Sweeping in the Corners

I was watching a program on TV today; the commentary was between two NFL analysts about how some great teams have difficulty maintaining consistently great results. Herm Edwards, the former coach of the perennial powerhouse Indianapolis Colts, threw out a phrase that struck me. He said that great teams that flounder often “forget to sweep in the corners”. I think that statement can often explain the shortcomings for individual shifts, fire stations, and maybe at times entire departments.

If you haven’t figured it out, I’m not talking about sweeping floors; O.K. maybe just a little. The issue I’m addressing in this posting is paying attention to the minute details in our workplace. We are in a business where the adapt-and-overcome mentality usually keeps us from making fools of ourselves. I’ve seen, and participated in, any number of calls where hoselines were incorrectly deployed, pump operators failed miserably, officers set-up apparatus in the wrong place and many other mistakes that come from “not sweeping in the corners”. In each instance, we were able to make it out of the situation through the action a few quick thinking firefighters (or officers). The shame is that any number of our members thinks this is the norm, not the exception.

So how do we avoid such calamities in the future? By “sweeping in the corners”. By that I mean we need to re-educate our members to understand that the little things mean a lot. If one reviews the NIOSH reports of firefighter deaths, you will find that very few of our brethren perish because of a single point failure. Indeed, nearly every fatality is due to numerous small factors or errors that added up to a situation that claimed the life of a brother/sister.

So how do we get where we want to be? We start paying attention to details…and making sure everyone else is sweating the details. When checking our apparatus, each of us should know how everything works, and if you don’t know ASK to be taught. I’ve been to stations where I’ve asked a firefighter how a tool that I’m not familiar with works and gotten the reply that “no one on the shift really knows how that works, it just showed up one day.” Unacceptable. I have heard tales of current apparatus drivers (compensated) not knowing how much supply line their engine carries (no not the reserve). Unacceptable. If you don’t know your apparatus and how everything works on it, you shouldn’t be riding it. If you’ve got more than six months on the floor and you don’t know how it works, you should be disciplined.

I fear that one of the reasons people aren’t being taught mastery of their apparatus is that officers and apparatus drivers (you know the ones that are supposed to be experts) are not familiar with the tools either. Again, unacceptable. If you don’t fully understand how something works you can never master its use. If you don’t know, ask someone. Keep asking until you find that someone that knows how it works and how to maintain it. If you can’t find someone who knows, call Zimm.

Just when you think I’m done rambling, I have a couple of tangents that have not been explored. When is the last time while doing a weekly you pulled everything out of the compartment and swept it out, then wiped it down? If you said you do it every weekly, you’re either an exceptional firefighter or a liar. Be the exceptional firefighter. The reality is that we have plenty of time to do this. Let’s not be in such a hurry to get everything done, let’s take our time and get everything done right and done well. The same goes for the house work. Why are people showing up and hour early and cleaning the toilets before most of the off-going shift is even awake? A lot of recruits have this drilled into their head for some reason. I don’t get it. Is it so we can sit down and be done all the housework at 07:30? Yea, now we have 23.5 hours to kill. This of course doesn’t factor in 10 minutes for apparatus checks and about 20 minutes for an apparatus weekly.

Get out there and take your time, check and clean your equipment/apparatus thoroughly, seek to master every tool at your disposal, ask questions, and last but not least… sweep in the corners.

Preconnected Large Flow Lines: Nozzle Selection

As most of you know, I'm a float officer. I get to see a lot of apparatus set ups. Each morning when I report to my daily assignment, I check to see what nozzles each preconnected handline has on it. Usually, I find the 2.5" attack line with the traditional stacked tip smooth-bore nozzle. Given the choice, I think we can do better.

As an officer that has been on a few BIG residential fires (Type V lightweight wood) where the attic is heavily involved prior to our arrival, we need to quickly get upstairs with a RhinoChaser (BigGun), a bunch of brutes with hooks, and singular mission: pull the ceilings and put lots of water on the fire. This is our only hope for success (absent CAFS, but that's a future posting).

