Football Equipment Removal

When seconds count, can we count on you?

A lot of attention is given to being fast in certain areas of our job; getting oxygen administered quickly to someone with low SPO2 stats, getting water on the fire, and performing primary searches. To do any of these things quickly, we better make sure we can get inside first. Think about it. When push comes to shove and we need inside, can YOU be depended on to get the job done? How long has it been since you have had to force a door open? With all honesty, its been a few months for me. Think its not an important skill? My last three force entry situations have all been for EMS reasons. In one of those, I was looking at the patient through the front door, and witnessed her fall head first to the floor. Pressure situation? Immediate need? ARE YOU READY? Don't be the one that stands back, or is happy to grab the irons for someone else. Be the answer and be ready to make a positive impact.

The "Irons". Without a doubt, they are the most versatile tools we have, and they are invaluable. I invite you to open your tool compartment and reintroduce yourself to them. Have a table top discussion and share your knowledge with others. You have encountered things in your career that others have not, so please share it. We never know what might make a difference to someone later on.
I know that many of us think "I will just mule kick the door if I need to" and I also know that that sometimes works. Well, if you make "kicking" your habit and lose your skills of force entry using tools, you might fail when someone needs you the most.

So as we approach our door we are going to force, size it up. What is it made out of? How many locks does it have? Which way does it swing? For this scenario, our door will be an inward swinging door with a single dead-bolt lock above the door knob (very standard for residential front doors). Unless you are attempting to cause as little damage as possible because thats what the situation dictates, you should always "shock" the door. Striking the door at the top, middle, and bottom with the axe or halligan will tell you how solid the door is, or where potential locks might be located. On some doors, you may be able to force them using only the halligan tool. By using the adze end and making a purchase point, some locks will fail and you have done your job. If the lock holds, you will need to reposition the halligan and put the fork in your purchase point. Have the axe strike the back of the adze until the crotch of the fork is even with the stop of the door frame. The curve of the fork should be towards the door. If you are holding the halligan, keep your eyes on the fork and trust the person striking. If you are striking with the axe, be on one knee and hold the axe upright so the tool has a greater surface area to strike the adze. But how do you develop the trust that he/she wont hit you while holding the halligan? Train! With your eyes focused on the fork, you say "hit" or "strike" until you have the tool where you want it. Tell your partner "STOP". This should be the only other time you need to look at your partner, and this is done to verify that they heard you and are stopping their strikes. Push towards the door till it pops open. You may need to reposition your tool to finish the job, but some extra force to that lock should get you in.

Remember when seconds count, you can be the difference, so stay on your skills and keep training. Go around the firehouse with your crew and size up different doors. Talk about the possibility of different locks being present and how you would mitigate those issues. And again, share your knowledge with others.

STAY SAFE!
Justin Longerich
C-Shift STO

ESEC Burn Building

ESEC Burn Building

Developing Tactical Decision Games

Ladder Co Training

As some of you may have already seen, our next training will be centered around ladder company operations. We will be going to the ESEC training grounds (old Wayne Township site) and we will be using the 3-story shipping container building on the North end of the site. I wanted to share with you some of the main points of importance for all members who will be attending the training and share with you what skills you should expect to utilize on the training ground.

Before I get too much into what we will be doing, I would like to remind everyone that as we start to get towards the main summer months, we really need to be making sure that our hydration is where we can be successful at performing our duties. This training will have some physically taxing moments, so if we are not hydrated properly, the training or the rest of your shift may be more difficult. Make sure you are taking care of yourself.

In the early morning hours, around 03:00, your crew is dispatched for a residence fire with possible entrapment. While en route, control advises that the neighbor states she can hear screaming from inside the residence and smoke is showing from a downstairs window.
-What type of things are you considering on the way to this run? Do you know the area? If you are the backstepper, do you feel confident in throwing ground ladders? When was the last time you performed a primary search? Does your crew know what type of search to do? Will everyone be on the “same page” when you arrive on scene?

In that scenario, you do NOT want to find the answers out at 03:00 in the morning. When this call is inevitably dispatched on OUR department, the time will be now to use the $500,000 appartus, the expensive SCBA and bunker gear, the hand tools and attack lines, and make a difference by giving our citizens the greatest possible chance at having a positive outcome during the worst moment in their lives. At this moment, you don’t want to second guess what you could have done differently. The decisions we are making today as a crew and as a department will be seen in action at a time that we won’t be able to predict. It is on all of us to have accountability to be the right firefighter at the right time at the right moment. We rotate crews, work trade-time, and fill-in (at times with little notice). Take this opportunity to sharpen your skills.

