This time, we begin with an intentioned reverse to the old “truck work” term forcible entry and talk about the problems that arise on every fireground because not enough forcible exits are created as interior firefighting continues to the under-control stage. Although it at first may appear to be a casual mention, it is certainly more important than that and is becoming even more important.
We can make the mistake of becoming trapped behind locked secondary exits we cannot operate on or use because of fatigue or fire conditions around us, or because we are unfamiliar with their operation and assuredly become panicked because the primary entrance is now blocked for us. These exits at first include side and rear doors but also can include garage doors, fire escape access doors, cellar entrances, as well as fixed windows of space-age plastics and older barred and guarded windows on lower floors.
Years ago, a locked secondary exit, a simple glass-and-metal commercial occupancy door in the side wall of a Florida gift shop, trapped three firefighters and cost two of them their lives. Sure, it is mandated that such exits be openable from inside during public access hours, but how many of us check them during the firefight? How many of you have become trapped inside private dwellings behind exit doors that are held fast by tubular dead-bolt locks that are double key operated-both inside and outside the building? Get in the habit of ensuring that these locks are out of the problem by communicating through both the inside and the outside teams. How many of you have any of these tactics in the “bag of tricks” of your RIT operating guides?
All exit doors and assemblies on the fire building should be made openable by someone! All back doors of all occupancies for sure. For scissor gates, after initial entry, force the gates to the end of their travel, pick up the track guide, and rotate the problem out of the way.
Fox horizontal bar locks on commercial building exits: How many of you know that you have to pull the operating knob while turning the gears to open the lock from inside the structure?
Commercial building roll-down security doors that are openable from the inside have to be accounted for by the outside teams and walking bosses and communicated to the interior commanders and truck officers. Access to their operation during a structure fire is a major goal. Communication and cooperation will decide if they are simply accessed from the interior or forced from the exterior.
The one door that is most commonly ignored is the secondary door (the one fixed in place) to a double-glass and metal-door assembly on commercial buildings. Get access to the levers that control the locking pins of the fixed door that are in the lock stile and hidden by opening the main door (another reason to use through the lock) to make an ineffective small opening to a big area into a large and effective opening. This is something you can find poorly done in almost every commercial fire picture in our magazines.
Search procedures during a commercial occupancy firefight should include locating and opening the sliding bars and drop bars that hold the rear door assemblies closed. And although revolving doors are not considered true exit openings, they should be collapsed during any interior operations of our fire forces.
We always neglect to include secondary work on windows that have been ventilated forcibly early in the fire-at least before you got there. There is a fine line between the tactical operations performed called firefighting or overhauling. Broken windows should be cleared of any obstructions-cross bars, glass shards, baby barricades, and certainly security gates and bars. The way fires behave today, because of newer and flimsier construction or ineffective amounts of tactical personnel on the scene, it may cause an area being overhauled to erupt into another firefight and members scrambling for secondary exits.
Just such an event happened in the Northeast last winter, causing three members to jump from a third-story window from which the portable ladder had been removed because it was “no longer needed.”
Another of our faults is failure to recognize whether there is enough lighting on and in the fire scene. Lighting is one tactic that, like salvage, should be ongoing from the time of arrival to after the cleanup phase of operations has been concluded. It is one of the tactics we always miss in our marketing when discussing how many firefighters are needed on the scene. Yet, all the new committees formed to try to reduce injuries on the fireground usually have not mentioned lack of lighting as being responsible for a great number of falls, tripping injuries, partial collapses, collisions, falling objects, and other primary injuries. There is NEVER enough lighting on any fireground-at least where I have been involved.
Remember: These occurrences are just lessons to be recognized and solved for all time. If not, they are certainly professional mistakes. ■
TOM BRENNAN has more than 35 years of fire service experience. His career spans more than 20 years with the Fire Department of New York as well as four years as chief of the Waterbury (CT) Fire Department. He was the editor of Fire Engineering for eight years and currently is a technical editor. He is co-editor of The Fire Chief’s Handbook, Fifth Edition (Fire Engineering Books, 1995). He was the recipient of the 1998 Fire Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award. Brennan is featured in the video Brennan and Bruno Un-plugged (Fire Engineering/FDIC, 1999). He is a regular contributor to Firenuggets.com.
