Firefighting Operations

Here are some photos and a drill description from a task force (MI-TF1) exercise last week. The task was to shore a sloped (lean-to) floor. They used Paratech equipment.

To be honest, I had never even thought about having to extricate a kid from a safe. Is it possible, you bet. Just google "kid trapped in a safe". Think about all the safes in Dick's Sporting Goods, Walmarts, Gander Mountains, etc...

Avoid operating a hoseline in the direct vicinity of a propane tank that is not being cooled with water. Especially avoid operating in the direct path of the ends of the tank. If a catastrophic failure of the tank should occur the ends of the tank will be the first failure point and will project like missiles.

A good reminder about what is coming and how to combat it in this post from FF Charlie Hillman. Without a doubt we will end up seeing some crazy pictures or video of turkey assisted fires within the week.

This post is a contribution form Ryan Brotherton.  He is a young firefighter who takes every class he can.  The points in this post are a summary of his training regarding VES so far.  Not bad for a young savage.  The video linked in the middle of this post is of a successful VES performed by FF Bob Swick of ...

October is alway a busy month with fire prevention activities, so here are a few topics to get your training geared back up. Ultimately, we have to expect fire, expect entrapments, and expect to break stuff. There are a bunch of links throughout this post to help with a company drill or table top discussion.

Last weeks post on some ventilation training (Read Here) spurred an idea Phil Burden and some other seasoned firefighters have wanted to try. The idea was to cut the roof between the first and second trusses from gutter to gutter over the ridge.

Let me first say, this video is not about the tactic to ventilate a single story ranch joint, because most often your right, we wouldn't. We had a roof and this was one part of the training to learn about a louvered cut and in the end, the modular home truss system.

The intensity of the scene rises as the video progresses until the extrication of the patient. Check out the video below and tabletop some questions below with your crew.