By Scott Ziegler
About a week ago I was detailed to a company that a friend runs at regularly. We were discussing the fire service as a whole: tactics, this department over that department, places he’s been, guys he’s met, etc. I always like picking the brain of veterans, especially guys like this who love knowing everything about the job.
But then he told me something that someone from another city’s fire department recently said to him. It was something along the lines of, we (Detroit) should stop using 1 1/2-inch line because we aren’t putting out our fires.
Ever see one of those scenes from a movie where there’s music playing, then someone says or does something causing the music to screech to a stop? Yeah, that’s how I feel every time I hear anything said about how 1 1/2-inch line are not adequate.
Big fire, big water. That’s what everyone is screaming about these days. It’s all the rage. Right?
That’s great. If you and your department want to train that way, wonderful. If you want to perfect the art of the two-man advancement of that 2 1/2-inch across a parking lot, or inside of a simulated structure, that‘s awesome. Wonderful. Great. Good for you. But, don’t tell us that our way isn’t working when, clearly, it is.
For argument’s sake
Now I know, that I am still pretty new to this profession. I don‘t have near the experience as the veterans I work under. But there are a few things that I do know based on my experiences.
For the sake of argument, let‘s pretend the only fires I have ever fought were here with Detroit. Let‘s go further and just take the fires I went to while I was a trialman for seven months of fire service.
Now we had to keep a book of our runs to keep track of how many hours of fire service we had during our trial period. I had roughly 80 hours of actual firefighting (small number compared to some of my classmates at other houses) by the time my trial period was over.
That was about 70 separate fires. My point is, I never once put my hands on a 2 1/2-inch attack line. Never. And every single fire we went to was put out — and fairly quick I might add — all with 1 1/2-inch attack lines.
Now I am not saying that it is wrong to use a 2 1/2-inch. Not at all. If that‘s what works for your department, keep doing it. But I am tired of hearing guys talk about how a 1 1/2-inch line isn‘t enough.
With a good aggressive initial attack, and a second line for back up, the 1 1/2-inch can and will put out a hell of a lot of fire. I‘m talking, “fire blowing out of every window of the house” fire.
It works. There is video evidence of it working. There are hundreds of seasoned veterans — on the job and retired — from departments all over, who have used this method of attack on countless fires.
It honestly does a great job. But the firefighters on the line have to be aggressive with their attack. This is something I think firemen should pride themselves on.
To take it a step further — and I am sure I will get a ton of flack about this — I have seen some pretty good fires go out with the use of a red line (1 inch, with 40 gpm at 100 psi) using an incredibly quick and aggressive attack on the fire.
I‘m not saying it should be common practice, but when seconds matter, sometimes you work with what you have. So if these techniques work, please explain to me how we are doing it all wrong.
Again, I am not saying that 2 1/2s are bad. I‘m not even saying that we never use them. I‘m just saying, an 1 1/2-inch line is our number one option for structure fires, and it works incredibly well.
Just because your fire department doesn‘t use them the way we do, doesn‘t mean they don‘t work. Keep doing it your way; we will keep doing it ours.
Stay safe brothers.
