John M. Buckman, III Buildings are disposable - Firefighters Are Not! Part 2 What is the rate of change in a building fire today? Can you accurately predict the rate of change? Accurately? The speed of fire today is all about lightning speed. Is that traditional? I remember being told in my basic fire behavior class that "fire doubles in size every minute." AOL used to update their system 3 times a day. How often does a website update today? Every 3 hours? Every 3 minutes? Every 3 seconds? I’m don’t know the real answer to that one but I can hazard a guess that the most active websites update continuously. Speed? Lightning speed! What is the speed of fire today? The change has already occurred. Building contents are different. Fires burn different. Traditional fire suppression techniques are being challenged today by hard science. New knowledge, new facts. I know; I like every other firefighter has heard for years that every fire is different. That may have been a true statement years ago, but today, if you really study the science of fire growth dynamics, fires are not different. Yes, all fires are hot. Yes, the fire will grow when combustibles are present but the rate of growth WILL BE different depending on the air provided to the heat and combustibles. When dispatched to a structure fire, the size up process begins with a quick review of preplan information based upon our knowledge about the district, neighborhood, water supply, setbacks, distance between structures, etc. The incident commander should begin to determine what is the expected "worst case scenario" that firefighters can be expected to confront upon arrival. Plan for the worst…. No one wakes up in the morning expecting to be burned out of their house but it happens. It is our job as firefighters to get water on the fire as fast as possible, in the safest manner possible. Firefighters are extensively trained, primarily to put out fires that threaten civilian populations and property, but also to rescue people from car incidents, collapsed and burning buildings and other such situations. However, the increasing complexity of modern industrialized life combined with an expansion in the scale of hazards has created an urgent need to augment the skills and technical knowledge needed for firefighting, including EMS response. Every year, civilian lives are lost and billions of dollars’ worth of property is destroyed; it’s the job of your fire department, your fire brigade, your fire & emergency service agency or whatever name you go by to protect those people and that property. But you must always remember that fighting fires is dangerous and complex, and it takes organization and teamwork for your own people to get the job done safely and go home at the end of the day. Make sure that your incident commander is keeping up with the current information. Ensure that you and your brother and sister firefighters are current in your training techniques and can complete skills with 100% accuracy - 100% of the time. When you arrive at every scene, remember that Buildings are Disposable - Firefighters Are Not!
Posted on: Sun, 22 Sep 2013 19:37:55 +0000
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