Crews arriving at the training are going to have the opportunity to work on using the aerial device to place the bucket under a window for a rescue. You will have the opportunity to throw ground ladders for search and rescue maneuvers. You will have a facility to search for victims under stressful and difficult conditions. Before you arrive to the training, I highly recommend knowing what size ladders you have on your trucks. If you are at an outside station, make arrangements to learn some things about Ladder 71. Ask your shift's Ladder Co Officer, Engineer, or Backstepper about their truck. Know where items are located that you will need to make your searches the most efficient and safe for you and your crew. Be prepared, because this training will be quick and to the point. Come out ready to do your best and we will provide you with a realistic approach to make us all better. Please, if anyone has questions, contact me via e-mail. You may have a question that will help others out, so don’t be afraid to ask.

As always, STAY SAFE!



Click Links Below for additional training

Can Search
Ground Ladder Tips

June 5, 6, 7


Justin Longerich
C-Shift STO

Firefighter Cancer Support Network White Paper

The White Paper

Andy Fredricks

This is a fantastic collection of articles.  It contains a volume of great information and articles  from the late Andy Fredericks of FDNY who was a big advocate of aggressive fire attacks and engine company operations.   These articles were posted in Fire Engineering over the years and still hold true today.  

A Tribute to the Works of Andy Fredericks

Close the Door, Were You Born in a Barn

SAFE Fireground: Flowing

SAFE Fireground: Flowing By: Nick Ledin As we’ve already mentioned in previous articles, the key to fast water and a SAFE fire ground is SAFE (Stretching, Advancing, Flowing, Extinguishing) training. Fires are getting faster, and so should our water. Fast water is dependent upon all four elements of SAFE being performed proficiently since a smooth attack truly is more than the sum of its parts. This article will focus on flowing water for the win. Specifically, focusing on the "why", "when" and "how" to flow when you are advancing on a covered fire that you can’t immediately reach with your hose stream. Let’s start with the all-important "why". We’re all aware that smoke is fuel, but we must understand that smoke is energy too. Many think of the seat of the fire as a heat pump, producing huge amounts of convective, conductive and radiative energy, with all of this energy released into the building. While this is a great analogy, we must think of the smoke throughout the building as a secondary heat pump, releasing large amounts of energy to the ceiling, walls, contents, and anyone inside the building, as well. Predictably, when left unchecked, this secondary heat pump can lead to rapid fire progression and untenable conditions. While it’s imperative that we get to the seat of the fire, we have to have a plan when we can’t reach the seat. We can still begin to control and cool the environment around and ahead of us, buying some time and creating more tenable space and time for anyone still inside. This cooling will also make our advance to the seat safer and may be our only chance to reach the seat in a timely manner. Now that we’ve discussed the "why" let’s move on to the “when”. If you’re advancing a hose line inside a building and you can’t yet reach the seat of the fire because it’s hot, cool it. Seems pretty simple, right? By cooling the overhead you are buying some time. This action may buy you only a handful of seconds, and create only a couple of handfuls of square feet of space, but it should give you the time and space you need to make the turn and reach the seat of the fire. While we can talk in circles about what constitutes a “hot” overhead, the truth is that inside the fire building we have no specific, empirical trigger points that can define “hot”, so a good rule of thumb is to always, using good reason and solid judgment, cool the overhead. The concept of cooling the overhead is nothing new and many have been preaching it for decades. Although it has numerous names (gas cooling, protective cooling, smoke cooling, etc.) and techniques can cause quite a bit of confusion amongst even the most engaged firefighters. So to hopefully add a small bit of clarity and give an option to those of us that use smoothbores, or even straight streams inside the fire building, let’s explore the “how” of protective cooling. The attached video, shows ONE way to effectively cool the overhead as you make your advance to the seat of the fire. As with all things operational on the fireground, due to the dynamic nature of our "office”, we need to be able to be flexible with our tactics. Depending on your distance away from the seat of the fire, the power of the fire, the temperature inside the building, the size of the building or compartment, your equipment, the vent profile, and your technique, you may have to cool the overhead more or less often. While there are many ways to make this technique work, some general rules of thumb with the ceiling sweep are to: - Sweep the ceiling side to side across the entire width of the ceiling (within reason, we’re assuming the fire is in an average SFD), therefore the larger the room, the wider the sweep. - The hotter the environment and more powerful the fire, the more water needed with each sweep, so slow down your nozzle movement and keep the bale open longer. - The hotter the environment and more powerful the fire, the more often you’ll need to sweep. - Use the reach of the stream to your advantage, and if the fire is farther away from you, lower your nozzle angle a bit. - Everything else being equal, the more GPS (gallons per second) you’re flowing, the less time your bale will need to be opened. I could go on, but the specifics for this technique are much more important than the generalities. Like everything we do in this job, the gray areas require gray matter…and, of course, lots of sweat on the drill ground. If this concept or technique is new to you, get out and mess around with it and figure out if it works for you. If it does, use it; if it doesn’t, figure out another way to deal with the problem of a tough advance on a covered fire. Below are a couple of other flowing primers to serve as a template for your training. Flowing: - Know your flows (GPM); flow test your equipment packages (pump, piping, hose, and nozzle) - Location, size (flow) and technique (pattern, angle, duration) matter - Exterior attack (steep, straight, static…then the seat) - Cooling the overhead (gas cooling, protective cooling, smoke cooling, etc.) - Interior attack (ceiling, contents, floor) - Indirect/direct/combination attack - Push - flowing while moving forwards - Retreat – flowing while moving backward - When to close the bale? Kill fire, save people. I want to acknowledge a handful of my mentors that helped to shape my SAFE mindset and deserve ALL the credit for the content within these articles. I want to be clear here: none of this information is new to the fire service, this is just a resynthesis of information learned from brothers and sisters much smarter than me. Some of these brothers I have had a chance to actually sweat with, while others I’ve studied and mimicked from afar. A sincere and humble thank you to Andy Fredericks, Aaron Fields, Brian Brush, Steve Kerber, Jason Jefferies, Dennis LeGear, Jeff Rothmeier, Lars Axelsson, Ryan Torres, Ed Hartin, Paul Grimwood, and Dave Dodson.

