Fireground Support Operations (1st Edition)
Chapter 1 - Size-up
"By The Numbers"
NOTES BELOW ALSO INCLUDE THE INTRODUCTION PORTION
NOTICE: STORY-BASED ENTRIES/DISCUSSIONS IN THIS CHAPTER ARE NOT INCLUDED IN NOTES
§ Residential/commercial buildings constructed before the middle of the 20th century commonly had high ceilings, some 10 feet or more, with many having "dropped" false ceilings installed.
§ If a firefighter crawling on the floor of a smoke-filled Victorian-style residence can touch the ceiling with a 6 foot pike pole, there is probably a false ceiling in that room.
§ With basement fires, smoke on the 1st floor may be relatively cool with no obvious layering.
§ Townhouses are mostly 2-story, wood-frame, multiple-residence buildings that may or may not have fire walls separating the units.
§ The kitchen and living room of townhouses are typically on the ground floor, while bedrooms are typically on the 2nd floor.
§ Fires that develop on ground floor of townhouses during sleeping hours are likely to trap occupants on the 2nd floor.
§ Horizontal ventilation of most often used with townhouses due to sleeping area being on 2nd floor.
§ Laddering 2nd floor windows, both front and rear, of townhouses is usually a high priority.
Fireground Support Operations (1st Edition)
Chapter 2 - Firefighter Survival
"By The Numbers"
NOTICE: STORY-BASED ENTRIES/DISCUSSIONS IN THIS CHAPTER ARE NOT INCLUDED IN NOTES
§ The OSHA 2-in/2-out rule requires that those inside the hazard zone stay together and remain in visual or voice contact at all times (and also with RIC/RIT team).
§ Use of an accountability system is required by NFPA 1500, Fire Department Occupational Safety and Health Program, and by NFPA 1561, Emergency Services Incident Management System.
§ For collapse zones, it is policy in many departments to cordon off an area equal to 1 1/2 times the height of the structure.
§ According to the National Fire Academy class "Firefighter Safety and Survival", collapse indicators include: heavy fire with no progress after 10-20 minutes (ordinary wood construction), walls/floors sagging or bowing, distortion of doors/windows, beams pulling away from supports, little or no runoff with heavy streams, new cracks forming/moving, and walls disassemble under stream impact.
§ If significant progress is not made toward fire extinguishment after 20 minutes, interior crews may be ordered out (collapse potential).
§ Rapid Intervention Crews (RIC), are required by NFPA 1500 and OSHA 29 CFR 1910.134 whenever firefighters are in the hazard zone inside a burning building.
§ At least 2 firefighters must stand outside the hazard area (RIC team) to rescue the interior crew.
§ According to NIOSH, "buddy-breathing" techniques are more likely to produce 2 victims instead of 1.
§ The 1st thing to do when lost in a fire building is listen to sounds of activity by other firefighters.
§ When lost in a fire building, with no contact with other firefighters, locate hoseline and follow out (male coupling closest to exit), crawl in straight line and in one direction (left or right), and call out and make noise.
§ If a 2 1/2 inch or larger attack line is laid in reverse, couplings may be opposite in terms of following a hoseline out of a structure.
§ When lost in pitch dark smoke, 1st find a window or door opening that may provide exit.
§ To locate a window, crawl along a wall while "wiping" it from floor to as high as possible (will locate any window within 4 feet of floor).
§ Exit from 2nd story windows without a ladder may be possible by hanging from the window and dropping to the ground.
§ Removing a wall between 2 adjacent studs will only create and opening approximately 14 inches wide.
Fireground Support Operations (1st Edition)
Chapter 3 - Access To Structures
"By The Numbers"
§ When using 2 ladders on a steep promontory, the base ladders may need to be anchored with stakes, ram bars, rebar, tools, etc., under the bottom rungs.
§ Farm fences most often consist of either 3 strands of barbed wire or wire fabric (AKA hog wire/field fence) attached to wood or metal posts.
§ Cutting the wire bands of chain-link fences between 3 or 4 adjacent posts will allow enough slack in fence fabric to lay it down on the ground.
§ A-frame ladders, combination ladders, or 2 ladders lashed together, may be used to cross a metal fence (least destructive).
§ Most walls of gated communities are about 6 feet tall and roughly 1 foot thick.