With significant attic involvement and a quickly progressing fire, I've found that both the roof sheathing, and some truss chords, fail pretty quickly. What is important about those two facts is that the fire and water stream are no longer contained to a structural compartment.

When aiming the stream of a smooth-bore nozzle into the fire with no structural compartment to deflect off, most of the water shoots straight through the fire, usually landing on the adjacent garage roof, in the back yard, or if you're lucky the firefighters breathing air in the front yard.

It is my opinion that the best nozzle for a preconnected 2.5" attack line is a fog nozzle. When fighting the same conditions as mentioned above you have the option to open the nozzle to a medium to wide pattern and absorb more BTUs, cool (thereby extinguishing) more structural components, and better protect the firefighters working just below the fire from radiant heat.

Some would make the argument that smooth-bore nozzles give a less-broken pattern at further distances. In my completely unscientific testing, I find that the difference at very long distances is negligible. If the decision is made to go to a defensive attack, we can always change to a smooth-bore nozzle on the exterior when the pressure of the firefight is not quite as critical. In my experience, interior structural firefighting is an up-close-and-personal event. Meaning we usually cover distance through hoseline advancement not lobbing a rainbow of water toward the glow.

*Just as a note the majority of fires in Howard County are fought by use of preconnected handlines we very rarely extend or build attack lines.

Ordinary Construction…when it is and isn’t!!!

Many times I’ve been listening to the radio traffic and heard an officer, both old and new, arrive on location and incorrectly give a size up that classifies the building construction type as Ordinary Construction. The problem we face is a conflict between the word ordinary and the construction type ordinary.

Merriam-Webster.com defines the adjective Ordinary as:

1 : of a kind to be expected in the normal order of events : ROUTINE, USUAL

The following was cut-and-pasted from an article by Chief Vincent Dunne at http://www.workingfire.net/misc7.htm

Ordinary constructed (type III) building is also called a brick-and joist structure. It has masonry-bearing walls but the floors, structural framework and roof are made of wood or other combustible material. Ordinary construction has been described by some firefighters as a "lumberyard enclosed by four brick walls."

Chief Dunne further classifies the construction we most often encounter in residential construction as:

Wood-frame (type V) construction is the most combustible of the five building types. The interior framing and exterior walls may be wood. A wood-frame building is the only one of the five types of construction that has combustible exterior walls. When sizing up a fire in a wood building, the outside walls must be considered for the fire spread. Flames can spread out a window and then along the outside wood walls (in addition to the interior fire spread).

Most of the residential construction in the jurisdiction where I work is not ordinary but (Type V) wood frame. The problem we most often encounter is the conflict between how the rest of the world and the fire service define the word ordinary.

Ladder halyard tie-off

One of the advantages of being a float officer is that in my travels I get to see a lot of different apparatus set ups. Some things that I see are downright ingenious, while others leave me with a sense of wonder. Something along the lines of “I wonder who the idiot was that though that up?".

A recent trend that I have noticed, and feel compelled to speak out against is the tying off of the halyard when stowing ladders in a "slide out" stowage system. It seems that someone is selling (and a lot of people are buying) that the halyard should only be tied off to the rung of the bed section of the ladder. While I understand that such a set up removes one step in throwing of the ladder, thus making for quicker deployment, it also creates a potential on-scene pitfall that far outweighs the benefit (perceived or real).



When you tie off the ladder as described instead of tying off abound both rungs the fly section often slides during transport or when deployed by an overly excited recruit at their first fire. This sliding fly section makes the entire halyard go slack. On several occasions, I have seen halyards become entangled in other ladders, waterway piping, and even bind against its own bed section. The end result is a ladder that is undeployable on the scene. It may even hamper the deployment of other ladders in the stowage compartment. I have personally shoved at no less than three Smots (smallest man on the shift) into the rear compartment of the tower to untangle halyards. The Smots usually don’t come out happy or clean. But we big men all have a good laugh while they’re in there, and even better when they emerge hunched over like some angry troll from beneath a bridge.

Many of us have scratched our heads for hours trying to streamline our operations. However, when trying something new, we need to fully think through the unintended consequence of change.