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Volume 6, Issue 2

B SHIFTER

CONTENTS

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In this Issue

27 Cherry Road: What We Know Now Live-fire tests support applying water to the fire as quickly as possible.

By Dan Madrzykowski

37 Sweat It Out Smoke and soot are full of nasty toxins. Detoxify from the inside out with modern sauna therapy. By Rodney Palmer

Opinions/Editorials

5 The Chiefs Aloha By Alan V. Brunacini

7 Random Hallucinations Ladder slides & bulletproof vests? We need saner ways to feel special. By Nick Brunacini

13 The 360 A heady reflection on cranial safety vs. good ol American pageantry. By Johnny Peters

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Leadership & Training

21 Lets Have a Mayday Hosting your own mayday isnt fun, but it sure is easy. Just follow these simple steps. By Nick Brunacini

45 Consumers & Conservers Understanding our role within city government can help us understand our cost & define our worth. By Terry Garrison

51 PHX CTC 2.0 Blue Card returns to build its hometown a cooler, smarter & more robust CTC.

By Blue Card Staff

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B Shifter is owned and published by Across the Street Productions Inc. Copyright 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without the expressed written consent of Across the Street Productions.

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Pretty Pictures

57 The Rear AxleB Shifter tips its hat to Seattles home-grown, mid-century city service ladder trucks.

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Safety

17 Interior Layouts The more you know about a structures interior configuration, the safer you will be. By Vincent Dunn

41 In the Weeds Washington firefighters faced resistant doors, wonky wiring & hidden rooms at an unsuspected grow-house fire. By Chuck Kahler

47 Brothers Keeper Firefighter suicide rates are on the rise. How can we watch each others backs beyond the hazard zone? By Daniel Dawe

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Blue Star Items Complement & Support the Blue Card Hazard-Zone Incident Command Training & Certification Program.

B SHIFTER

THE CHIEFS ALOHA

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In this edition of B Shifteras in many before itwe highlight safety both in the hazard zone and beyond. Safe doesnt mean wussy, like some people would have you believe. Safe means smart, experienced and open to new information. Safe means incorporating what youve learned into new tactical approaches.

For example, we can learn a lot from fire research. Many are quick to dismiss what we learn from live-fire studies and other attempts to examine fire behavior. In fact, nothing cre-ates a poop storm quite like a fire-science discussion. In this issue, ULs Dan Madrzykowski will likely incite another riot with his article, Cherry Road: What We Know Now. This time around, Dan revisits a 1999 townhouse fire in Washington, DC, which claimed the lives of two firefighters. Dans article explains how recent live fire tests support the use of coor-dinated attack, especially on ventilation-limited fires. Its a compelling read.

As we learn to be safer working in and around fire, we can also learn to be safer when it comes to our exposure to the nasty products of combustion. Its a glaring reality that firefighters are more prone to develop cancer due to long-term exposure to toxins. On a recent trip to a fire-service conference, I met a guy who develops sauna systems for use in fire stations. In Sweat it Out, Rodney Palmer explains how our bodies release toxins via sweat, and he describes the use of infrared saunas for that purpose.

How many of you have responded to an ordinary fire in an ordinary house that ends up being less than standard? In the article In the Weeds, Blue Card instructor Chuck Kahler describes an incident where crews responding to a simple garage fire encountered false walls, hidden rooms, a marijuana crop and a lot of creative electrical work. Its a good reminder to approach even the most average-looking house in the most benign suburb with caution.

Thanks for reading this issue of B Shifter. Until next time, readers Be Nice!

If We Are Smarter, We are SaferRemaining open to new concepts & tactics helps us stay safe. BY ALAN V. BRUNACINI

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B SHIFTER

RANDOM HALLUCINATIONS

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Science and religion routinely find themselves at odds with one another. Religion is based on faith whereas science is based on fact. Unless some-thing is observable and repeatable, it is not a scientific fact. I under-stand this viewpoint. While admirable, this view of reality relies on the fickle human mind. First of all, the smartest humans that have ever lived have not made sense out of how our known universe works and fits together. Sure, our best brainiacs can chart the movement of large objects through the heavens and send rocket ships about the solar system, but all this human understand-ing comes undone when applied to increasingly smaller bits of matter. This becomes even more confusing when one considers that many of our most closely held scientific beliefs have been proven false. The inescapable truth that large swaths of modern reality are built around false science (i.e. bullshit) has spawned our current Congress, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and the Ancient Alien show on the History Channel.

