TOO LITTLE TOO LATE

TOO LITTLE TOO LATE

VOLUNTEERS CORNER

“ENGINE 361 is command on the scene at 811 Aaron Avenue with fire on the first floor of a two-story frame residence. Exposure 1 is Aaron Avenue; exposure 2, a two-story frame residence at 25 feet; exposure 3, a onestory frame garage at 30 feet; exposure 4, a l 1/2-Story frame residence at 200 feet. Initiating an offensive attack.”

After a rapid size-up, Captain Weed orders the 1 3/4-inch preconnect advanced. “Take the line in the back door,” he orders. This is done for several reasons: to protect the unburned portions of the first floor between the fire and the stairway; to avoid pushing additional heat, smoke, and fire gases up the stairwell; and to drive the fire in the front living room out of the soon-to-be ventilated bay windows and not deeper into the residence.

At the rear door, the firefighters stop to bleed the air from the hoseline, check the nozzle pattern, and connect their facepieces. They open the door and attempt entry, but are hampered in their progress-the line is caught! A quick check by the hoseman reveals no snags; they are out of preconnect and have not reached the objective of the free burning, well-ventilated fire in the front room. Heat is now convecting up the open stairwell and mushrooming across the first floor. The fire has vented and is lapping out the bay window across the porch ceiling. The first floor is rapidly becoming untenable. The offensive attack has failed, and no water is being placed on the fire because the preconnect did not reach. Has this happened to you?

In the best of all worlds, the fire department would know the first-due area well enough to have at least one preconnect of a length that would satisfy all cases. However, a very long preconnect becomes unmanageable for lightly manned companies. Also, with longer lines, the friction loss can become significant and eventually reduce the flow for firefighting with smalldiameter hose.

Is there an operation that keeps preconnects to a reasonable length (approximately 200 feet) and yet allows for fast fire attack when a greater distance must be covered? A number of alternatives are available for your department to experiment with before selecting a method and writing a standard operating procedure to deal with this problem.

One approach to consider is maintaining one or two sections of hose in a bundle, pack, or donut roll that can be quickly deployed to extend a preconnect that has been pulled but is too short to reach the fire. However, this is not without some difficulties. Who will go back to get the extra hose? How long did it take? If the line has been charged, how is it controlled during the extension operation? Where will the extra hose be carried on the apparatus?

A second approach is to carry one bed of attack hose detached from an outlet. Then, when the line is stretched, it can be taken any distance required before being broken and attached to a discharge outlet of the pumper. There can be problems with this also. Do you have a hose bed available for a larger amount of attack hose? How will the pump operator know when sufficient hose is off the apparatus so the line can be broken, attached, and charged? The, hose cannot easily be advanced in carries that will avoid dragging and hanging up. Will the line become too long to, supply because of its size and cause a reduced fire flow availability?

Another option would be to establish, a leader line operation. This can be done with a single attack line connected to a break-apart shutoff nozzle or two lines attached to a gated wye. In either case, a larger hoseline is available for supply, and friction loss problems are. alleviated. The leader line(s) can be limited to 150 feet or less arranged in a variety of shoulder carries for speedy, efficient deployment. Three firefighters can effectively advance a leader line, especially if the first section of larger line is also arranged for a carry and the second for a drag. As additional lengths of supply hose are needed, more firefighters become necessary. The problem of storage is not as great because the leader line(s) can be placed on top of one side of the large line bed (assuming the entire hose load is not LDH). There is still the difficulty of notifying the pump operator when to break, connect, and charge the line.

The preconnected attack line is a highly successful tool in fire suppression. However, when it won’t reach, we are in trouble. It is akin to the two percent of the fires that cause 98 percent of the damage. Infrequently there will be a problem, but when there is one it can become disastrous very quickly.

If your department may get caughtshort, plan now for the contingency and be prepared to mount a strong initial attack with minimal delay. Devise a procedure that will work with the resources and personnel available to your department.

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