BY TOM BRENNAN
Last month, we were trying to figure out what some of the communication responsibilities of the tactical (or task) firefighter teams should be to the initial incident commander. We said the decisions that he must make mentally or “out loud” are rapid-fire, intense, apprehensive, prayerful, interrelated, and so much more so in the first few minutes after commitment to an offensive strategy at a structure fire. The “wise” incident commander, we said, gets help immediately or seeks it from his teams within and on the structure. (The “smart” incident commander knows he needs nothing from his teams and “knows all ’cause he passed da test.”)
Training and critique must result in many situations, but first understand all the interplay of whatever is getting done (or not done) by the tactical firefighters. They must begin to know their value in the strategy selected (in this case offensive interior fire attack). Once understood, the communication among ALL players will increase, and meaningless chatter on the radios will abate.
Last month the incident commander was getting the fire boundaries on a multioccupancy structure from the roof team. In short, where are the fire walls and fire partitions and shafts and alleys? Where is your fire, and what defines or limits its spread-at least for now?
What else do the roof- (vertical ventilation-) assigned firefighters know? If the building is a one-story commercial structure OR there is a fire on the top floor of such a multistory structure, eventually the roof may (will) have to be cut. The size-up for that tactic by the roof team is also vital information to the incident commander’s initial concern: Where is the fire AND where is it going?
A great roof team has already decided that there is an upper-floor fire, then a top-floor fire, AND that it is either in the front portion of the structure or not-AND THEY HAVE NOT EVEN LEFT THE MOVING APPARATUS YET!
The next step is for them to “get there.” The company officer-the truck officer-expects them to get there, the incident commander expects them to get there, so hopefully they will stay off the radio announcing their arrival (remember radio discipline and dopey information). On arrival, they must begin to divide the building into four quadrants-and put the fire in its place in the boxes. They reinforce their educated guess on whether the fire should be in the front half or rear half by the intensity of the byproducts of combustions they observe and further divide it into side B or D (mostly). They are prioritizing their actions for the rest of the responsibilities they have there. That information “Top floor fire apparently located in the C/D portion of the structure (or right/rear)” is very important to the incident commander AND to the interior operating teams that may need focus concerning their search operations and movement of the line at the door or at the stair landing.
Next is the extension of fire as seen from the roof whether the fire is in the top floor or not. After opening the roof and before the cutting operation, the roof team should make a survey of the rest of the building: Are there occupants in stress who are not visible from the street (do this after you open the roof, or you may never get to it)? This is especially important for those on sides other than A (1) or in shafts!
Who else has the answers?
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, 1995). He was the recipient of the 1998 Fire Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award. Brennan is featured in the video Brennan and Bruno Unplugged (Fire Engineering/FDIC, 1999).