Fireground Support Operations (1st Edition)
Chapter 4 - Access Into Structures
"By The Numbers"
NOTICE: STORY-BASED ENTRIES/DISCUSSIONS IN THIS CHAPTER ARE NOT INCLUDED IN NOTES
§ Controlled fire tests by NFPA indicate that time available for escape (TAE) from a burning building can be as little as 11 minutes after ignition (compartment fire).
§ A charged hoseline (1 1/2 inch minimum) must be in place when rotary saws are cutting metal near flammables.
§ FDNY SOPs for rotary saw blade replacement: (12 tooth woodcutting blades) = 2 or more teeth damaged, (24 tooth woodcutting blades) = 8 or more teeth damaged, (composite concrete/metal-cutting) = worn down to 8 inches.
§ A rotary saw can be used on some doors to cut a 2 intersecting 45 degree cuts around a lock mechanism to free a door to open (3 perpendicular cuts may be necessary on some doors).
§ Historically, one of the most common methods of cutting a roll-up/sheet-curtain door was to make a large triangular (AKA teepee) cut, in the center of the door (two 45 degree cuts, apex of triangle 6 feet tall).
§ An alternative to a vertical cut is to cut at bottom and 6 feet above bottom, horizontally, within 1 foot of each side, then vertically to connect the sides (creates maximum possible opening).
§ If many deadbolts are installed, but door from top to bottom about 1 foot from handle side edge.
§ Using the tip of a ground ladder to break a 2nd story window is not recommended.
§ Lexan® is a polycarbonate plastic 250 times stronger than safety glass and 30 times stronger than Plexiglas® of the same thickness.
§ Plexiglas® acrylic, Lexan® polycarbonate, and other thermoplastic windows are best cut with a rotary saw with medium (40 tooth) carbide-tipped blade.
§ Laminated windows have sheet of plastic sandwiched between 2 sheets of plate glass (clings to laminate when broken).
§ NFPA 1500 requires firefighters to have helmet faceshields and safety glasses/goggles on when breaching exterior walls.
§ One of the fastest ways to make a usable opening in an exterior wall is to make 2 vertical cuts down from the bottom corners of a window opening to the floor (remove window and wall).
§ A header course, which may be every 5th, 6th, or 7th course, is indicated by the ends of brick being visible.
Fireground Support Operations (1st Edition)
Chapter 5 - Interior Operations
"By The Numbers"
§ Pre-incident planning is covered by NFPA 1620, Recommended Practice for Pre-Incident Planning.
§ Bars, night clubs, movie theatres, and public assemblies are likely to have their heaviest occupancy between 12 noon and 2:00am.
§ In the absence of credible information that a life could be saved, OSHA requires a RIC team before firefighters enter the hazard zone (search team/RIC team - at least 2 members for each team).
§ Some thermal imagers are calibrated only for fire (temps in excess of 900oF).
§ According to NFPA 101, Life Safety Code®, and area of refuge is "a space that is part of the normal means of egress but that is protected from fire by an approved sprinkler system or by means of separation from other spaces within the same building by smokeproof walls or by virtue of being located in an adjacent building".
Fireground Support Operations (1st Edition)
Chapter 6 - Ventilation Size-up
"By The Numbers"
§ Ventilation can contribute significantly to all 3 goals of every incident: life safety, incident stabilization, and property conservation.
§ The 5 stages of an uninterrupted compartment fire are: Ignition, Growth, Flashover, Fully Developed, and Decay.
§ Fire in the growth stage produces water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and trace amounts of other gases.
§ Flame temp in the growth stage may be well above 1,000oF, however, room temp is only slightly above normal.
§ The early portion of the growth stage when combustibles in the upper level of the room ignite is sometimes called the flame-spread phase (upper compartment temp can exceed 1,300oF).
§ Decay stage temps may be well over 1,000oF.
§ The 3 ways heat is transferred are: conduction, convection, and radiation.
§ The 4 critical building construction factors to consider on ventilation size-up are: age/type of building, and construction features that help, hinder, or are peculiar to fireground operations.
§ "Older" means buildings constructed before the end of World War II in 1945.
§ Flooding systems that discharge CO2, Halon, or dry chemical have generally the same capabilities as sprinklers, but on a more limited scale.
§ Most multi-story buildings have 1 or more elevator shafts.
§ Coordinating ventilation with fire attack generally involves 3 components: timing, location, and method.
