BY MARTIN C. GRUBE
Below are some ideas for developing and perfecting your preplanning, improvisation, and routine skills off the fireground. Look around your response district—do you have similar challenges? How would you deal with them? How good are your firefighters’ basic apparatus maneuvering skills? Sharpen your skills now before you need them!
UNSAFE STRUCTURES
Get out into your first-due area and ride around. Look for abandoned and dilapidated buildings. These dangerous structures could injure firefighters as well as children playing in and around them. This building’s overhang (photo 1) is supported by what appear to be telephone poles held in place by metal spikes driven into the ground to keep these supports from kicking out (bottom arrow). See the bow (top arrow) in the right side of the roof structure? Would you be able to see this at night? When it is raining, how many cyclists or others might take refuge underneath or inside this structure? Solution: After identifying these structures, contact your local code enforcement division to have the property owner raze the building or fence it in. This is truly a danger to your community. Once you’ve produced a list of unsafe structures in your district, send copies to adjacent companies and the 911 dispatch center.
 Photos by author. |
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Identifying and marking. Most jurisdictions fall under the authority of a building code; unsafe structures are covered by the maintenance provisions therein. It is the property owner’s responsibility to maintain a safe structure. Contact your code official’s office or the fire prevention bureau to report unsafe structures so the buildings can be placarded. If a building is placarded, it must be repaired or brought up to code within a certain time or be razed. Firefighters should not use orange spray paint and identify the buildings on their own; this may result in a lawsuit for defacing private property.
What to look for. Walk around these buildings and look for entrances to the structures and overhead wires. Is electrical power still connected to the building? Where should you place apparatus if the building is fully engulfed? Consider the direction of the wind, water supply, exposures, and collapse zones. Be proactive and ask your team members, “What if …?”
SPANNING A DITCH
Here is a good example of firefighter ingenuity. Recently, a medical helicopter landed on one side of a ditch and the patient needing transport was on the other side. In such a situation, use the ground ladders (photo 2) from your on-scene apparatus to span the ditch, and secure backboards to the ladders using strapping. Use as many people as needed to safely escort the flight medics and the patient on the stretcher as they traverse the ladders. This simple safety step will reduce the possibility of injuries to the patient and responders.
TRAFFIC CONE DRILL
Set up a cone course in a parking lot and practice backing through the cones. Most fire apparatus carry traffic cones. You need only a few cones. The blindside-backing course pictured here (photo 3) requires the student to use the right-side mirror. Another excellent course is the serpentine. Information for setting up such a course, including proper cone distance, should be available on the Internet or in an apparatus training manual.
MARTIN C. GRUBE is a 26-year veteran of the Virginia Beach (VA) Fire Department and is currently assigned to Engine Co. 13. He is a master firefighter, a Virginia-certified fire instructor, and the department historian and photographer.
