Been in a few situations where it got really hot. A few melted eyeshields and a h*** melted into a facepiece Ive learned a bit. You know it starts getting a bit hot when your air gets really warm. Sounds kinda strange but its very true. I've heard other guys tell me the same thing so it wasn't just me. The thermal radiation eventually gets through your PPE. You should start feeling it under your hood around face ears and neck. You also get a really hot feeling on your shoulders. At this point you should be backing up if you can or getting really close to the floor. If your in a room, get out! You shouldn't be in that kind of heat if no hoseline is around. Only if there is a KNOWN life hazard and you know a quick way out. Flashover may be near.

Three great comments! That's what I'm talking about. Barry, Thanks for the info on the air starting to get hotter. Brad, TIC's do work but not everyone has them. Also, Jeff, Thanks, I wouldn't wear the gantlet on my coat for that reason. SHHHHH.

Hey Skipper!!

Great question brother!! We try to get our folks to where the first two things they think about are building construction and fire behavior regarding their size-up. What are we burning and in what? The stuff you need to consider in order to make good decisions regarding your fire attack.

As for the heat, we are extremely fortunate to have a training center in our City where we can burn 24/7. We have a four story burn building and our folks teach flashover in our flashover trainer. Please keep in mind one of the lessons we teach right away is that of the difference between a fire in a concrete building or metal structure using plywood and straw, and that it is quite different than that in a real building with today’s contents. However, it does afford us an excellent tool regarding the understanding of fire behavior from start to finish, smoke conditions, etc. Our goal is to give them the info they need to understand fire better on as many different levels as possible because the whole "on-the-job" or "school of hard knocks" way of learning is often not the best method if that's all that you do.

We use a lot of the materials on this web site. Photos and videos for discussion (you can get a ton of great info from these, especially if you're in an area that may not see much work fire wise), our past fires, as well as our neighbors and their fires. We take advantage of every PIA and most of these are on the fireground so we can get to it while it is all fresh. Then it's a matter of trying to balance crews experience wise, bringing enough bosses to the scene to fill the sectors (those eyes and ears for the troops), and probably the most important; that it is okay to say this one is too hot for right now or we need to choose a different tactic for this one, etc. We know when to go in and when not to, and there is no arguing when we pull the plug and order them to leave the building. Bottom line, we have really grabbed a hold of the whole "John Wayne" thing (by the way, I love the Duke!!). Don't get me wrong, we go in when we feel it's calling for an interior attack, but I like to say that we are a very "safe-aggressive" fire department.

Simply put, it all comes down to your training and in how serious you take the whole building construction-fire behavior thing.

Thanks buddy!

Rick

I think this question brings up the recent debate of are we becoming too protected in today's PPE. I recently served as a safety officer in our burn building supervising recruits. There were three rooms of fire in our concrete burn building. The fires involved hay and wooden pallets. The evolution lasted only about 15-20 minutes ( I still had a half of tank of air). During the evolution I stayed moving watching the recruits and occasionally adding a bale of hay to a fire. When the evolution was over I discovered that the brim of my leather helmet looked liked swiss cheese from the heat. The 9 volt battery in my PASS device had melted. I never felt more than just warm at any time. This was a controlled enviroment wiht little chance of flashover or any other catastropic event happening. Was it too hot? Could I have exposed myself to this enviroment 20 years ago and not been burned?I cetainly do not advocate reducing oir protection or exposing bare skin to the enviroment to determine if it is hot. I beleive instead of focusing on just heat we need to recognize when the conditions are right for a catastopic event to occur (flashover, smoke explosion, collapse, etc..). Those of us who have been around awhile (over 30 years myself) have had to evovle from tingling ears, necks, and wrists to learning to read smoke, understanding building consturction, and recognizing changing conditions. Training, experience, and learning from others are certainly the key to recognizing when it is "too hot".

Unless your department does not own a thermal imager, there are few practical reasons why this tool is not being used to monitor interior conditions. One reason I can think of is a lack of effective training on the tool as far as it's capabilities and limitations. If your department uses the temperature measurement feature to monitor heat and fire conditions during interior ops, you may need to re-visit your training sources. Temperature measurement devices in a TIC are affected in many ways by the structure materials and should not be relied on for accurate tempurature readings, especially in quickly deteriorating conditions. A more practical use of this feature is for comparison of heat sources such as an overheated motor or electrical component. Distance from solid materials, reflectivity, angle and other factors will all contribute to the accuracy/inaccuracy of measurement devices outside of laboratory conditions.
Training with the TIC should concentrate heavily on image interpretation.

