single vehicle response to a structural fire is at best not ideal. Staffing on these vehicles generally totals four fire fighters; six at most and then you are very lucky. Each of these four will assume the following roles:
1 x officer (incident commander)
1 x pump operator
2 x fire fighters
This will limit your attack to one handline deployment with no back-up, which will mean that your hose team will enter the structure without any ventilation, forcible entry or rescue support. The result…..loss of life, more smoke damage and the possible entrapment of fire fighters. You are also reliant on one fire pump that, if it fails, could compromise your entire fire attack. Single engine responses are for dumpster and car fires….end of argument.
A standard operating procedure for structural fires should include two engines and one ladder truck or ladder tender. Your first engine should do a drive by of the building and get at least three views. This will assist the incident commander in his/her rapid size-up. It should then position in the most optimal position for the deployment of the initial attack line and access to the primary water supply. The second engine should be placed in such a position that it can secure a secondary water source and provide water to the first engine (tandem pumping). The front of the structure should be the domain of the aerial appliance.
Your hose deployment should take these operating procedures into account. Pre-incident exercises should always include the stretching of dry lines. This will eliminate problems when responding to an actual fire. If a specific building requires a longer hose load and will save the lives of the people living there, it must be available when a fire occurs there.
Multi-storey structures
The most important consideration for calculating the amount of hose needed is based on the building’s size and its stair configuration.
During any interior fire attack of a large structure, a fairly senior person should be designated the ‘control fire fighter’. This is a practice that has been in use by the City of New York Fire Department for many years. This fire fighter is responsible for calculating the amount of hose required needed to reach the fire and ensuring that it is properly deployed.
In two storey family dwellings, three lengths should be sufficient although it is important to stretch enough hose to cover the entire building as it may be necessary to cover escape routes. In multiple family dwellings (flats), a simple method would be to use the floor number of the fire floor to determine the number of hose lengths required plus one (four floors = five lengths). This would account for one length of hose between each floor and an additional hose for the fire floor. It would be a good idea to have an extra length available on the fire floor to cover any unforeseen eventualities.
For larger multiple dwellings it would be good to start with the floor number of the seat of the fire and immediately add one length. The distance between the entrance door and the stairs could require an additional length. In a five-storey structure, for example, you will have the six lengths needed for each floor (and to reach the fire on the fire floor) as well as the length required between the entrance and the stairs. Also consider an extra length for the fire floor in case of a large fire. When you are dealing with large rooms, long hallways and large lobbies, your calculations may need to be more generous than those mentioned above.
A second handline can be deployed at a multi-storey structure with the main purpose of covering areas above the main body of the fire and for this reason it is advisable to add an additional length to the second line. This second line could be used to protect search and rescue teams or to control fire spread. Second lines can also be used in single storey structures to prevent fire spread in adjoining rooms.
When a third line is needed, it would be advisable to stretch this line outside the building, if possible. This is to prevent the difficulties that will be created by having three hoselines lying together on the same flight of stairs and having to be moved without the risk of getting entangled. If this flight of stairs is also the egress route for internal firefighting crews, the movement of people can also become a hazardous undertaking.
The external hose can be raised up and stabilised by means of a rope deployed from a stairway or room window, a fire escape balcony or the roof of the building. Ropes to be used for this purpose should be kept in a space close to the hose deck and should be fitted with snap hook attachments to make them easy to deploy.
Aerial ladders
Aerial ladders are used by fire services for the following four reasons:
- To rescue fire fighters trapped on the upper floors
- To rescue civilians trapped on the upper floors
- To provide access to the fire building for topside ventilation and search
- For elevated master streams.
When it becomes necessary to use an aerial apparatus to deploy a handline, there are two things that should never be done:
Do not allow the handline to lie on the ladder. Rather have the line run vertically up the side of the building and secure it with a hose strap. This will lead to less hose being needed and free up the ladder for other tasks.
If your ladder platform or hydraulic platform has a hydrant outlet in the cage, it should not be used as a handline for extended attack. This will tie up one of your most critical resources and you will not be able to move it to perform any emergency tasks such as rescue elsewhere. The best thing to do is to remove this outlet altogether or put in place some really strict rules as to when it can be used.
Preconnected lines
Virtually all modern day structural fire apparatus are fitted with preconnected hose lines. The length of these lines are reliant either on a well researched calculation of the average lengths needed in the specific operational area, the maximum amount of hose that can be carried or simply no change from what was placed there by the supplier (no science, no brains).
In many cases, pumpers are fitted with ‘cross-lay’ hose beds, which run across the width of the truck and are normally located midship and close to the pump.
The problem that can be faced here is that the preconnected lines might not be sufficient to reach the seat of fire. There are a number of ways to address this challenge. The most common would be to have an additional length of hose placed close to the preconnect line, which can be carried by the nozzle operator and simply added to the line if necessary. Some services have invested in, or developed, a type of strapping to ensure easier carrying of the additional hose. These ‘hose packs’ can be taken to the entrance of a structure, dropped somewhere convenient and then reached and added when a need to stretch the line becomes necessary.
Connecting additional hose to the pump outlet becomes a problem when a preconnect line is attached to a swivel type discharge, commonly found on a cross-lay configuration. The solution here would be to ensure that the initial hose length is only around two to three metres long, which allows breaking into the line so much easier. This method can also be used on older pumpers where the discharge is located at the rear of the truck just below the hose bed.
In structures where more than one line may be required, it is advisable to consider the placement of a hose load consisting of a manifold (gated wye) running out of a 65mm line. From the manifold, a predetermined number of 45mm lines can be preconnected and bundled together with strapping; inner tubes, old seatbelts or a premanufactured belt configuration could be used for this purpose. Many services will also preconnect nozzles to the end of the attack lines.
