Fire Engineering Training Community
"Outside The Box" Engine Company Operations
Engine Company work is often viewed as easy or not as fulfilling as "Truck Company work". This is absolutely not the case and some very "high speed" Engine Companies go to work everyday in very tough and arduous environments. They are only successful by relying on their relentless training, personal experiences and hunger to progress in the engine world.
This group is geared toward Engine Company tactics that use "outside the box" thinking to accomplish. Its purpose is to exchange information that will help others that view the discussions, posts and pictures.
Going The Distance
While teaching and/or visiting a number of fire departments throughout the United States, I always make it a point to check out the Engine Company's hose loads and available lengths (pre-connected or not). One thing that seems to be common is that many departments don't have a pre-connected lines any longer than 200-feet in length. My first question is usually "what do you do when the fire is further than 200-feet from your engine?". Often times, the members will either look confused or simply say "well, that hasn't happened yet". So the question here is, what does your department do to "go the distance"? Perhaps a long length pre-connect? Or, maybe you have a well formulated plan to extend lines?
No matter what you do, it must be simple, effective and proficient. People rely on us and we must have a plan to help them out... even when they live over 200-feet away from our engine.
We went back to using a static (dead load) hose bed two or three years ago. We use a 7 7 5 4 hose bed. Seven hundred feet of 5 inch LDH; Seven hundred feet of 3 inch, Two hundred feet of 2 1/2 (smoothbore) attached to five hundred feet of 3 inch; and two hundred of 1 3/4 (smoothbore) attached to four hundred feet of 3 inch. We still have 200' preconnect
lines also, but we want to use the static load after we pull past the structure and leave room for the truck company.
Aug 24, 2013
Tom Helmkamp
My 1st-in area is mainly urban with the front doors very close to the curb, but if we run into that unique situationwhere we need more we have 200' of 2 1/2" preconnected off the back with a gated wye attached, so we would pull that and then bring our packed highrise 2" hose for attack off the wye. In one section of the city it is more suburbs and lots of big houses with long front drives/yards. The 3 Engines in that section of the city have longer preconnects, but also on that same 2 1/2" preconnect with the wye, they have a pack of 1 3/4" with a nozzle attached to the wye and ready to go, similar to a detroit load.
Aug 31, 2013
zachary wolf
In my current department all of our preconnects for structural are 150' for both 1 3/4 and 2 1/2, I have started training my crew that if we have something where we cant reach the door, or if we have to go to the rear of a structure we pull the 2 1/2 supply line run it to where we are about 15 feet from the door and set up our 1 3/4 high rise pack to go into the structure from the wye.
Nov 19, 2014