Some of our firefighting tactics are based on faith. Here is all the scientific evidence required to prove my theorem: The ladder slide continues to be taught in firefighter safety and survival programs. This tactic was invented for situations where firefighters are searching for victims above the fire in worsen-ing fire conditionstypically without attack lines (they slow them down too much). If conditions get really bad (approaching flashover), and there is not alternate means of egress, firefighters are instructed to jump out of an upper floor window to slide headfirst down an awaiting ladder. I imagine the conver-sation that invented the ladder slide went something like this:

Burt: We need to develop a tactic that allows firefighters to quickly exit upper floors in the event of an impending flashover.Ernie: How about if the firefighters in the affected areas radio to outside crews and ask them to throw a ladder to their location?Burt: No. That takes too long. Ernie: What if those same firefighters took an attack line to the upper floor with them as part of their search?Burt: No. That takes too long. Ernie: What if we used a risk-management plan that identified unsurviv-able areas of the structure, and we no longer performed primary searches in those areas? Burt: No. That takes too long and limits where, when and how our men can risk their lives. Safety Officer Ernie: Lets eliminate these situations in the first place and change the fire code to mandate sprinkler protection in any space where people live and sleep.Burt: No. We are firefighters because we fight fires. Lets do this instead.

Shooters & Ladders The games we play to appear badass have us wearing bulletproof vests & sliding head first down ladders. We need safer, saner ways to feel special.BY NICK BRUNACINI

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Whenever firefighters are searching above a fire, and they need to imme-diately exit to avoid burning to death, they should run as fast as they can toward a window. They should then dive out the window head first.Ernie: Isnt diving head first out of an upper story window almost as dan-gerous as riding out a flashover?Burt: Not if we have later-arriving companies break all the upper floor windows by placing ground ladders at incorrect climbing angles.Ernie: This sounds like the stupidest possible solution to a problem of our own creation. What other group of professionals would adopt jump-ing out of an upper-floor window as a standard tactic?Burt: Of course it is stupid. That is why our service will embrace it. Even-tually performing the ladder slide will become a prerequisite for earning a Firefighter of the Year award.

All Risk & No Gain Makes Us IneffectiveFirefighters take risks. Thats what makes us special, and its the reason we end every year with an award ceremony for ourselves. Our greatest fear is to lose our specialness. This fuels our obsession to take risks. This obsession can bas-tardize our deployment policy. Our addiction to occupy the most hazardous piece of real estate upon our immediate arrival to the incident scene doesnt necessarily align with our mission to deliver service to the Smith family. In many instances, there is nothing left to save in these positions/locations. When this is the case, allowing firefighters to operate in these areas/positions conflicts with our risk-management plan. Here is a free piece of strategic advice: When the IC is actively watching companies take an action that causes the IC to say to themselves, Wow. That looks really dangerous. I need to assign a RIC right now because this is going sideways any minute, instead of assigning a RIC or safety officer in case something bad happens, get on the radio and stop the unsafe action. After the incident operation, the IC should make a point to discuss the unsafe act in the post-incident critique.

A Paperclip, Some String & a Piece of Gum Will Not Save YouA good amount of firefighter safety and survival training is directly connected to past incidents where firefighters experienced maydays. When the rest of the occupational world identifies a set of conditions that endangers human life and property, they take great pains to eliminate encountering that set of conditions in the future. The Federal Aviation Administration has used this process to make air travel the safest form of transportation on the planet. The fire service takes a completely opposite approach; we develop even more absurd solutions in an effort to overcome a set of problems that are 100 per-cent of our own creation. Much firefighter safety and survival training is based on firefighter LODDs. Teaching firefighters that they can MacGyver their way out of any situation is a recipe for disaster. Heres another piece of advice: If the pilot of the airplane is wearing a parachute, exit the aircraft before it leaves the ground.

