2 in 2 out

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Permalink Reply by Brian Arnold on May 19, 2009 at 9:19am

Drew,
I would never question your agressiveness. I don't play the guessing game if I wasnt' there and there are always two sides to every story. On fire attack, offensive or defensive, the point of the attack is to keep the fire from getting bigger. Short staffed companies look at the option of placing a hose line in the window to get an initial knock on the fire. I understand that. I too have worked for a volunteer company that rolled with 3, then a smaller career dept. with a max staffing of 8 and now am spoiled with manning out the ears on each fire alarm. While each fire is different in it's heat production, room configuration, doors open or closed, etc. you are playing russian roulette with any civilians that may still be inside when you stick a line in a window. For those that think you don't push heat and fire try being in full gear on the other side of one of these well intentioned attacks and you'll know what I'm speaking about. Then think about having absolutely no proctection at all like the victims we are trying to save.
My actions for fire attack are decided upon a gathering of all available information, including staffing, possibility of viable victims, location and size of fire, etc. etc. etc. they are not based on what some lawyer may think about it 3 years later in a court of law. I will take great risks to save a life but will not throw away those lives of my men or myself.

The 2/2 rule was meant to help the bean counters understand that we are entering a dangerous atmosphere and we need more staffing on the scene to make life safer for the firefighters as well as the civilian population we are charged with protecting. They even put a little escape clause for themselves in it that says we can go inside to save a life if there aren't enough people on scene. I thik they did this to save their own butts if they have to go before those same afformentioned lawyers. Politicians and lawyers common sense in relation to firefighting is neither common or sensable. I know very few that have walked a mile in the shoes of a firefighter, yet they write the rules? The rule that they need to write is one of adequate staffing for every fire dept. in the country, but I'm not holding my breath. If we had adequate staffing it would nulify their 2/2 rule since we would always have it on scene or enroute.

I'll stand by my assertion of sticking a line in a window is a defensive tactic, that compromises victim survivabilty. And that is the great thing about this site, we can respectfully agree to disagree at times.

Brian

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Permalink Reply by Adam Miceli on May 20, 2009 at 2:38pm

I would never advocate an attack starting through a window due to the 2 in/ 2 out rule; as a specific tactical choice where victim viability is not likely, maybe. As Michael Bricault said, it's really not a valid approach to an offensive attack.

But, as was also noted, we use this when employing a "marginal attack" or a "blitz". You need to be certain that there are no viable victims in the room or potentially in the path of the steam, heat and smoke that may permeate the building. Not necessarily "pushed" by the straight stream but by the volume of the expanding steam, a little bit goes a long way. You likely cannot be sure how confined the fire is. Is the door to the room open? Are the wall or ceiling intact? The interior crew cannot make forward progress, so the fire gets darken by a larger line or gun, knowing full well we're in property protection mode, not rescue.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Bricault on May 20, 2009 at 10:53pm

-A consistent theme with many respondents is that the occupancy be void of occupants in order to really go to work with the hand line, even through the window. The key to this tactic being acceptable, they have said, is that the occupancy is empty.
-So how do you know? The answer is that firefighters don't know until they have made entry. Period. Until such time as the primary being completed firefighters must consider the structure to be occupied. The occupancy type and/or information from bystanders is not reliable. The only way to be sure is to perform the primary search.
-Something started the fire. Even abandoned buildings need to be searched. Short of a lightning strike someone got in and started the fire; and they still may be inside.

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Permalink Reply by Larry Lasich on May 20, 2009 at 11:50pm

Michael Bricault said:

-A consistent theme with many respondents is that the occupancy be void of occupants in order to really go to work with the hand line, even through the window. The key to this tactic being acceptable, they have said, is that the occupancy is empty.
-So how do you know? The answer is that firefighters don't know until they have made entry. Period. Until such time as the primary being completed firefighters must consider the structure to be occupied. The occupancy type and/or information from bystanders is not reliable. The only way to be sure is to perform the primary search.
-Something started the fire. Even abandoned buildings need to be searched. Short of a lightning strike someone got in and started the fire; and they still may be inside.

