A long burn time before the arrival of fire-suppression forces should be a red flag for the first-arriving officer or firefighter. Every minute that the fire is attacking the building’s structural integrity, the building is losing its ability to resist gravity — and that’s a serious hazard for firefighters.
Long pre-arrival burn times also give the fire a chance to develop significant heat output that consumes the structure and poses significant risk to exterior exposures.
Though the video offers only a single static view of the incident scene, it holds a wealth of information that can be used to better prepare firefighters and officers for their next encounter with a fully involved structure fire.
Discussion points
- Describe the fire behavior and what the interior conditions are likely to be on the first and second floor when the first fire unit arrives?
- What is the building’s structural integrity at this time?
- Assume that the response to this incident consists of two engines, one truck, and an ambulance with all units staffed by volunteer personnel. You know that the truck is several minutes behind the first arriving engine; the other engine and ambulance are several minutes behind the truck. Based on the observed conditions, what would be the initial incident action plan?
Hands-on training
1. Delivering a large gpm fireflow from an engine-mounted master stream device can be a very powerful weapon against a large volume of fire, which may be threatening exterior exposures.
Conduct a drill with your personnel to determine how long it would take to put such a fireflow into action with the stream hitting a designated target. Afterwards, do a quick tailboard review to determine what, if any, improvement can be made to make the task more efficient and effective.
2. Have your personnel sketch out a site diagram of what they believe the incident scene looks like from the front seat of the first arriving fire unit.
3. Have them prepare and deliver an on-scene radio report of the incident and the conditions they observed.