Lets stick with the ladder slide. To teach this maneuver, the firefighter jumping head first out of the window is actually belayed to a pulley while another firefighter wedges a ground ladder at an incorrect climbing angle. Executing this maneuver at an actual fire comes without the benefit of the belay, the pulley or having the ladder properly butted. None of the training connects to reality. Scientists have a phrase to describe this type of faulty problem-solving: idiotic fantasy. Forget the fact that any victims in areas about to flashover have been with Jesus (or whatever God you pray to) since before the call was dispatched.

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Deck Guns, Not GlocksOur newest safety obsessionone allows us to take unnecessary risks at the scene of EMS callsis dressing firefighters in bulletproof vests (which arent really bulletproof) in an effort to operate side-by-side with cops at the scene of active-shooter incidents. The reasoning goes like this: Cops quickly respond to the scene of active-shooter incidents. The first cops on scene form a kill diamond and make entry to find and neutralize/eliminate the asshole who is currently shooting innocent people. We show up with this initial wave of cops and go in with them to treat victims. This makes as much sense as motorcycle cops rushing to scene of an arson fire and running inside the still-burning structure to find the arsonist.

The concept of firefighters operating inside a law-enforcement hazard zone is a clear violation of the public-safety division of labor. The cops enforce. That is why they have guns and operate under the edict of state-sanctioned deadly force. We do not belong in one anothers hazard zones.

One of the best pieces of occupational advice I received came from a police officer counterpart (and Im paraphrasing a 20 year old conservation): Do not allow firefighters to physically operate within any hot zone that con-tains an armed suspect and more than 1 police officer because there is a very high probability your firefighters will be accidentally shot by a cop. This indi-vidual was assigned to a SWAT team. He shared that SWATs first order of busi-ness is to establish a hot zone and deny entry (in descending order) to patrol officers, motorcycle cops, other law enforcement agencies, members of the fire department, the general public and everyone else.

Craving DangerA Hunger that Can get You KilledI dont believe the effort to outfit firefighters in ballistic protection so they can operate as part of a law enforce-ment kill squad is based on our need to immediately treat victims. Its more in tune with our need to operate in the most physically dangerous place at the incident scene. Bul-letproof outerwear is becoming the latest rage in the fire service. This makes as much sense as firefighter/paramed-ics changing into medical smocks prior to delivering EMS. It seems too much like we are playing dress up. The most recent conversations concerning this topic include arming firefighters as part of a police entry team. When you dress a firefighter up like a cop, train them to operate inside hazard zones with active shooters and then arm them, that per-son is no longer a firefighterhe is a cop. Here is a simple solution that allows the police to be police, while allowing firefighters to be firefighter. It is all based on leadership, so it doesnt cost a dime. In fact, it actually saves money.

Firefighters responding to active shooter incidents should stage in a safe location not in direct line of sight of the incident scene. The staging officer (the ranking officer in the Level 2 Staging location) reports to the fire depart-ment dispatch the staging location and the units available. This is based on the notion that active-shooter incidents have a dynamic hot zone, a remote cold zone (down the street and around a couple of corners) and no real warm

! If we want to work more closely with the police, we should expand the Terrorism Liaison Officer (TLO) program (www.tlo.org). The TLO program does many things, but in some jurisdictions, it places a pair of officers in a response vehicle, one from the police and one from the fire department. The TLOs serves as the link between both agencies. This response vehicle is staffed 24/7. My former fire department was never able to coordinate operations with the police until we implemented the TLO program. The difference was night and day. Many will staffing a TLO is cost-prohibitive. If a community does not have the resources to staff a TLO, it is a sure-fire indication they do not have the wherewithal to have firefighter/paramedics respond with the police inside a police-department hot zone.

Firefighters take risks. Thats what makes us special & its the reason we end every year with an award ceremony for ourselves. Our greatest fear is to lose our specialness.

www.tlo.orgwww.tlo.org

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RANDOM HALLUCINATIONS

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zone (wandering lunatics with guns quickly turn a warm zone into a hot one). Sometimes it takes the police a while to figure out these boundaries. Placing firefighters in the middle of this shit sandwich makes the scene more chaotic.

