Placement of First Line Is Key to Successful Attack
departments
The Volunteers Corner
One of the most important—if not the most important—decisions the first-in officer on the fireground has to make is the placement of the first hose line. That decision can make the difference between saving and losing a life, and it will certainly make the difference between an effective fire fighting operation and just putting water on the fire.
A guideline that should be kept in mind is that the first line should be placed between trapped building occupants and the fire. This may sound like a defensive operation and in many cases it may be just that. There are other times when the first line can be positioned between the building occupants and the fire while the line is also effectively extinguishing—or at least diminishing—the fire.
Remember, if you can extinguish the fire, all your other problems are minimized.
Getting the first line between the occupants and the fire will buy some time to make rescue efforts. Time and temperature are vital factors as any rescue effort, and a properly placed hose line can both buy time and alleviate the temperature so that rescue efforts can be successful. Remember, when building occupants are really seriously threatened by advancing fire, a hose line is vital to success in the rescue operation. Both the occupants and the fire fighters will need the protection afforded by a hose line.
Protect the stairs: In addition to placing the first hose line between the fire and building occupants, the first-in officer must consider the protection of open stairs, which are in the majority of buildings. By getting a line up the stairs, in coordination with ventilation, the stairs can usually be safeguarded as an escape route for the building occupants and an access route for fire fighters.
Your own experience will tell you that you can guide many more people down a stairway than down a ladder in the same amount of time. It is also quicker and easier to advance additional hose lines up stairs than up a ladder.
Open stairways provide a vertical flue for the torrid fire gases which will rise to upper floors and make them untenable. Using a hose line to prevent the fire gases from rising through this vertical flue will buy life-saving minutes for occupants of upper floors and prevent the fire from mushrooming up above.
Furthermore, as the line is advanced up the stairs, it also provides protection for the adjacent hallways so that persons trapped in rooms can get to the stairs and safety. In apartment houses with long hallways off rated, enclosed stairwells, the first line up the stairs may have to cool down the hallway so that the hose crew can get to the burning apartment.
Store fires: When the first-in officer encounters a working fire in the front of a locked store, his decision on the placement of the first line involves consideration of forcible entry. Ideally, we would like to take that first line through the rear door of the store and push the fire out the front, where fire damage has already occurred.
Because of the constant threat of burglary, most storekeepers have built their rear doorways into minor fortresses. Your prefire plan or a quick survey of the rear door will tell you the chances of making rapid entry into the store. If the rear entrance is protected to discourage the efforts of the most zealous of burglars, then it is going to take too long, even with a power saw, to get a hose line on the fire from the rear.
The only alternative is to make the initial attack at the front of the store even though that will push some fire toward the rear. It is the lesser of the available evils. If the fire is of sufficient volume in a one-story store with unprotected steel bar joists, it will not take long before the fire heat causes them to collapse, creating even greater damage than pushing some fire to the rear. If the store is one of several in the building, there is danger of the fire getting into the cockloft and spreading to adjacent stores.
Large enough stream: In addition to determining where to place the first line, the first-in officer must provide a stream that is large enough for the fire. We used the word “stream” rather than hose line because the size and intensity of the fire may well demand the use of a deluge gun for the initial attack. If the pumper can get in an effective position, the gun can be used right in its mount on the apparatus.
However, most fires can be successfully extinguished with hose streams and in most cases a 1½-inch line is adequate. Because of our frequent successful use of 1½-inch lines, we have to make a little effort to remain alert for the fire that a 1½-inch line won’t handle. The first-in officer has to be constantly alert to conditions that demand the unusual—a 2½-inch line or even a master stream. Correct decisions under a wide variety of fire conditions are what makes a fire officer a professional.
If the officer directs the use of a deluge gun for the first stream on a fire and other master streams are later used on the fire, or the fire is immediately darkened down by the first stream, he has nothing to worry about. He should be concerned only when the 1/2-inch line he used for the initial attack is supplanted by 2½-inch lines and possibly master streams
