What kind of foam are you?

Firefighting foam has been around for a long time. The Navy, ARFF firefighters, and the petrochemical industry have used Class B foams for decades. When used properly, foam does a good job of extinguishing fire types for which water is not an efficient extinguishing media. Foam can be used on Class A fires, Class B fires, and for hazmat vapor suppression.

Different foams have different characteristics, are applied differently, and do different things. It may surprise you, but fire officers share several of those same features and characteristics. So, let’s think about the characteristics of different foams and apply them to fire officers.

Class A Foam


Class A foams are designed for one thing – fighting structural or woodland fires where the fuels are solid and have no special hazards. Class A foam does an excellent job of sealing air away from fuels and often result in less fire damage to a structure. Class A foams are very efficient at one thing, but they are a one-trick pony. Class A foams are useful as wildland fire barricades or for direct structural fire attack. However, Class A foams don’t produce much steam, so they are very ineffective when indirect fire attack is required, as in an attic fire.

Are you a Class A fire officer? Are you very good at one thing, but very ineffective at the other dimensions that make up your job? Do you perceive your job duties as “We just fight fires”? Are you uncomfortable with any emergency that doesn’t have smoke and flame showing?

CAFS


CAFS is Class A foam that has air bubbles mechanically added at the pump so that the hoseline is pumping finished foam rather than foam solution. It makes the hoselines lightweight and easy to handle. It also makes the hoselines much easier to kink and completely shut off the foam flow than either water or Class A foam lines. Class A foam is high maintenance – it requires a compressed air pump in addition to the water pump.

Are you a CAFS officer? Are you light and frothy, without much substance? Do you seek the easy way to do things without considering that by making some things easier, you may be keeping the job from getting done at all some of the time? Do you require twice the motivation to work as other fire officers? Do you make others chase your “kinks” or otherwise add to others work because of how you do your work?

Protein-Based Foam


Protein Foams are designed for Class B liquid fires. They are old school, having been around since World War II. Protein foams are made from either animal blood and byproducts, from soybeans, or from a combination of both. They may have fluorine added to increase shelf life, but the fluorine adds environmental toxicity to the foam.

Are you a Protein-Based fire officer? Are you old school? Does something have to die to get you to work properly? Do you, like soybeans, create a lot of gas? Like flourine, are you toxic to the work environment? Do you have a long shelf life? Have you changed how you do things, but not enough despite getting the job done?

AFFF Foam


AFFF is a Class B foam that creates a vapor suppressing film between the foam bubbles and the fuel surface. It is very effective on spill fires. It is good to great at sealing flammable vapors into liquid fuel spills. The AFFF film is slick and oily. Applying other Class B foams atop AFFF usually results in the other foam sliding away due to the slickness in the AFFF. AFFF is good for suppressing polar solvent (alcohol) fires, but it requires twice as much concentration (6%) for this application as the normal (3%) application rate needed for hydrocarbon spill fires.

Are you an AFFF officer? Do you suppress anything that rises from below you? Do you do a good job, but have a slick and oily finish? Do other fire officers not mix well with you?

AR-AFFF Foam


AR-AFFF is a new foam type that is similar to the older AFFF, but with several important differences. AR-AFFF is around 50% more expensive than standard AFFF. However, it is applied at 1% to hydrocarbon spill fires and 3% to polar solvent fires, so a given quantity of AR-AFFF will suppress three times as much fire as an equal quantity of standard AFFF. This results in an actual decrease in cost-per-gallon of the foam concentrate. Typical AR-AFFF is completely biodegradable, and is manufactured without the fluorine additives common to AFFF and protein foams. That makes it a much better choice for fighting both hydrocarbon and polar solvent fires. Additionally, AR-AFFF can be mixed at 0.5% and used as Class A foam for both wildland and structural firefighting applications, making it the most flexible foam currently available?

Are you an AR-AFFF officer? Are you flexible? Can you adjust your approach to adapt to different problems and challenges? Are you friendly to your work environment instead of using effective short-term solutions that leave long-term toxicity in your environment? Are you effective in handling a variety of emergencies rather than just being good at one thing? Can you adjust your intensity and concentration to fit with changes in your work environment?