§ Vertical ventilation may not be best if the fire is 1 or more floors below the top floor of a multi-story building (unless elevator shaft is available).
Fireground Support Operations (1st Edition)
Chapter 7 - Horizontal Ventilation
Test Review
§ Some departments use flexible tubing up to 24 inches in diameter, which is made of smooth, translucent plastic with no steel reinforcement (kept open by pressure).
§ Using flexible ducting, 2 or more smoke ejectors can be coupled together to ventilate smoke from basements, attics, suspended ceilings, and other confined spaces.
§ Stem walls are located between the foundation and 1st floor (may be tall if on sloping site).
§ Exterior masonry walls range from 8 to 12 inches or more in thickness.
§ Veneer-over-frame walls are walls in which the 2 x 4 inch or 2 x 6 inch wood or metal studs are covered with a layer of plywood or oriented strand board (OSB) for shear strength, with a layer of brick, stone, stucco, or polystyrene foam with granular finish.
§ Foam veneer may be in sheets/blocks as thick as 1 foot.
§ Single-hung windows have 1 moveable section, and with double-hung, both sections are moveable.
§ Only 1/2 of single- or double-hung windows may be used for ventilation.
§ Casement windows have 1 or 2 side-hinged, out-swinging sashes, with screens on the inside (entire window may be used for ventilation).
§ Horizontal-sliding windows have 2 or more sashes (1 fixed, 1 movable), of which the moveable sash can often be lifted out (1/2 of window available for ventilation).
§ Awning windows have 1 or more top-hinged, outward-swinging sashes (all openable area available for ventilation).
§ The 2 most important types of sliding doors for horizontal ventilation are exterior and interior sliding doors.
§ Typical interior sliding fire doors have a 4 inch vent hole in the door.
§ Telescoping doors consist of 2 layers separated by at least 2 inches of air space.
§ The air space within telescoping doors becomes progressively larger, moving upward, with space between the inner and outer skin being more than 13 inches.
§ Exit openings for horizontal ventilation should be made 1st or the leeward side, followed by interior attack from the windward side.
§ (Horizontal Ventilation) If fire is on the windward side, open the windward side 1st, then pressurize building from leeward side.
§ PPV can overcome winds of up to 25 mph (higher wind may require fire knockdown 1st).
§ Interior doors may be opened and closed 1 by 1 to systematically ventilate an entire floor.
§ For cross (horizontal) natural ventilation with fire on the leeward side, open top windows on leeward side 1st (superheated gases escape), then lower windows on the windward side (replacement air).
§ Natural horizontal ventilation will probably NOT work with fires on the windward side.
§ It is not recommended to break a 2nd story window with the tip of a ground ladder.
§ A rotary saw with a medium (40 tooth) carbide-tipped blade is most effective on thermoplastic windows.
§ If thermoplastic is very thin, 1/8 inch or less, acrylic windows may be shattered by scoring an "X" in the glazing, and striking in the middle of the "X" with a pick-head axe.
§ Laminated windows have a sheet of plastic sandwiched between 2 sheets of plate glass.
§ Blowers are almost always set up about 6 feet outside point of entry.
§ 1 blower can pressurize a building, but 2 blowers can be used in tandem.
§ Compared to ejectors, fog streams are capable of moving 2 to 4 times more smoke, depending on nozzle type/size, location, and angle.
§ Fog streams directed through openings with a 60 degree pattern covering 85% to 90% of the opening provides the best ventilation.
§ Ideal nozzle position for hydraulic ventilation is 2 feet from the opening.
§ Hydraulic fog ventilation streams lose efficiency at angles greater than 60 degrees.
Fireground Support Operations (1st Edition)
Chapter 8 - Vertical Ventilation
"By The Numbers"
§ It is recommended that a clear space of 10 feet be around the operator of a cutting tool.
§ An advantage of rubbish hooks for stripping roofing is that it has 2 hooks to grab the roofing (some have D-handles for more advantage).
§ Considerations for vertical ventilation include: safety, 2nd means of egress, attack/protection lines ready, weather, loads/obstructions on roof, reading roofs, locating seat of fire, coordination with attack crews, using existing roof openings, cutting 1 large hole, enlarging original opening, roof construction, type, and condition, and elapsed time into incident.
§ Monitors with solid sides have at least 2 opposite sides hinged at the bottom and are held closed at the top with a fusible link (open during fire).