Positive Pressure Ventilation

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jim Mason on December 8, 2008 at 3:25pm

Yeah Scott
That's what I'm concerned with, that we work together. Like I say, can we make a mistake and have the fire come towards us if we passively vent the wrong way? Yes, but we usually have time to get things done or at least to get out.

Fire story - I was searching as a FF with a Lt. in an exposure. The main building was written off beacuse it was a large 3 story ballon frame and fully invovled, top to bottom. This fire was intense enough to come through a bedroom window on side 2/B and was traveling across the dinning room towards side 4/D. It eventually went on to break through those windows and expose the next building's blank brickwall. We entered into the kitchen of the second floor apartment at the rear, which at that point was the only vent h*** in the building except where the fire had made it inside.
Again, we were there to do a primary search w/ no hose line. The Lt stayed at the door to watch conditions as I made the search of the kitchen area. When I got to the hallway going to the dinning room, that room's smoke and heat was starting to churn on the ceiling. There were also little flickers of fire about 2 inches tall all over the linoleum covered hallway between the kitchen and dinning room. It was like a hundred of so large gas stove pilots, spaced about 2 inches on center across the floor.
Of course, I turned towards the bedroom off the kitchen, finished that room and we left to get a hose line. By the time we got back, of course the kitchen and the bedroom had flashed over even though we closed the outside doors when we left.
The point is we had time to make things happen even though the vent h*** was our entrance into the building. We would have been in trouble if there were three unconscious adults sleeping in the bedroom that had to be moved towards the outside because there was no door between the dinning room starting to flash and our position.
If the change in conditions is so quick that I get stuck, now what? I'm really talking about beofre the fire gets knocked down, not really after when we're clearing the building of cold smoke.
Here's the question can we coordinate this effectively enough to ensure that our members on the fire ground won;t get jazzed up? And if so how?

Permalink Reply by Kriss Garcia on December 10, 2008 at 10:09am

Art,
I couldn't agree with more. PPA is a very safe and effective means of performing a fire attack if you know what your doing. There has to be departmental buy in for the education and training to take place so that everyone knows what to do and what not to do. We have a sample SOP on our web site positivepressureattack.com that agencies starting the procedure should use. If it is followed they will be okay. They can get more in depth later.. Another good resource is the articles listed in the resource area of our web page. You can get them there fore free without joining any other web site.

Keep thinking and communicating as you have and we will all be better off.

Thanks
Kriss

Permalink Reply by Brian Arnold on December 10, 2008 at 1:18pm

Chief Garcia,

Glad to see you weigh in here. My contention with ventilation practices all along related to using a fan is that PPV and PPA are two different techniques. You have to have a solid foundation of fire behaviour before employing any ventilation practice. We approach use of fan similarly to what Scott was eluding to earlier in the post.

Permalink Reply by Art Zern on December 10, 2008 at 10:43pm

Gents,

I have been away in Phoenix have not been following-up on the posts. As usual, the Common Sense Firefighting group members and other interested parties have provided thoughtful, informed and interesting information on this topic.

I was considering posting a summary of this thread in the form of a Training Bulletin at some point. It is difficult to scroll through and take notes etc. I am intested in the group's thoughts on this. If it works out, I would be happy to follow-up with CSF Training Bulletins on other threads. Do you think that would be useful? Give me your thoughts.

Thanks,

Art

Permalink Reply by Art Zern on December 10, 2008 at 10:44pm

Chief Garcia,

Thanks for your reply, I will check your site and with your permission, post some of that info here. I was also planning on summarizing much of the good info that has been posted here as a "training bulletin" on this thread. Our goal is/should be, to get accurate info out there on important and sometimes controversial issues such as PPV and PPA.

Thanks again,

Art

Permalink Reply by Art Zern on December 10, 2008 at 10:56pm

Brick,

As usual, thanks for your reply. I was looking to get some good, accurate, informational material on this thread that members can use to gain a fuller understanding of PPV and PPA. As I said in the intro, I know of many departments that have and continue to have success using these techniques. However, I am also aware that there is a great deal of questionable info and a general misunderstanding of these techniques which often leads to their misapplication and on some occasions with disastrous results.

Thanks again for your participation,

Art

Permalink Reply by Jim Mason on December 11, 2008 at 3:05pm

Guys,
The training bulletins and points for the uses and mis-uses of the techniques are great ideas. I'd certainly like to see them. I'm also going to look on the Kriss G's site again for the ways to apply it.

Permalink Reply by Art Zern on December 31, 2008 at 6:15pm

Gents,

As promised, I have added a Discussion Summary for the Positive Pressure Ventilation thread. I’ll post it HERE and on the PPV discussion post. I find it difficult to scroll and follow the discussions and I thought it might be easier to view the discussion in a Word document.

Take a look and let me know if it is helpful and if I/we should add this feature to some of the longer CSF group discussions.

Thanks to all of the CSF contributors who take of their time to pass-on valuable training information. This has been very helpful to me and I’m sure many other members have increased their knowledge base thanks to the CSF members.

Art

Attachments:

• PPV Discussion Summary.doc, 97 KB

Permalink Reply by Scott Kleinschmidt on December 31, 2008 at 6:41pm

Thanks Chief

Permalink Reply by Jeff Schwering on January 1, 2009 at 11:37am

That is great in a word doc Art. I can print this off and take it to work and give our training officer, more to think about this winter for indoor and in the spring, outdoor training. Many of the discussions we have in CSF should be passed along to our members. The Fire Service is getting into a period of losing many years of experience and knowledge. We owe it to those who are the future in our business, to pass this knowledge along now, might keep them alive later.

Stay Safe
Jeff

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