 AP Photo/Akira Suemori Firefighters work at the scene of a suspected gas explosion in Harrow, London, in February. |
Oscar Wilde claimed that “the Americans and the British are identical in all respects except, of course, their language.” The same can be said about the way we fight fires, as both in their own right can claim to be among the most advanced in the world. The UK, along with most Western European countries, has its advanced firefighting technology, while the United States and Canada have traditionally had a much wider tactical approach.
Back in the day, we in the UK knew very little about the way fires were fought across the pond. The rest of the world, seemingly due to the influence of the British Empire and Commonwealth, pretty much did things “our way.” The world-renowned Fire Service College in Moreton in the Marsh in Gloucestershire, England, taught officers from company level right up to chief of department from Australia and the Far East to Holland and Belgium and just about everywhere in between. All we knew of firefighting in the United States were from films such as “Towering Inferno” and Dennis Smith’s book “Report from Engine Co 82.”
I daresay that the average U.S. firefighter has traditionally had little or no idea about firefighting outside of their own country, too. This was verified by visits to London fire stations by U.S. firefighters on vacation, asking why we had “Two engines but no trucks” in them. Today, with the world apparently shrinking with the launch of every new technology and the rise of the Internet, the firefighting world can be shrunk down to the size of the screen on your desktop. But with this, the confusion, arguments and debates about who does what have increased many fold.
In recent months I have been amazed, frustrated and often beside myself watching United States vs. Europe-type debates on a number of firefighting forums. The trouble boils down to the fact that the average UK and U.S. firefighter knows a lot about their own system and very little about the other. They subsequently dismiss what each other does as absolute rubbish. As someone who knows a hell of a lot about UK firefighting and more than enough to get by about firefighting in the United States, these debates are incredibly frustrating for me.
Different aggression
In the UK, firefighting is very quick and aggressive, but not aggressive in the way that it is in the United States, where crews employ a range of offensive tactics from both engine and ladder crews. Instead we operate in what is known in some circles as a “quick water” attack. Literally, the guys here hit the ground running. As crews arrive on scene, a two-man SCBA crew will be ready to enter the building and the officer will carry out a quick assessment of conditions and do a risk assessment. With the high-pressure hosereel pulled from the side locker of the pump, the crew will be inside and up close to the fire within a minute of arrival. Subsequent crews will then follow up with tactics that will be more familiar to U.S firefighters -- set into the hydrant, lay out larger hose lines and commence a search of the structure.
Of course this relates to smaller fires confined to a couple of rooms. But 85 percent of our structural firefighting is done this way and it’s a sound and well-practiced system that is clearly proven to work in a number of domestic and smaller commercial fires. A high percentage of these fires are limited to the room of origin and larger lines are never used despite being made ready.
 No one way is right and no one way is wrong. They are just different ways of putting water onto a fire to control and extinguish the process of combustion.  | ||
This would of course work in any similar fire in any building in the United States despite what the best of the forum veterans say. I could pull up with two pump crews to a condo fire in Florida or a taxpayer fire in the Bronx and deal with it exactly as I would in the UK, subject to similar dispatch and attendance times.
The cynics will no doubt point to construction differences between the UK and the United States, but although there are some very clear differences in traditional construction, let’s be clear. The United States isn’t populated with tinder-dry match wood buildings as much as the UK isn’t filled with stone-built castles. I will agree that once the fire begins to compromise the structural elements, then a UK building will withstand fire a lot better because of its construction. But for the bread and butter domestic, the same rules apply.
My bottom line is this: Fire departments in the United States, be they career or volunteer, will put out any given fire in their response area using the tactics that have been tried, tested and developed over generations. By the same token, any crew in the UK would be able to turn up and put out the same fire just as efficiently using the tactics that we have tried, tested and developed over generations. No one way is right and no one way is wrong. They are just different ways of putting water onto a fire to control and extinguish the process of combustion.
I of course have every faith in the system we use in the UK; I have been using it quite successfully from firefighter through company level up to chief for 21 years. However, my numerous trips to the United States have also taught me that everything done there is also valid. It is far more resource intensive but highly effective in bringing fires under control. So how do we solve the debates? Well maybe we can’t, because as we all know there is more that one way to skin a cat. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from each other, and adopt the best of each other’s tactics and drop the practices that are very obviously not working.
Stay safe & be lucky.