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“Tactical Safety: Officer to the Fire”…
By thehousewatch | July 27, 2009
“Examining the process of firefighting to see if there is a better and safer way to operate”
By Ray McCormack
Tactical Safety – Officer to the Fire
The company officer should locate the fire from the exterior if possible. It can be the responsibility of the first officer to arrive, the engine or ladder company officer or both. Locating the fire can be done on the initial walk around which is easy …as long as you do it. The signs of fire and its intensity provide clues to its interior location. Not all fire buildings will allow for a complete recon and not all fires show themselves. Finding a hidden fire is another story, that’s why we continue our survey inside.
Once inside the fire occupancy the goal is to quickly locate the fire. We must locate the fire or we may receive an unpleasant surprise. Determining the best path to the fire is often dictated by design layout and choice of entry point. Remember hallways are like highways for finding rooms and victims. Plodding through rooms is like taking local streets; much slower with more furniture traffic. Once we find the fire we can work on containment. If the fire cannot be contained by simple available means (a door) then extinguishment could be more of a rush job, this information should be provided to the IC once we have defined the fire area.
A search team enters but no one specifically heads to the fire or takes note of fire conditions within the room, now the officer reports that a firefighter is “missing” If the officer does not position near the fire the likelihood of a “missing firefighter” event is increased dramatically due to the officer losing track of the search team. If the officer searches actively throughout the fire occupancy then who’s minding the fire? You must know if a firefighter went into or beyond the fire room if conditions start changing.
Taking note of the fire room(s) condition after we first get inside is important especially for the officer. Did a firefighter crawl into the fire room for a quick search before it flashed over? Or was the room post flashover when you entered the occupancy? If the room was already fully involved from the start we can be fairly certain that the “missing firefighter” will not be in there.
When the officer takes a position near the fire no one can “secretly” enter the fire room. If a searcher goes past the fire the officer will know it. The officer may not be doing much of an active search for a while however it’s about positioning. Positioning that allows for tracking the searchers and fire development supervision, and just consider how that inspires the searchers knowing that you have their back.
The other members of the search team gain confidence knowing that the fire is being closely monitored and if conditions change they will be notified immediately due to the officer’s proximity to the action. Fire spread can still take place regardless of the officer position but I’d rather know about that event right away instead of getting caught by it, because everyone was all over the place. As the hoseline approaches the officer can search the fire room after knockdown or assist in other areas.
If you make it a habit of going to the fire your overall search will be safer because the fire will be monitored better. After you find the fire pick a spot nearby that allows for multi-directional supervision of the fire area and tracking your people to minimize MFA’s “Missing Firefighter Alerts”.
Next Tactical Safety – Bleeding the Hoseline
Topics: Training and Development | 3 Comments »
July 28th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Excellent information!! The author stresses the need for the company officer’s situational awareness and the maintaining of company integrity. When the boss is @ the seat of the fire, his location affords him the advantage of being able to supervise safe, effective extinguishment. Get to the seat of the fire, put it out & everything gets better.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Nicely done. Concise and educational, with accuracy on proper fireground operations. Sadly, so many articles of today’s fire service highlight how to be a defensive firefighter being written from minimally experienced fire service members. It’s refreshing to read something that enhances my job knowledge and confidence of my situational awareness. Thank you and keep up the good work.
July 29th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
As always, solid insight. We’ve actually been trying to work on this type of assignment, but with the engine officer. After the BC’s arrival, he takes command from the first in officer, to allow him to proceed to the attack team’s location and monitor/report on conditions/progress (the only difficulty being keeping some of those red helmets off the nozzle). I do, though, like the idea of keeping the truck officer in the fire area while the rest of the team actively searches…definitely something for us to train on. We run a convoluted “semi-quint concept”, so the “truck” is always second due at best.