High Expansion Foam


High Expansion Foam is designed to fill up confined spaces and exclude fire. It does not perform well in exposed positions, because its high expansion ratio makes it light, fluffy, and easy to blow away in a light wind. High expansion foam applications are so limited that most public fire departments don’t even carry it. High expansion foams require special application devices. They also require a lot more effort than conventional foams in order to be effective.

Are you a High Expansion officer? Do you require special treatment to be effective? Does it require additional effort by someone else to make you get the job done? Are you light and fluffy, without substance, and easily blown away by the winds of change? Are you comfortable only within narrowly-defined limits?


Hazmat Foam (vapor suppression foams)


Hazmat Foams are designed to suppress vapors from liquid hazmat spills. They are usually not effective for firefighting in Class A, Class B, or polar solvent fires. They are very, very good for one thing – preventing vapors from rising up from below. In this respect, hazmat foams are even more specialized and limited than is traditional AFFF. Hazmat foams are very effective not only at keeping vapors from entering the environment, but they are effective at keeping the environment out of the hazmat spill.

Are you a Hazmat Foam officer? Are you useless at firefighting? Do you suppress the idea vapors rising from your subordinates into the general environment? Do you work harder at keeping the environment out of your firehouse than you work at being an effective leader?

In conclusion, all firefighting and hazmat foams have their place. Good fire departments have access to all kinds of foam in order to handle a variety of fire and hazmat incidents with the best possible solution. However, not all “Foam Officer” types are good for either the fire department or for the firefighters. The best fire officers have AR-AFFF characteristics; they are flexible, they are good for several different problem types, they can suppress problems when needed, they are cost-effective, and while seeming more expensive on the surface, they actually save the department time, money, and effort in the long run.

And remember, even good fire officers, like good foam blankets are not perfect. Sometimes problems break through the fire officer's ability to handle them, just as the fire can break through the foam blanket.

Last Thoughts from 2009 and Hopes for 2010

It is traditional to spend the last week of the year reflecting upon the past year's events and in anticipating the new year. It has indeed been an eventful year. Major fires, mass casualty incidents, new EMS standards, and political changes that affect Fire-Rescue and EMS services have all been in the news. The tragic loss of fellow firefighters and medics has once again been in the headlines. The 800-pound gorilla in the news has been the continuing problems with the national economy, diminished local tax revenues, and the reduction in services that have been forced upon many cities, towns, and counties.

No fire chief or EMS director wants to close stations, disband companies, furlough firefighters or medics, cut staff and/or benefits, or conduct unit brownouts. All of these have been forced on unwilling leaders, generally under protest. In some cases, companies with over a century of tradition have been disbanded.

Cutbacks of this magnitude have only occurred two other times in the past century. The event that caused the first set of cutbacks was the transition from horsedrawn apparatus to motorized apparatus in the early 1900s. Prior to that time, the edges of a company's first-due area was set by the stamina of the horses that pulled the appratus. With equine stamina no longer being a factor, firehouses could be located farther apart, so many companies were disbanded.

The second time this occurred was in the "War Years" that coincided with economic downturn from the late 1960's through the 1970's. Despite urban fire companies running calls in record numbers, fire companies were disbanded, stations closed, and firefighters were laid off. This was the first time that many fire departments realized that they had to position themselves to withstand downturns in the economy. Some responded with innovation, master planning, and other proactive solutions, but many departments remained reactive.

Beginning in the 1970's, the fire service began going through paradigm changes with each paradigm change taking roughly a decade to become widely accepted. The 1970's were the decade of EMS. EMS was a new concept back then, but many fire departments welcomed and embraced it. The Los Angeles area was notable in this respect, as anyone who ever watched an episode of Emergency! will remember. A new job description - that of Paramedic - became part of our vocabulary.

The 1980's were the decade of Hazardous Materials response. Based on several high-profile hazmat incidents in the late 1970's, Hazmat became a key issue for both fire departments and the communities they served. Another new job description - that of Hazardous Materials Technician entered our vocabulary.

