BY MICHAEL J. LOPINA AND TOM TULIPANO

Although much has been written on building construction and fire behavior, there seems to be a growing debate on when we should go in or stay outside the building on the fireground based on building construction and fire behavior. We want to be aggressive, interior attack firefighters, but certain modern features such as lightweight construction cause us to pause and take note of what we are getting into. It is not our intent to get into whether you should or shouldn't go inside; it is to make you aware of what to look for before making that decision. Are you going into a "routine" room-and-contents fire in a one-story 25-foot × 50-foot frame "bungalow" (photo 1) or into a frame that has been added onto several times, resulting in numerous void spaces, which, once involved in fire and allowed to burn unchecked, can trap or kill firefighters (photo 2)?

(1) A typical "bungalow"-style house; bungalows can be of ordinary (Type III, such as this one) or frame (Type V) construction. A unique hazard associated with an enclosed porch such as that seen here is that failure of the picture window from the living room to the porch can cause fire to get behind and trap crews entering the front door. Recognize this hazard during your size-up. (Photos by Michael J. Lopina unless otherwise noted.)

(2) This small ranch on a slab (identified by the absence of window wells around the house) has been added onto several times, almost tripling the size and adding numerous void spaces. Such add-ons have a history of trapping and killing firefighters.

SIZE-UP

Another aspect of size-up and building construction is identifying what you are looking at. You must understand what you have before you know what you can do. A good size-up should include, at the very least, the following: height (two-story, and so on); construction type (wood-frame, ordinary, lightweight); dimensions (25 × 50); direction of apparatus; fire location, if known (fire on the second floor, smoke from the rear); and action.

Departments have used this type of radio size-up for many years to "paint" a quick, but descriptive, picture for all incoming companies and the dispatch center. It takes 15 to 20 seconds to put it together: "Engine 1 is on the scene. We have heavy fire on the second floor of a two-story frame 25 × 40. We are northbound leading out."

This identifies the first company on the scene and tells the incoming truck companies what type of ladders they will need for second-floor windows and that vertical ventilation is needed for a top-floor fire. The radio report also tells other companies what type of fire conditions and how much fire they may be faced with [25 × 40/3 = 333 gallon-per-minute (gpm) fire flow if the second floor is fully involved].

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