At his Thursday classroom at FDIC 2011, Bill Gustin, captain with Miami-Dade (FL) Fire Rescue and 2011 keynote speaker, looked at methods for rapidly positioning a hoseline on an upper-floor an apartment building, a townhouse, a nursing home, an assisted-living facility, or other multi-dwellings that don’t have standpipes. Earlier, during his keynote speech, Gustin had railed against what he deemed a strange and disturbing trend in the fire service, namely firefighters being burned with a charged hoseline in their hands, and in this class he advanced ideas to help crews get water on a fire efficiently with a minimum of personnel.
“Don’t stretch hose to an upper floor of a large residential building without first determining the location of the fire, the path (i.e. doorway, hallway, stairway) to reach it, the amount of hose neccessary, the method to get the hoseline to an upper floor, and the amount of firefighters needed to get it there,” said Gustin. “It may take time to make these determinations, but it is NOTHING compared to the time you will waste if you stretch short. Don’t attempt a stairway hose stretch that requires more firefighters than you have; your stretch will be delayed or fail.”
“Many fire departments do not have the staffing or the hoseload configurations that facilitate a personnel-intensive conventional stairway hose stretch above the third floor,” Gustin said. “This class examines alternative methods to get the job done.”
Gustin is a 38-year veteran of the fire service and a conducts firefighting training programs in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. He is a lead instructor in his department’s officer training program, is a marine firefighting instructor, and has conducted forcible entry training for local and federal law enforcement agencies. He is also an advisory board member for both FDIC and Fire Engineering magazine.