Most fire departments do not routinely communicate with their police department counterparts via the fire department portable radio. This becomes even more difficult when you consider the police use their radios during active-shooter situations to coordinate their upcoming shootout and, therefore, really have no interest in what we have to say. All the police really want to know is whether the fire department is available for any medical needs once they have taken control of the incident scene. After the police secure an area, they can begin transporting any victims to us or they can coordinate moving us to a secured area closer to the victims. This approach does not require outfitting firefighters in ballistic gear nor teaching us the hut-hut song. Firefighters get to be firefighters while cops get to be cops.

There are fundamental differences between policing and providing emer-gency medical services, and placing firefighters in the middle of the madness would only bring more targets and much more confusion to an already out-of-control situation. Most active-shooter incidents are quickly resolved once the police arrive to the scene and take action. After the shooter has been eliminated, the fire department moves in to treat and care for the wounded. Active-shooter situations have traditionally been the result of one or two lone gunman types. In the future, these events will increasingly resemble military operations. Expect much more coordinated operations with multiple shooters using military-grade weapons. Our biggest concern should be preparing the police for these future events.

A bulletproof vest is a piece of safety equipment designed for a worker who uses a gun as a tool. We do not. There is division labor between the police and fire department for a reason. That is why both departments exist. The effort to merge us into a single public safety provider has always met with abject failure. Firefighters shouldnt be armed and the police should not pro-vide EMS or operate inside burning buildings. Besides, I dont think we can talk the cops into jumping out the windows when it gets too hot.

Nick Brunacini joined the Phoenix Fire Department (PFD) in 1980. He served seven years as a firefighter on different engine companies before promoting to cap-tain and working nine years on a ladder company. Nick served as a battalion chief for five years and in 2001, he was promoted to shift commander. He then spent

the next five years developing and teaching the Blue Card curriculum at the PFDs Command Training Center. His last assignment with the PFD was South Shift commander; he retired from the department in 2009. Nick is the author of B-ShifterA Firefighters Memoir. He also co-wrote Command Safety.

B SHIFTER

THE 360

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If you were to graph my fire-academy experience, the highest peak would easily be when the department issued My First Fire Helmet. More than any patch, shirt or collar brass, this symbolized to me my member-ship in the fire service. The day I received it, my helmet rode home with me in my front seatlike a passenger instead of cargo. It lacked a leather shield, but overall, it looked right, which is to say that it was (more or less) in the shape of a traditional fire helmet. But it was merely a shape, since the outer shell was thick rubber laid over an inner shell that is probably shaped like a dome of some sort. It had reinforcing ribs like the old leather helmets still worn by many firefighters. But this was all adornment, mere appearance. Driving home that day, I would look over at the helmet and see that it looked right.

Looking right is important. Its a big part of being human. Weve moved far in our evolutionary journey, but we havent escaped the primal need for display. The hel-met part of our ensemble is an important part of that exhibition. The fire doesnt care how we look. Its an ele-mental force, and is concerned solely with the practical matters of physics. But people care. For whatever reason, the fire helmet is often the main sign of what sort of fire-fighter you are. It is the distillation of your career up to the moment. I know few guys who will balk at turning in an old pair of boots, or gloves, but when faced with turning in a helmet, will devise positively Machiavellian schemes to avoid the act. It is the one part of our protective ensemble that the Quartermaster will permit us to buy, although they will mutilate it by removing the suspension and marking it with a stripe of paint, lest we attempt to return it to service.

