The Lost Art of Advance - Protect - Attack

First and foremost this if my first blog post for fireengineering.com . I am excited to share my insights and thoughts. It is my full intention to be here at least weekly to offer insight in topics in everything from leadership, to the fundamentals. I look forwarding to learning and talking with all of you. Now....down to brass tacks!

It was not that long ago that firefighters were wearing rubber boots and long coats with no SCBA. Today, we wear close to 60 pounds of protective gear including an SCBA. The fires of yesterday didn't seem to burn with the intensity, and have the rapid fire growth that today's fires do. Yet a fundamental skill taught to my grandfather, my uncle, and when I joined the military as firefighter me, was when going interior and attacking a fire we do three things at the same time. We ADVANCE - PROTECT - ATTACK  or as I refer to it the APA of interior ops. Just to be clear, here is how that was defined:

Advance - To rapidly advance the line to the room or floor of fire origin.

Protect - While rapidly advancing the line, using the line to protect and shield us from heat and fire (if applicable) and protecting the ground/position we were overtaking from fire encroachment.

Attack - While rapidly advancing the line, and protecting the crew, we would immediately begin attacking the fire. 

This was taught from day one, both in our initial training, and in our continued training. Not only did we learn the physical/practical skill of handling charged hose and operating it while moving in full gear, we were afforded something else.....the chance to learn this skill and learn without learning about fire behavior....and then learning fire behavior WITHOUT having to learn or do anything else.

Granted when I started in the fire service it was before the mass migration to PowerPoint for training and long before YouTube became the main media venue for online video, but fire behavior was taught to us, by actually watching something burn. Then, watching what happens when water is applied to that. Both in open air, and in a confined space. That is all we did. We didn't put it out, we didn't advance line....we did nothing but watch and learn about fire and how it behaves. Our sole purpose in life was to learn fire behavior. Once we had done that, we learned the mechanics of interior ops (APA mentioned above). Then we applied the two skills and did it over and over.

Today, all to often what occurs is that students spend a long time in a classroom watching YouTube videos on fire behavior and what seems like an endless PowerPoint presentation highlighting whatever the current version of Essentials says. Then we go to a prop, where we may light something on fire, or the state prop may light it for us, but in either condition we are fighting in most cases what is generally a room and contents fire in the early stages. We are not practicing hose handling, advancement, protection, and attack while using learned observation of fire behavior as a combined skill. So the students first introduction to actual fire behavior is while they are learning or trying to learn what they think is the important stuff (trying not to get yelled at by the senior guys and the officer) which is the mechanics, but the reality is they aren't even learning that. The most scariest thing for me as a company officer is, 99% of interior fires we fight.....require all of those skills. Skills that senior and seasoned guys have gotten thru initial and continued training and then added onto that with actual firefighting experience. New guys just aren't getting that.

So as a company officer, station captain or battalion chief, how do we fix that? In a department that doesn't run a lot of calls or is all volunteer with not a lot of training money or the ability to burn something, how do we fix it?

For career and combination departments getting to the solution is a little easier, but in the end regardless of the type of department or the size of your call load the solution is the same. We break it down. We get back to basics. In a time when budgets are small and time is short we utilize the resources that we have in front of us. All to often we focus on what we can't do. We teach all of what is needed to be taught to learn a particular skill set as one skill set, instead of learning them as individual skills to be used as a combined skill set. We get stuck in the WE CAN'T mode. Well in my opinion.....not only can we and should we, but we have to!

WE CAN teach hose movement technique (like APA) and drill it in at the company level without heat and fire during the regular duty day or on a drill night. The goal isn't to give them the experience of heat at this stage, the goal is to get them to handle the hose, handle it well and handle it as an extension of themselves. Practice, practice and practice. When it comes to fire behavior, yes...by all means use YouTube. It's a great resource, but it should not be the only resource. Let them watch, break it down, slow it down and take the time to explain what's going on (there is a pause button....USE IT!). Teach them those two things individually, without combining them. Then bring in live fire. Even if it is controlled burn prop. Make them hump the line an extra 75 to 125 feet up to the burn prop in full gear practicing the APA, get the door open as they get up to it and let them go in.

It's unrealistic to think that we can provide real life high quality live burn training on a regular basis. For the vast majority of departments with a small call volume, it just isn't in the cards. But WE CAN practice the mechanics of hose movement, and WE CAN teach fire behavior the right way so that when WE CAN do a live burn it increases the value of that experience.

Let's teach, truly teach the individual skills. Let's bring back the art of Advance - Protect - Attack.