The 1990's were the decade of Technical Rescue. Standardized, innovative extrication practices were invented by firefighters who became famous by the way they taught others how to rapidly and safely cut patients free from the wreckage of their vehicles. The Urban Search and Rescue system was expanded and received its first major domestic test at the Oklahoma City bombing incident. Rescue training became a major focus. Other new job descriptions, those of Extrication Technican and Technical Rescue Technician became common.

The first decade of the new century, unfortunately, became the decade of Terrorism. Although the U.S was hit with several terrorist attacks in the 1990s, and foreign terrorism had been common for many years, the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks were a watershed event in our lives, much as the Pearl Harbor attack on 12/07/41 was the watershed event in our parents' lives. Other than the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the other terrorist incidents were conducted by only four domestic terrorists - the Unabomber, the Murrah Building bomber and one accomplice, and the mislabeled Army of God bomber. The 9/11 attacks led to widespread training for response to terrorist events. Firefighters and medics had to start considering terrorism as a potential cause for otherwise innocuous incidents, and learned terms like "nerve agent", "WMD", "WMD Technician", and "USAR Rescue Specialist" entered our vocabulary.

2009 was a momentous year for my department. After over a decade of planning, budgeting, and lobbying, we were able to build a training center. That may not sound like a big deal to some of you, but when your department covers a barrier island surrounded by water, having a place to train is indeed big news. The training center allows us to conduct training in ways that are impossible to replicate in a parking lot or at a fire station. I lived the dual blessing and curse of being the project manager for the training center construction while simultaneously maintaining all of the other Chief of Training responsibilities. That was stressful and challenging, but it also allowed me to add features that might not have otherwise made it into the design. It also allowed me to work closely with other division heads and to strenghten working relationships with my colleagues.

Local revenue downturns led to a year with no pay raises for any of our municipal employees. My department was regretfully and regretably forced to return a SAFER grant award of almost a million dollars to FEMA and to forgo the truck company start-up for which the grant was awarded. Our municipality simply could not raise the required matching funds without cutting other essential services, so we chose to maintain what we had as the least of a range of bad choices.

There was more good news, for us, though. We were able to purchase a standardized pumper fleet for the first time in department history. We also standardized hose loads, nozzles, and initial company operations for all of our engine companies for the first time in our history. We were also able to standardize our nozzle complements and pump operations, also for the first time. Our capital improvements budget was scheduled for two fire station replacements. One of these was delayed, but we have a badly-needed station replacement under construction. Our department became the first in our state to join the CARES registry that tracks cardiac arrest survival to hospital discharge. We also began a STEMI program with local hospitals and two neighboring EMS systems, with two of our officers coordinating these programs and implemented a department-wide electronic patient care reporting system. We also implemented an new SOG and policy system, obtained new turnout gear, and implemented new extrication tools.

2009 was a year of milestones for several of our members. Five of our officers serve on state and national fire service committees. Battalion Chief Mick Mayers became the latest of several of our past and current chief officers to complete the prestigious Executive Fire Officer program at the National fire academy. Four of our officers authored or co-authored fire service training books, field guides, and blogs. Despite some setbacks, 2009 was a successful year for us by any standard.

What will 2010 hold? For my department, we now have to operate the new training center, complete the new fire station project, and hopefully manage the construction of the station that was delayed from 2009. We will be receiving two new quints and training all of our personnel to operate them. The training center will be a busy place.

Nationally, the next decade will be the decade of Interoperability. We are used to "doing our own thing", but with the increasing needs for EMS involvement in fireground and hazmat rehab, the increasing involvement of police departments in force protection and Unified Command, and the continuing ways in which MCI and disaster management continue to involve, interoperability will become increasingly important. This involves the planning and technology necessary to complete the nationwide radio rebanding project, the ability to involve fire, EMS, and law enforcement in joint operations and training, and losing the attitude that we operate in a vacuum, because we don't.

We need to continue to preach - and practice the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives.

We need to continue to make training and operations safer.

We need to focus on getting safely to the scene - every time.

We need to focus on being healthy and fit to do the job.

We need to focus on planning and innovation to survive a continued sluggish economy.

We need to take care of our own and work to maintain what we have.