Im certainly not above the fray. I still have that first helmet, and I stead-fastly refused to replace charred stickers. My shield, which is supposed to identify my company and rank, is useless without close scrutiny. I did occasionally replace the numbers on the back of my helmet, in a slight nod toward practicality. Under no circumstances, however, would I do more to clean my helmet than rinse it down to knock off insulation, drywall or other large debris. I posit that the main purpose of reflective helmet stickers isnt to actually reflect, but, by absence of reflectivity, to communicate just how awesome a particular firefighter is. I dont dispute that this is deranged, but its important to understand that it has a function. A battle-scarred helmet serves a purpose for tribal communication, flawed though it may be. If youre

The Feathers Serve a FunctionA heady reflection on cranial safety vs. good ol American pageantry.BY JOHNNY PETERS

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of the school of thought that fire helmets should be capable of their official functions, such as identifying company, rank, general location, and skull pro-tection, you still cannot dismiss the more atavistic applications. You have to deal with them, and possibly find workarounds. Obviously, you could simply appoint helmet police, but the blitz version of changing culture is costly. The Roman Empire, in spite of its refinement, failed to conquer through force of arms and eventually fell to the Goths (a supposedly inferior people), where if they had just attempted to interact with them without antagonism, perhaps Rome would have survived. The Goths eventually became civilized, and their descendants became great engineers, physicians and bad guys in countless action films. I think that the modernization of the fire service must proceed with a holistic approach. Progressive firefighters cannot dismiss the views of their less refined brethren by pretending theres no reason for their tradi-tions. Just as I dont think the answer to confronting the absurdity of life is to create a god to explain it all away without critical thought, I dont believe that entirely ignoring the animal drives still present in our insufficiently evolved brains is the right way to go about refining the fire helmet.

You may protest that there are many departments who happily parade around in low-profile helmets, but I tell you the hardened advocates of tradi-tional (or traditionally shaped) helmets have already decided that streamlin-ing is not worth looking like an evolutionary step in a species of ambulating penises. And lets not mention LAFD helmets, which make the entire depart-ment look like a bunch of strippers who couldnt decide between a fire-fighter or construction worker theme. Arguments about comfort, function and even life safety will not win the day. First, they will defeat you by pointing out that the long brim at the back serves at least two purposes: It deflects hot water and embers from the back of the firefighters neck, and it also pre-vents truckies (who are wont to wear airpaks, but not facepieces) from look-ing straight up when it rains, and thus being drowned. When youve ceded these strong points, they will move on to explanations about tradition and the importance of symbols. The barbarians will explain to you that the eagle on top of the helmet signals to the public that a strong, capable firefighter of the American species has shown up, and that soon all will be made right. The friendly beaver communicates: I am a Canadian firefighter, do not harm me. And dont litter. The traditionalist will warn you that if we entirely aban-don our traditions and symbols, well end up like European firefighters, who travel about in minivans while dressed as jet fighter pilots. While I think the European ensemble, helmet included, is probably better and for that reason is the future, Im just not ready for it. It doesnt look right to me, yet, which is silly, but not entirely irrelevant.

The reason I dont dismiss appearance as entirely unimportant is because its obvious that it is important, at least to some degree. We are animals, not machines. While the argument can be made that our major enemy, fire, is elemental and thus unconcerned with our appearance, the same cannot be said for the people we encounter. GI Joe used to tell us that knowing is half the battle. The other half is killing people, but you cant say that on Saturday morning cartoons. The military still wear uniforms. Over the years, the uniforms have become more functional and less ostentatious (except for dress uniforms, I guess). At one time, loud colors and large feathered plumes served a purposethey identified you. Our uniforms still do the same, and so does our PPE, helmets included. They identify us by agency,

The traditionalist will warn you that if we entirely abandon our traditions & symbols, well end up like European firefighters, who travel about in minivans while dressed as jet fighter pilots.

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THE 360

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rank, name and so on. There are even extra bits to identify when we enter certain functions in the IC structure. Mesh vests, which are purchased from a surplus 80s dancewear boutique. A properly decked-out boss would look equally at home at a rave dancing to YMCA as he does on the scene of a multi-alarm warehouse fire. Uniforms/PPE scream, Look at me! Theyre as much a display as the feathers of a peacock, which at first glance is a silly bird. But the feathers serve a function.