Your going to send two crews into a collapsing structure to look for an arsonist?
We have stopped finding new ways to kill ourselves. We will now kill ourselves in the same old ways.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Bricault on May 21, 2009 at 12:49am

-Sounds great if you know the victim is an arsonist; someone that set the fire maliciously. How about homeless people that set the fire accidentally, or curious children playing with matches?
-Remember, the fire service doesn't judge people, thats what the cops and courts are for. Firefighters save lives; without question or exception. And until they issue crystal balls, we go in to perform a search for ANYONE that may be trapped inside.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Gennaro on May 21, 2009 at 7:05am

Michael Bricault said:

-A consistent theme with many respondents is that the occupancy be void of occupants in order to really go to work with the hand line, even through the window. The key to this tactic being acceptable, they have said, is that the occupancy is empty.
-So how do you know? The answer is that firefighters don't know until they have made entry. Period. Until such time as the primary being completed firefighters must consider the structure to be occupied. The occupancy type and/or information from bystanders is not reliable. The only way to be sure is to perform the primary search.
-Something started the fire. Even abandoned buildings need to be searched. Short of a lightning strike someone got in and started the fire; and they still may be inside.

Mike,

I think you're missing the point here bro. The guy who posted this asked about fire extinguishment techniques for a rural department with limited staffing. You might be able to stand around on scene for 30 seconds to 3 minutes and wait for the next unit to make an agressive interior seach/fire attack but not all departments can do that! If you work for a rural department and the occupants say "everybody is out" you've got to make a decision/do something. Personally......I've been in that situation before several times where the next unit was 25 minutes out and I was working on an engine with 2 firefighters(including me). The most appropriate action to take is extinguish the fire from a window, doorway, or whatever to control the fire.

Don't get me wrong here! If there's a confirmed life safety situation you would have to get the driver to pack out and make a primary seach. Life safety is our primary mission and I think we'll all agree on that issue. The difference that we have is with implementing our strategy. The attitude of "the occupancy isn't clear of life safety until the FD searches" may work for a city/urban department but may not work for a rural department. You know what I'm saying here?

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Permalink Reply by Adam Miceli on May 21, 2009 at 7:54am

Adam Miceli said:

I would never advocate an attack starting through a window due to the 2 in/ 2 out rule; as a specific tactical choice where victim viability is not likely, maybe. As Michael Bricault said, it's really not a valid approach to an offensive attack.

But, as was also noted, we use this when employing a "marginal attack" or a "blitz". You need to be certain that there are no viable victims in the room or potentially in the path of the steam, heat and smoke that may permeate the building. Not necessarily "pushed" by the straight stream but by the volume of the expanding steam, a little bit goes a long way. You likely cannot be sure how confined the fire is. Is the door to the room open? Are the wall or ceiling intact? The interior crew cannot make forward progress, so the fire gets darken by a larger line or gun, knowing full well we're in property protection mode, not rescue.

In case there was any confusion on my original post, we employ the "Blitz" attack through a window when the room is involved to the point where life is not sustainable and we need to darken the fire to get inside. This is a rare occasion as between adequate GPM and ventilation a push can usually be made, but there are times when there is too much fire for the immediate crew. Again, we have already given up to the fact that no lives are savable in the fire area and a large amount of water is needed to rapidly overcome the BTU's fast with as little steam as possible.
I think what Michael is saying is that if we're not confirming or convinced (how?) that all viable victims are out, how do we abandon interior tactics for those that will likely make conditions worse for them?