This hose load can be deployed to the most advantageous position on the fire ground. In multi-storey buildings it could be placed in the lobby or floor below the fire, while in single dwelling structures it could be brought to a point just before the entrance and be prepared for action. The first line can then be uncoiled, charged and advanced towards the fire. Any additional lines can then be attached to the manifold and deployed where necessary. A word of caution: always ensure that you have more than one water supply to your interior hose teams. Losing your only water supply is dangerous, unprofessional and just stupid.
Advancing the handline
Moving the hose to the point of attack must be able to be done easily by one fire fighter and must be sufficient to cover the entire fire area. Trying to drag a charged line becomes difficult due to its mass. It will also probably get snagged on fences, doors, corners, vehicles etc. The traditional ‘running out’ of hoses stored on a vehicle in a coiled circle can cause any number of problems. The sudden charging of a ‘run-out’ hose could cause kinking and present many problems that need to be sorted out before it can be advanced. It is also very difficult to determine the length of the line being deployed and you normally end up with a fair amount of hose at the entrance to the fire building. This can get in the way of your positive pressure ventilation teams trying to set a blower up at the optimum position in front of the door.
As far as possible, attack teams should attempt to advance the line in an uncharged state. It is much easier and more efficient than trying to advance a charged or ‘wet’ line.
The question of when to charge the line varies according to the size and type of structure involved. In single family structures, hoses are usually deployed in an evenly spaced s-shaped configuration close to the entrance. Care must be taken here to prevent any kinking of the hose. In more confined spaces it may be necessary to deploy the line further back.
In a multi-occupancy structure, the hose will normally be deployed in the public hallway and charged at the entrance to the fire-involved room. It is, however, important to maintain the integrity of the door and to make sure that you have a control fire fighter at that door. Other than facilitating entry for the attack team, the door will also serve as an escape route and can also be used for positive pressure ventilation. Entering through a closed door with a fire on the other side can sometimes have some nasty surprises. Make sure that you are not entering a room where the fire is close to closed door on the other side. If you see any blistering or melting of the paint, or the door is hot to the touch, you must anticipate the possibility of a backdraft when you open the door.
Doors that have been left open by occupants fleeing the fire have often caused a fire to spread into the hallway, making it impossible to set up in this position. It will then, most likely, become necessary to set up on the floor below the fire and advance the attack line up the stairs. This is a difficult job but may be the only safe course of action.
If the hallway on the fire floor is free of smoke and heat and doesn’t present any other obstructions, the attack line can then be deployed here. Be careful, however, not to overcrowd the floor, especially as this might be the only walkway for all the people working the fire.
The pump discharge
In previous articles, I have often advocated the use of dedicated engine and truck companies for response to structural fires. I do, however, realise that many South African services are not able to respond to structural fires with more than one vehicle and therefore attempt to load every piece of equipment they think they will need, onto a fire truck. When designing a truck, many services also specify large compartment spaces and bigger booster tanks, which usually results in hose decks being located higher and higher, making it more difficult to reach. Not only does this cause a safety risk but could also lead to hose loads being pulled off decks in an uncontrolled way, causing severe kinking and wasting time.
When next you need to write the specs for a new attack pumper, consider the fact that you need to deploy your handlines quickly and effectively and ensure that the vehicle is so constructed as to overcome the limitations posed by modern fire truck requirements.
Fire services must continuously evaluate the types of fires they are called to respond to and ensure that whatever hose loads they are using, will provide the maximum efficiency in dealing with these fires. If you are responding to many single structure ‘room and contents’ fires on cold winter mornings that have been caused by heaters being left on and you have designed a hose load to reach these rooms, make sure your attack teams practice using them often and are completely comfortable with the way they will deploy and different circumstances.
Ensure also that your pump operators are proficient in providing adequate discharge pressures, especially when pumping to manifolds. The pump operator must continuously be kept up to date as to what is been added or removed from the line; especially if you are working a multi-storey fire where he/she is not able to have eyes on the actual fire attack.
As lines get longer, it would also be good to increase the diameter of the attack line to negate the friction loss that may occur. I have always preferred a 45mm-diameter line as the ideal interior attack line. It allows for easier handling and manoeuvring without compromising the capacity too much.
Finally, in a large structural fire where many discharge lines are in operation and hoses are deployed in different places, it can become awfully confusing when you don’t know which discharge is connected to which line. Make sure that this is done correctly from the start. You don’t want a pump operator closing down a line for replacement of a hose when that line is the only thing that separates an interior attack team from a raging fire. You laugh, it happens!
Finally
Deploying handlines are only the start of the operation. The real work begins when you start advancing the line into the structure. I will deal with part with next time in ‘Stretching handlines’.
As a rookie, I was always surprised at how our training officers used to chase the hell out of us when teaching us how to run out hose. I don’t think any older fire fighter will ever forget the words “one line consisting of three lengths”; I’m sure some of us wake up in a cold sweat some nights with those words still ringing in our heads. Of course we were so knackered by the time we reached the fire, that I don’t know how we were still expected to fight the fire for another couple of hours.
The point is that a fire ground was not made for running. Trip hazards abound and when last I checked, Nike was not in the fire boot manufacturing business. Firefighters should know how to pace themselves both physically and mentally. The amount of time you save running on a fire ground can be lost if you fall and injure yourself or drop a hose load that has to be reset before it can be advanced.
Advancing a handline requires discipline and concentration and requires a firefighter to conserve energy, prevent injuries and maintain focus on the task at hand without losing sight of the overall objective.