And this is why, where people still wear the traditional helmet, I would keep the traditional helmet. That doesnt mean giving up the cause of prog-ress. Like any attempt at change, I dont think its enough to merely hold the line and hope for change, but in this case, I think that the best hope for going forward is moving slightly backward. Progressive firefighters will get nowhere if we traditionalists are convinced youre just wantonly cutting our ties to the past. If you want to move the fire service forward, you need to show an understanding of our desire for self-expression, and I believe this can be done without abandoning functionality.

Im speaking of wigs, ladies and gentlemen. White powdered wigs, with looping curls, cascading ponytails and ostentatious (possibly reflective) ribbons.

Of course, we neednt be married to the materials of the past. We are not troglodytes. Modern wigs would be made of the finest space-age materials, as are our traditionally shaped helmets. I have already mentioned reflective ribbons, but what about flame-retardant materials? The brave firefighters of the past would often be driven from burning homes, their majestic wigs alight. This wouldnt be a problem (although I would recommend either the wig or the helmet). Nor would the stray firebrand, coasting on the winds, be a risk to command personnel.

Communications are important. Could the wigs have, woven into their lustrous plaits and curls, wires that would increase the reception of radio transmissions? Certainly. I imagine that small repeaters could be concealed within, making the firefighters themselves mobile radio towers. At a high-rise, wouldnt it be inspiring to see a forward operations base commander standing proud, like George Washington on the prow of a boat crossing the Delaware?

Identification: Sure, your coat is nice, and helmets are functional for the purpose, but often, chiefs will not wear them outside of the hot zone. Obviously, the higher the rank, the more massive the wig, so height would be the first indicator. Curls, ribbons, ponytailsall could serve purposes of identifying rank, specialties, or even time in service. In my department, a wig could point out to me a firefighter trained in hazmat, but not currently assigned to our hazmat companies.

As weve advanced our service, weve recognized the need for good PR. Its not enough to just do the job. We have to go that extra mile. Many people in my department believed we needed button-up shirts for that. No doubt, they will recognize the wisdom of the wig. Does it inspire confidence in the public when a truck company shows up for a chest pain call at three in the morning with bed head? When a call comes in, its no time to do your hair. Imagine if, beside your bunk, sat a FireWig. In no time, you would be perfectly coiffed. A citizen, upon seeing you stride

Uniforms/PPE scream, Look at me! Theyre as much a display as the feathers of a peacock, which at first glance is a silly bird. But the feathers serve a function.

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in with EMS equipment, wearing a glorious, radio-boosting, fire-retarding powdered wig, would know the situation was well in hand. They would feel the confidence our ancestors felt as the Founding Fathers emerged from the darkness of Independence Hall, the Constitution held over their heads, shedding a new light of freedom over the land.

This isnt to say that there arent immediate issues to address. I recently completed the IAFFs Fireground Survival Program, and I unreservedly sup-port it. The entanglement evolution inspired me to seriously consider the wisdom of using my beloved traditional-style helmet. In order to avoid becoming entangled in the wires, we were trained to devote one of our hands to covering our eagle, which struck me as slightly batty. Sure, there are bits of the airpak that might present an entanglement hazard. Even my trusty Survivor light can get hung up on things from time to time, but both these items are inarguably functional, whereas the eagle is largely a decora-tive artifact. Am I ready to give up my eagle? No, I am not, and Im afraid I have to stand quite firm on retaining this treasured emblem. But I am willing to make a small concession.

The eagle may wear a low-profile helmet.

Johnny Peters has been with the Houston Fire Department since last century. In this time, he has successfully gamed the system and promoted to senior captain, forever freeing him-self of the burden of fire hose by hiding himself in a truck com-pany. He is now able to indulge his intense hatred of locks and doors through violence disguised as technique. His locker hiding powers remain intact.

B SHIFTER

STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS

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When I was a new company officer on an engine, I often worked along-side a veteran assigned to a ladder company. This guy had some uncanny abilities. He always seemed to know the location of the fires origin and would relay this information to me as we readied to advance the hoseline. At other fires, he would enter the apartment and quickly exit with a victim as if he had known all along where to find them. Sometimes, when I was about to advance into a burning apartment with a line, he would tap me on the shoulder and say something like, You have a long hallway with rooms on the right. One day I asked him, Whats your secret? How do you always locate the fire, find the victim and know the apartments layout? He said, My secret is I know the inside of these buildings like the back of my hand. I study and train my firefighters on the building lay-outs. We know the inside of all the buildings in our district. When we enter a fire to search or vent, we understand the configuration of the rooms and have the terminology to describe the layout to each other.

