06 Fireground Management Flashcards
Fireground management is about
- Reading the building
- Locating the fire
- Rescuing the victims
- Extinguishing the fire
- Controlling ventilation
- Sending every FF back in service unharmed
Effective fireground management has several elements:
- Size up
- Reading the structure
- Predicting impending and future hostile events
- Determining strategy and tactics to mitigate those events
- Projecting a command presence
We need to look at the building in a more thorough way.
- Start at roof
- Next the sides
- Finally, the foundation
Any smoke pushing from below grade spaces warrants quick and immediate investigation to determine if the fire is currently below grade.
Fires located in basements or below grade often take hold of the building’s support system (girders, beams, pillars) thus compromising the building’s integrity
Identifying the flow path can help to
determine tactics to mitigate the fire.
Identify openings as _______, ________, or __________ in terms of ventilation flow into or out of a fire compartment.
- Inlets
- Outlets
- Bidirectional
Finding the lowest grade entrance to a building that has the least amount of smoke or fire coming from it should be your first choice.
Having FFs enter from below and attacking from where the heat is least intense is the safest option for the hand line crews.
UL FF Safety Research defines Flow Path as
The area(s) within a structure where heat, and smoke and air flows from an area of higher pressure to lower pressure.
The arrival of the engine starts the suppression operations through the application of water.
Command Location: Pros for within warm zone
- Best visualization of fire building
- Ability to evaluate exposures
- Face-to-face communication
- Continual ability to re-size up building
- Visually see ops and effectiveness
Command Location: Cons for within warm zone
- Missed radio communication
- Getting caught up in ops
- Tunnel vision on a piece of the ops
- Difficult to determine who is in charge
- Stress goes up, critical thinking down
Command Location: Pros for command vehicle
- Controlled environment
- Best radio communications
- Access to resources (e.g. computer)
- Easy identification and location
Command Location: Cons for command vehicle
- Lack of situational awareness
- Difficulty sizing up or re-sizing up
- Difficult to identify safety issues
- Communications limited to radio
One of the greatest challenges at a fire scene…
Apparatus positioning
Fireground commanders should preprint a mayday checklist with the following points
- Who is the member?
- Are they trapped?
- Do they know where they are?
- If not, what was assignment?
- Who were they with?
- Did they fall through floor to lower level?
- What do they need
- Activate RIT and companies to assist
- Request additional alarms and chief officers