More great stuff! Thanks all of you. As far as Imagers go, the last I knew, my old department (17 stations) only had two or so! For the whole department. I believe every facepiece will have a build in Imager in the lens in 10 years or so but till then - come up with something.
Rick is right - "it's OK to pull the plug". If you're hot - really hot - are there savable people in the area you are currently in????? If not - "why ya there?"

Hi skip , I am not sure if you were looking for the answer or were just getting the firefighters to ponder how hot does it need to be before you retreat. We teach in a flashover can and can get pretty consistant steam production as a temperature gauge.
In my only flashover experiance at a house fire the precursers of high heat pushing me down was too late an indication to help make an early prediction.
A charged hose line was the life saver.

Vince, We all want to read the comments of brothers and sisters so that the "new-be's" and even some of the "old-farts" can pick up a nugget or two. Thanks and comment early and often.

The post by Stan Morse made me realize what the turn out gear manufacturers have been telling us for years... that we wear an ensamble. The protection afforded by the ensamble is based on the weakest link, be it a melted PASS alarm or bare skin. "Too hot" is when the weakest link is adversely affected.

Excellent point - in fact - I believe the lens on your face piece is only good to 550+ degrees F. for a few minutes. Also, dirt has a very harmful affect on the bunker gears temperature rating. And we all know how we like dirty "macho" looking gear.

Ok Chief I gotta add to this blog. I'm probably gonna take a beating from the safety police on this but it has worked for a long time and continues to work. The comments about PPE being so advanced that pre flashover has become very difficult to indicate are true. What I do is wear a 2 ply hood with the ear flap from my leather tucked inside. When the bees start stinging my ears its time to make a decision. "Put out or get out" ! This has worked time and again " SAFELY". Other old school techniques are to always watch overhead and be looking for firesnakes. Firesnakes to the readers are the streaks of fire you see in smoke just prior to flashover. If you don't have a charged hose in place to cool the smoke you would be best advised to find somewhere else to hang out. Firesnakes are an undeniable indication of imminent flashover. Another technique is to simply open a nozzle directly over your head to see if water will come back down. If no water comes down its time to cool smoke to give enough time to locate the seat of the fire for extinguishment. Lastly I work for a Dept. that does have thermal imaging cameras and they are a great tool for determining room temperature but they are only a tool. TIC's are subject to failurre and require batteries. My ears dont require batteries yet but when they do it will be for a hearing aid and not sensory perception.

Thanks for the input Jeff.
From what I remember about Flashover, the lower end temperature for flashover is 700+ degrees. Way too hot to be in or near. Your bare skin (ears) will start to "sting" at around 250 to 300 degrees dry heat in only a few seconds. Waiting for the Fire Snakes means your waiting way too long. Again, what's around that's worth saving at 700 degrees??? Just my thoughts.

I agree with a lot of what's being discussed but I will add this opinion. The "old school" reliable tachniques are great if you have old school structures and some real life experience either in training scenarios or at the jobs. The new consideration we need to add to this is the new fuel loads in the tighter more energy efficient buildings. The methods that where considered relatively safe just a few years ago may not be so reliable in the next fire. The growth stage of a fire can be more rapid and can have more violent results. This combined with faster alarm and response times can put us in harms way in a time that may not allow for a safe retreat.
I think the TIC as a tool can be instrumental in being able to recognize trouble. Like everything we do, good training or lack of it will have significant impact on a safe outcome.

John brings up a great point about the structures we are in as well. We are seeing more and more firefighters ending up in the basement when all they wanted to do was be on the first floor. More about that later.

Just to clarify something Chief Coleman, I don't go in with bare ears. I use a 2 ply hood and it gives me plenty of early warning especially in the below mentioned moden lightweight building construction. I work in an area located in east Atlanta Ga that has a mix of new and old construction so I've attempted to find a method that will be reliable at any structure. I mentioned the firesnakes not as an indication for a workable timeline but rather an indication to start moving towards a different zipcode if you see them. I fully agree that at 700 degrees nothing is left to save. This has been a reliable method for many years now.