We need to be honest with our elected officials and citizens - cutbacks can and do hurt our ability to provide services.

We need to realize that operating "the way we've always done it" will result in Russian Roulette at best, and suicide at worst.

We need to be smart enough to stay out of Born Losers.

We need to conduct realistic Master Planning.

We need to educate the public - CPR classes, First Aid classes, car seat installations, Risk Watch programs, and Fire Prevention classes can and do save lives.

Last, but not least, we need to get make our departments missionaries for residential sprinkler programs and the new building code that requires their installation on new construction. It's past time that we use our influence at the state and national level to overcome the contruction industry's misperception that saving a few cents per square foot on new home construction is worth someone's life.

The departments that plan, adapt, innovate, and market themselves will flourish. The ones that do not will become anachronisms, consigned to a never-ending vicious cycle of manpower cuts, station closures, brownouts, and budget cuts.

After all, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Have a Happy and Safe 2010, everyone.

7-Sided Searches and UCAN

Some recent calls, drills, and follow-up conversations in which I was a participant have brought out how well a couple of basic tactics can be adapted for multiple purposes.

The first is the 7-Sided Search.

7-Sided Searches should be conducted on every incident in which we have a potential victim.
The seven sides to be searched are:

Structures

1. Side A/Division A
2. Side B/Division B
3. Side C/Division C
4. Side D/Division D
5. Roof
6. Basement/Crawl Space
7. the Inside (including the Inside of each interior compartment)

Vehicles

1. Front
2. Driver's Side
3. Passenger Side
4. Rear
5. Top
6. Underneath the Vehicle
7. the Inside, including the passenger compartment, trunk, and hatchback areas

The rule for searching these is:

7-Sided Search

• Every Vehicle



• Every Structure



• Every Time

The other helpful tactic is the UCAN mneumonic. Originally developed for MAYDAY applications, UCAN has applications to basic search tactics. UCAN was designed for a firefighter giving a MAYDAY report to COMMAND the following information;

• Unit



• Conditions



• Actions
  


• Needs

The MAYDAY firefighter should tell COMMAND the unit to which he/she is assigned, the conditions that required calling a MAYDAY, what actions the lost/trapped/disoriented firefighter is taking, and what the lost/trapped/disoriented firefighter needs.

These same four considerations work well when a search team moves through a building, particuarly when moving vertically.

For example, Truck 3 is assigned to conduct a primary search of Divisions 3 and 4 of an apartment building with a fire on Division 2. Truck 3 should give COMMAND a UCAN update each time they move one vertical floor upwards. An example:

"COMMAND, Truck 3"

"Truck 3"

"COMMAND, Truck 3 is on Division 3, we have a heavy smoke condition with moderate heat, no fire visible, we are starting our primary search, and we need ventilation support and secondary egress."

"Truck 3, COMMAND recieves that you are on Division 3, you have a heavy smoke condition with moderate heat and no visible fire, and that you need ventilation support and secondary egress. Repeat your Actions report."

"COMMAND, Truck 3, we are starting our primary search of Division 3."

"Truck 3, recieved, you are starting your primary search of Division 3."

There are five distinct advantages to using UCAN reports for reporting tactical movement through a fire building in the absence of a MAYDAY.

• Firefighters become familiar with the UCAN methodology in routine situations and will not struggle to remember the mneumonic in the event they need to call a MAYDAY in the future


• Firefighters become practiced at using the UCAN terminology and reporting location changes to COMMAND


• COMMAND knows where the units are and what they are doing


• Status changes are reported in a standard forma


• Status reports are transmitted in a standard format. If one part is missed, COMMAND can just ask for the missing piece of information without wasting the air time for a complete UCAN rehash from the unit giving the report

The "A" step can be modified to include "AIR" levels. If a company has a member that is low on air, the company can give a UCAN report that includes the air reading for the member with the lowest air level, particularly in big-box structures where the company needs to exit with 2/3 of their air available.

Candlemoth Syndrome

How many firefighters have ever experienced Candlemoth Syndrome? I know I have, particularly when I was younger and less experienced. Candlemoth Syndrome is a firefighting cousin of Target Fixation, where firefighters are drawn closely to the fire in disregard for proper firefighting tactics and for firefighter safety.