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Permalink Reply by Larry Lasich on May 21, 2009 at 10:50am

Michael Bricault said:

-Sounds great if you know the victim is an arsonist; someone that set the fire maliciously. How about homeless people that set the fire accidentally, or curious children playing with matches?
-Remember, the fire service doesn't judge people, thats what the cops and courts are for. Firefighters save lives; without question or exception. And until they issue crystal balls, we go in to perform a search for ANYONE that may be trapped inside.

Have you seen the meny video clips and read the meny near miss reports where a firefighter goes in to search and comes out ten seconds later on fire? How about the 4 am Mcburger fire where the two ton A/C units fall through the roof. How about the bow string truss that has fire impingment.

I'd like to see a breakdown on how meny times we go into marginal conditions for a search/rescue that result in people being removed that were still alive 1 month later and how meny resulted in dead or injured firefighters. I have a gut feel that, like ignition sources and exposures, we bring victims to the incident.

We did not start the fire, and there isn't anything that we can do to make it better. If we do everything right and we are very lucky, we can only keep it from getting worse.

Terrorists like to kill first responders. They have a reason to. If we aren't there, everyone dies, every time.

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Permalink Reply by Adam Miceli on May 21, 2009 at 12:04pm

Larry Lasich said:

I'd like to see a breakdown on how meny times we go into marginal conditions for a search/rescue that result in people being removed that were still alive 1 month later and how meny resulted in dead or injured firefighters. I have a gut feel that, like ignition sources and exposures, we bring victims to the incident.

We did not start the fire, and there isn't anything that we can do to make it better. If we do everything right and we are very lucky, we can only keep it from getting worse.

Terrorists like to kill first responders. They have a reason to. If we aren't there, everyone dies, every time.

Larry, one must also ask, how often a marginal attack or aggressive search reveals unexpected occupants? While we struggle to reduce all LODDs how many of us die as a result of over aggressive tactics for the situation vs. numerous other factors? I think we can all agree that a measured risk assessment is called for in every incident regardless of victims, construction and fire. Fires are extremely dynamic events that we cannot know all the variables to before we act.

On the terrorist thing? How many of our brothers or sisters have been injured or killed in an attack directly targeting them? It's more hype. We have to do our jobs and stop worrying about the things that don't factor in much and focus on the key issues like Physical Fitness and driving safer.

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Permalink Reply by Larry Lasich on May 21, 2009 at 12:40pm

What I was saying is, save your people and they will save others. Kill them and no one gets saved.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Truty on May 21, 2009 at 1:42pm

Here's an example of where the fire service has held on to something way too long, that is the interior attack and the "unprofessionalism" of an in-the-window knockdown. We spend way too much time trying to find our way to a room during an interior attack at the risk, often unnecessarily, of our own. There is no better way to help a victim (if there is one) than to put the fire out or at least knock it down AS QUICKLY as possible. Why? This allows for much more rapid entry into a much safer environment. I've seen firefighters take charged hose lines past vented windows and then take an additional 5 mins to find their way to the room where they were just at and the fire has now grown significantly (What do you think happened to the victim?). Interior combustible compositions have changed dramatically in the last 20 years and flammable and toxic atmospheres now exist way beyond the fire area. We can now put 200+gpm rapidly onto a fire, with preconnects if so desired, which will overwhelm most 1 or 2 room fires. No one is saying we have to use indirect attacks and upset thermal balances and everything else that goes along with saving a potential victim or use opposing streams, but putting water on the fire as rapidly as possible will do more than anything else to help all of us. RIT teams (2-in 2-out) must be a requirement but they're less important if the fire is in the process of being extinguished.

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Permalink Reply by Grant Graham on May 21, 2009 at 2:18pm

Unfortunately, unless there is a rescue to be made, the dept I work for will have to do things this way initially. There are only 3 of us on the daytime shift and this includes the chief. We rely on volunteer FF to bring the remaining apparatus and provide manpower. We also rely on mutual aid of course. I agree with knocking the fire down quickly coupled with adequate ventilation (right place, at the right time). These 2 tactics usually let us get a handle on things at most private dwelling fires.

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