Not just what and how, but why!
This post continues the discussion with Captain Mike Sullivan with the Mississauga Ontario Fire Department regarding fire attack methods. Captain Sullivan refined his definitions and explanation of direct, indirect, and combination fire attack, stating: Direct Attack: Water droplets put out the fire (droplets land directly on the burning fuel and cool this fuel to put … Read more
As I was beginning work on a post focusing on fire attack methods and fire stream effectiveness, I received an e-mail from Captain Mike Sullivan with the Mississauga Ontario Fire Department asking for help in clarifying indirect and combination fire attack methods and their impact on the fire environment. Mike is particularly interested in how … Read more
Updated with Additional Video On March 10, 2013 five Harrison, New Jersey firefighters were injured in an explosion while working at a commercial fire at 600-602 Frank E. Rodgers Boulevard. The fire originated in a two-story commercial building at the corner of Frank E. Rodgers Boulevard North and Davis Street and extended into Exposures Charlie … Read more
Video of several incidents involving explosions during structural firefighting operations have been posted to YouTube in the last several weeks. Two of these videos, one from New Chicago, IN and the other from Olathe, KS involve residential fires. The other is of a commercial fire in Wichita, KS. When a video shows some sort of … Read more
Seven Firefighters Injured Seven firefighters were tragically injured in Prince George’s County Maryland on Friday, February 24, 2012. The fire broke out in the basement of a single-family, one-story house located at 6404 57th Avenue in Riverdale, MD shortly after 21:00 hours. Note: View from Alpha-Bravo Corner street side. Photo by Billy McNeel. On arrival, … Read more
Residential Fire This post examines fire development during a residential fire in Lyons, New York. Download and the B-SAHF Worksheet. Watch the first minute and thirty seconds (1:30) of the video. First, describe what you observe in terms of the Building, Smoke, Air Track, Heat, and Flame Indicators; then answer the following five standard questions? … Read more
The eighth and tenth tactical implications identified in the Underwriters Laboratories study of the Impact of Ventilation on Fire Behavior in Legacy and Contemporary Residential Construction (Kerber, 2011) are the answer to the question, can you vent enough and the influence of pre-existing openings or openings caused by fire effects on the speed of progression … Read more
The seventh tactical implication identified in the Underwriters Laboratories study of the Impact of Ventilation on Fire Behavior in Legacy and Contemporary Residential Construction (Kerber, 2011) is the influence of changes in ventilation on flow path. “Every new ventilation opening provides a new flow path to the fire and vice versa. This could create very … Read more
The sixth tactical implication identified in the Underwriters Laboratories study of the Impact of Ventilation on Fire Behavior in Legacy and Contemporary Residential Construction (Kerber, 2011) identifies potential hazards and risks related to the tactic of Vent Enter Search (VES). Kerber (2011) provides a straightforward explanation of this tactic. It can be described as ventilating … Read more
The fifth tactical implication identified in the Underwriters Laboratories study of the Impact of Ventilation on Fire Behavior in Legacy and Contemporary Residential Construction (Kerber, 2011) is described as failure of the smoke layer to lift following horizontal natural ventilation and smoke tunneling and rapid air movement in through the front door. In the experiments … Read more