The definition of "Moth to a Flame" is to be "Irresistibly and dangerously attracted to something or someone." The term relates to moth behavior around open candle flames at night. Moths are drawn to the light given off by the flame, but they often get too close, resulting in badly burned or dead moths. Firefighters can indeed be irresistably and dangerously attracted to be in close proximity to a fire. Candlemoth Syndrome is dangerous, it can easily result in firefighter injury or death, and it is all-too-common. Candlemoth Syndrome is generally avoidable if you recognize the symptoms.

Candlemoth Syndrome includes the following:

1) Waiting to attack interior fires until the hose team is very close to the fire in situations where the water stream could be used to safely and effectively attack the fire from farther away.

An example is using a direct attack with a solid stream or straight stream from very close to the fire instead of extinguishing the base of the fire from farther away where the firefighters are less exposed to the heat. This also gives the firefighters more direct access to their escape route if something goes wrong during the attack.

2) Conducting Defensive attacks in structures where Offensive attacks are indicated.

There are two examples of this. The most common is Horizontal Candlemoth Syndrome; the nozzleman who runs directly to a window venting fire and attacks the fire head-on from close range from the exterior. This will usually drive the fire into uninvolved parts of the building, cut off escape routes for the occupants, and increase the amount of unnecessary fire damage to the structure. The other example is Vertical Candlemoth Syndrome, where ladder pipe streams are directed into vertical ventilation openings. This results in the fire being driven downward into uninvolved parts of the structure, with the same potential bad outcomes as the horizontal example.

3) Defensive Candlemoth Syndrome is a variation of Horizontal Candlemoth Syndrome. This occurs when a fire has been declared Defensive and firefighters push too close to a building that is either in danger of collapsing or that is a No Value building, or both.

Focusing strategy and tactics on the RECEO-VS system, maintaining personnel accountability, and having Division C and Incident Safety Officers on scene to maintain a 360 view of the fireground help prevent Candlemoth Syndrome.

Good company officers who practice organizational discipline, who monitor their personnel closely during firefights, and who are not afraid to use firefighting best practices can prevent Candlemoth Syndrome, keep their firefighters safer, and reduce the amount of antacids ingested by chief officers.

Brotherhood versus Enemies

If there are concepts that are polar opposites, Brothers and Enemies are great examples.Brotherhood means treating the people whom you call "brother" as if they were indeed blood relatives.Practicing the concept can sometimes be a little tricker, as brothers sometimes engage in family fights.

I have three brothers, and when growing up, I often lost fights to both the two older ones, who were bigger and more powerful, and a younger one, who was sneakier and not afraid to fight dirty. Let someone else pick on me though, and my brothers would turn on them in a split second.

Firefighting brotherhood is supposed to be like that, even when we disagree. Usually it is, but some firefighters bandy the word "brotherhood" about without having the slightest idea of how to practice the concept. When firefighters have a disagreement and one proclaims the others are his "enemies" over a disagreement, that firefighter intentionally sets himself outside of the brotherhood.

When I made mistakes, my two older brothers tried to straighten me out by discussing the situation and suggesting ways that I could improve upon my actions. A lot of the time, I listened to reason and found that my older, more experienced brothers were indeed right. Sometimes I didn't listen, and found that my brothers became more pointed in their advice; sometimes to the point of directly intervening if my actions would result in harm to myself or to others. Sometimes even that wasn't enough, and I ended up in the hospital getting sutures or other medical care.

The cuts and bruises were sometimes the only way I learned my lesson, but my brothers never let me do anything that would cause really serious injury to me or to anyone else.On the other hand, I wasn't stupid enough to declare myself as an "enemy" to my brothers, because my brothers simply meant too much to me.

My firefighting brothers and sisters are like that. Sometimes we disagree, and sometimes the more senior members give counsel to the younger, less experienced members as well as having discussions among ourselves as to which ways are the best to do things. We don't run around calling each other "enemies" if we expect our brothers to treat us like family, or if we plan to be accepted as a brother or sister, or if we engage in behavior characteristic more like a declared enemy than like a brother.

