Vent Discipline

Comment

Comment by Sandy Lasa on March 18, 2008 at 2:39pm

The Jake that was venting should have held up until the line was in place. Get that line in the front door and start flowing water. Once the water starts to flow start your horizontal venting as close to the fire as possible. Your line line at the door would have been in the best position to make a push in if conditions allowed or hold their ground until they can start the push in. They do a good job knocking it down, in front, until they shut the line down and stretch it to the B/C side. Keep that line in place and stretch another line to the side. Again once they shut the line down, they were back at square one.

Comment by Jim Miller on March 18, 2008 at 6:05am

I feel the line should have gone in the front door,made the push in the hall, and extinguished the room. You may have needed two lines to make the hallway, i don't know the conditions on the inside. I think the opening of the door and the window on the front was the right choice. This is an example of the old saying "stay low, let it blow." It is surely better for those gases to light up prior to entry, rather than that team being in the hall. The fire room was vented. The only thing I may have done different is make more horizontal openings close to the fire room. Vertical vent on peaked roof private dwellings is a waist of time and manpower in my opinion. You can be just as effective with horizontal in the first few minutes of a fire. You don't know what is in the attic. The last thing is if you are not coordinating your PPV efforts, leave the blower on the rig.

Comment by Paul Lomske on March 17, 2008 at 8:53pm

Watching up to 3:33.
The FF's who exited the porch during/after the air horn evacuate signal, were any inside or just making entry?
Couldn't tell from the start of video. Due to the smoke all through first floor and possibly 2nd floor:
Was vertical venting done?
Were upper windows taken out?

Interesting video showing what some fresh air can do to heated smoke.

Comment by Matt Thomson on March 17, 2008 at 8:35pm

I'd like to see some discussion on this video. I'm interested in ventilation strategy and reading smoke, especially in the first 30 seconds of the video.

From what I see, there is a well involved fire in the back room on the B side. It looks like the hose team is almost ready in the front yard as the firefighter is taking the front windows. The hose team appears to be planning an interior attack through the front door.

Prior to ventilation, the fire room is self vented, another room on the B side is pushing black/grey smoke under pressure. The smoke from the A side appears to be stratified and not under much pressure. It is clear that the smoke rapidly changes to turbulent and pressurized, black and dark grey leaving the front window within about 10 seconds of venting. Clearly a rapid fire event was about to take place.

What wasn't obvious, to me anyway, was the conditions inside prior to venting. Had the hose team been ahead of the ventilation, they probably would have taken a beating. From a ventilation stand point, what would have been a better way to work this fire?