Saving Firefighters from Themselves: New Year—New You

Saving Firefighters from Themselves: New Year—New You By: Demond Simmons, Oakland Fire Department The recent election of Donald J. Trump to replace outgoing President Barack H. Obama has caused a great amount of discussion globally—firehouses included. Now that the people have spoken through our democratic voting process, it is time to move forward and continue on with our daily responsibilities as company officers. As professional fire service personnel, we know that one of the most influential positions of power in the world has very little impact on what we do daily when the bell goes off in the fire station. As company officers, we will continue to train, supervise, and expect our people to provide a high level of service to the communities across the United States that we serve. Internationally, fire service personnel continue to provide invaluable contributions in the realm of prevention, response, and mitigation. Using data from NIOSH (1994 – present), we are on pace to record the lowest number of firefighter fatalities here in the United States. Internationally, the number of firefighters who have perished in the line of duty varied significantly from country to country. Between 2004 and 2013, 14 firefighters in the United Kingdom died in the line of the duty. In one blast incident in China, reportedly 88 firefighters were killed, while in Germany, nine firefighters died in the line of duty during a seven-year period beginning in 2005. Fire departments across the United Sates continue to employ alternative EMS models that are in line with the community para-medicine concept. UL and NIST continue to employ untiring efforts to educate us on modern fire behavior. Organizations such as the Boston Fire Department continue to recognize the importance of cancer prevention through awareness, education, and reengineering principles. As we prepare professionally for 2017, we must continue moving forward as educators, leaders, and innovators. What does that look like for the company officer:  Ensuring that our firefighters wear their SCBA’s from the beginning of the incident through property conservation and overhaul.  Ensuring that our firefighters doff their gear prior to getting back on the apparatus.  Ensuring that our firefighters wash their gear (including flash-hood) after every fire, and on a frequent basis.  Ensuring our crews are not only prepared mentally, but physically, and preparing ourselves like that of a professional athlete.  Using ICS on all incidents.  Employing rehabilitation and medical monitoring strategies at extended operations, and in elevated temperature environments.  Encouraging our firefighters to spend less time at the coffee table playing the role of mayor or fire chief—use that time to enhance knowledge, skills, and abilities germane to the profession.  Encouraging our firefighters to seek out certifications and college degrees.  Encouraging our firefighters to branch out and learn from other fire service personnel in different parts of the world—take on a global perspective.  Ensuring that seatbelts are worn by all individuals while the apparatus is moving.  Being kind to each other. As humans, we are all going through issues in our personnel and professional lives. PTSD is not just associated with the military—it is in our communities and in our profession.  Being consummate role models and keeping our younger firefighters engaged. The aforementioned list is not exhaustive; however, it is a tectonic list that if rigorously employed by the company officer, will allow us to realize a downward trend in occupational fatalities and cancer diagnoses in the fire service. Regardless of who is serving as our president, you (company officer) can and must ensure that the above are executed. Your firefighters are counting on you! Continue to remain a student of the profession

Back Pocket Drill