And...if we declare war against our brothers and sisters, we no longer can claim to be a part of the "brotherhood". If we declare that other firefighters are "the enemy" or "the problem" in a public place, then retract it and run away, we don't have the right to claim "brotherhood" with other firefighters. Part of being a brother is to share common danger with each other's help. That action is not chacteristic of enemies.

Running away in the face of danger or disagreement isn't brotherhood. It's symptomatic of feeling guilty about something."And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth..." Leviticus 26:37

One of the best things about the firefighting brotherhood is the strong bonds of friendship that results from sticking together in the face of danger; we unite against a common enemy. Friends are important in this business. "Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate." Al Brunacini

Brotherhood means being careful of what you say about each other. Enemies are under no such compunction. "An enemy generally says what he wishes." Thomas Jefferson

It's good to have a lot of friends, and few - or no - enemies.

"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, and he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Friends are most important, particularly in the face of someone who declares himself to be an enemy, then conducts attack after attack. Friends help defeat those attacks, and eventually the one who has declared himself to be an enemy will turn tail and run...often becoming anonymous and hiding in an attempt to deflect further attention. I'm proud to be called an enemy by someone who doesn't understand brotherhood and I'm proud of my brothers and sisters who stood by me in an attempt to show someone who labeled me an enemy the error of his ways.

As Winston Churchill once said "You have enemies; Good, that means that you have stood up for something..." I try to stand up for firefighter safety, being smart about firefighting and fire training, and for speaking out when I see things that I don't think are right. I'm extremely appreciative of those firefighters who understand brotherhood and who practice it rather than a vain attempt to grasp it by talking about it without understanding it.

I'm also very appreciative of a senior member of my department who is a member of the NFPA 1403 Committee, and who is not bashful about practicing brotherhood by dispensing good advice when I need it, whether or not I ask for it.

As for declared enemies, they fall into a special category; a category defined by Saul Alinsky when he said "Last guys don't finish nice."

Ramp Strikes, Mom's Name, and Survival

Although I love to read, I haven't had much reading time lately. Work and completing the edits of my chapter in Jones & Bartlett's new Fundamentals of Technical Rescue has taken up most of my spare time. I have been able to complete a book I have wanted to read for a long time recently, Deep Survival by Laurance Gonzales.

Gonzales' work is an excellent study in what it takes to survive extreme situations. He discusses several high-profile and not-so-high-profile incidents in which some people lived, some died, and the reasons for each. His research also includes an astonishing view into brain chemistry, how our brains are wired, and why people make some of the decisions we do under stress.

Some of his research led him to the pilot's ready room on a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier where pilots were preparing for night landings. In case you're not familiar, night carrier landings are so dangerous and stressful that physiological studies show that the pilots are actually more stressed during the carrier landings than in combat. In the pre-flight briefing, the squadron commander tells the pilots "If you're a quarter of a mile out and I ask you your mother's name, YOU DON'T KNOW!" He went on to say that the pilots are so focused that they effectively lose 1/2 of their IQ...the half that's not necessary to land the plane.

The commander later told Gonazlez that one of the primary loss-of-focus accidents in carrier landings is the "Ramp Strike". These are devastating accidents where the pilot focuses so strongly on getting to a safe place - the flight deck - that he loses focus on the steps it takes to get to safety - actually flying the plane in the correct pattern. Ramp strikes generally kill the pilot and other carrier crew members, destroy planes worth several million dollars per copy, and cause major damage to one of our most expensive strategic weapons systems. That's a bad outcome from an event that - although dangerous - our Navy pilots perform safely dozens of times per day.

Gonzales also relates the Mt. Hood climbing accident where one team fell into another and both teams ended up with dead team members and others seriously injured. The second team was involved because they looked up at the team climbing a ridge above them and didn't realize that they were directly in that team's fall line. Gonzales illustrated this by making the same climb himself. When the guide asked him "Which way is down", Gonzales pointed down the ridge to the starting point at the lodge, even though a dropped ice axe - or falling climber - would fall off the side of the ridge, not down the edge of the ridge toward the lodge. He then realized that he'd made a basic orientation mistake - pointing toward percieved safety instead of really assessing his surroundings.

The message - staying oriented is important. When starting search rope training, I've had firefighters tell me "That's so old school. Groping around in smoke is silly - just use a Thermal Imager."

My response is that "The Thermal Imager gets you in to the seat of the fire or to the victim, but it doesn't get you out." The search rope system helps prevent disorientation and it helps you re-orient if you become disoriented. If you don't have a hoseline, anchor a search rope and stay hooked up to it. If you get disoriented, you have two choices - either spend air, effort, and time in a self-rescue or staying put, calling a Mayday, and hoping that RIT gets you before the fire and smoke do. Staying oriented and maintaining a positive connection to the exterior gives you a much better chance of self-rescuing.

A large component of personal survival is mental - both pre-event and during it. The pre-event decision is about doing a thorough, focused size-up and risk-benefit analysis, and taking only calculated risks. The during-event mental focus is to trust the survival system you put in place during the event. Being able to synthesize survival techniques from other professions can help us analyze our mistakes and avoid making them again. As my friend Mick Mayers says, "There are a lot of lessons we can learn from the military". I'd add that there are also lessons to be learned from mountain and river guides, airline pilots, wilderness survival experts, and others who are in the daily business -as we are - of surviving in dangerous places.

The lesson here is to assess your surroundings, have pre-event survival systems in place, control your emotions, and avoid erroneous perceptions of exactly how to get to a safe place.

And...if you call a Mayday, and I ask you your mother's name, YOU DON'T KNOW!

Getting Familiar with Unfamiliar Dirt

I recently spent a week on vacation that included a lot of reading on the beach. I was able to complete a six-book series, the Corean Chronicles by L.E. Modsitt, Jr... an excellent read if you're into the genre. In one of the books, a group of soldiers is deployed to an area with which none of them are familiar. They're tired from traveling and just want to set up camp and relax, but their officer immediately sends out patrols. They complain, but the officer tells the soldiers that they need to "Get familiar with the unfamiliar dirt" where they're operating in order to prevent any nasty surprises from the enemy. Frank Brannigan always told firefighters that buildings were our enemy, and "Know Your Enemy". Driving around a beachfront town that I hadn't visited in several years reminded me that there was a lot of unfamiliar dirt there, and that the unfamiliar dirt had a lot of unfamiliar buildings on it.

How will getting familiar with unfamiliar dirt help firefighters? It helps us learn how to gain access to places we may never have been, it helps us learn occupancy-specific hazards, and it helps us plan firefights in places that aren't directly conntected to the dirt.

Some firefighters don't like to spend time on the dirt at the Training Center.
The places you train are built on some very important dirt.
I spent four hours on this dirt yesterday (Sunday) with several companies of very dedicated firefighters. So did two other chief officers, one of whom was off duty at the time.



Some of your dirt has structures containing bad things like hazardous materials containers...



...or hazardous materials processing.




The dirt may be open and inviting on Side A.
No matter how familiar you are with Side A, if you have to bail out the Side C door of this occupancy, you're in trouble.





How about this dirt? Which Side C door connects to which strip mall occupancy?
How well will the cantilivered awning hold up if fire attacks the interior anchors?
If you need to force entry on Side C, will basic engine tools get you through the fortified doors, or will you need the additional power carried by a ladder or rescue company?





Is some of the structure built a long way above the dirt?
How will you access the upper floors of this structure...especially if the 1st due is a single-station volunteer fire department? Are there fire protection systems to help you keep this building from becoming part of the dirt?






Does the structure extend horizontally away from the dirt?
Do you have a way to handle emergencies in places that are not readily accessible from the dirt?







Are some of the structures on the dirt crammed tightly together?
Can you safely walk between the fire building and an adjacent exposure, or is there a chance that you'll be trapped or burned if part of the fire structure collapses or autovents while you're walking the 4-foot wide dirt between the buildings?





Does the dirt include an antique building modified into apartments over an industrial occupancy with no fire protection systems?

The officer in the Corean Chronicles had an important teaching point for the fire service...learn the unfamiliar dirt to which you're first due...

..so that you don't get familiar with this kind of unfamiliar dirt.