A buildings construction consists of many elements, but during an initial fire attack, the interior layout is of utmost importance. Knowing room con-figuration gives us great confidence and certainty when moving in smoke and darkness. This knowledge helps us search and, most important, reduces our chance of becoming entangled and trapped. Use the definitions and descrip-tions below to bolster your understanding of interior layouts..

DoorsClose a door and save a lifeit may be your own. We tend to overlook the value of doors; if you close a door, you can stop fire spread. Therefore, when studying the floor layout of structures in your district, pay careful attention to door location. When firefighters enter a smoke-filled room to search from a lad-der, fire escape or porch roof, they may want to close the door to the room first. It can temporarily stop fire from spreading into the room, making it safer. In fact, a closed door may keep your search room from flashing over. Closing the door can also block smoke and prevent it from further darkening the room.

TransomsA transom is a glass window above a door found in old tenement buildings. Designed to allow air and light to pass between rooms, transoms can allow fire

Interior LayoutsThe more you know about a structures interior configuration, the safer you will be. BY VINCENT DUNN

Knowing the general location of doors, bedrooms and stairways can keep firefighters from getting trapped when conditions are dark or smoky. Pre-plans and good size-up are key.

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to spread even if the door is closed. During size-up, always check for a transom over a door and close it if it is open.

Ceiling HeightHigh ceilings often give firefighters a false sense of the fires intensity. For exam-ple, a 12 or 15 ceiling allows fire to spread undetected over firefighters heads and behind them; they wont sense anything at floor level. High ceilings also permit the buildup of heated smoke, leading to a flashover. If a room flashes over at ceiling level, the sudden heat radiated downward can trap firefighters, preventing their escape.

Ceiling TypeIn addition to the height of the ceiling, firefight-ers must check the type of ceiling itself as well as how it is held in place.

Panel ceilings allow firefighters to lift a panel to evaluate the support system. A sus-pended-panel ceiling utilizes a metal frame-work and thin wire hangers to hold it up. When flames get above the ceiling, these thin wires can weaken quickly. The entire framework can fail, trapping and entangling firefighters. In the year 2000, Kimberly Smith and Lewis Mayo were killed when a ceiling/roof collapsed in a Houston fast-food restaurant. Investigators say Smith had used wire cutters to escape, but by that time, the fire had become too intense and overcame her.

Other ceilings are made from concrete; they are basically the underside of the floor above. The hazards here are different. For example, when exposed to fire, concrete can break, sending heavy chunks crashing to the floor. This is called concrete spalling. It happens because the moisture inherent to concrete expands into steam when heated.

Large fluorescent lights present another danger. These 10- or 20-pound ceiling fixtures attach to concrete ceilings via wire screws and lead anchors. The lead anchors melt easily during a fire, allowing light fixtures to fall. Col-lapsing fluorescent light fixtures have injured many firefighters.

Large, Open FloorsIn large, open spaces, flames spread more rapidly because there are no parti-tions to slow them down. There is a point of no return in a large, open area. Oftentimes, fire in these spaces spreads faster than firefighters can retreat. A large, open floor area lets fire grow hugeoften beyond the control of hose-lines. For example, experts say hoselines arent enough to extinguish fires in areas larger than 5,000 square feet. The general rule is one handline can extin-guish 2,500 square feet, and two handlines up to 5,000 square feet. Anything beyond that requires automatic sprinkler systems.

Railroad FlatA railroad flat is a term used to describe a group of rooms laid out like a rail-road car; you go straight through an apartment, front to back, from one room to the next. There are usually only four rooms in a typical tenement railroad flat. When searching or advancing a hoseline, you move straight ahead. However, the large rooms of a railroad flat usually have no doors, so if windows are vented

Most panel ceilings rely on lightweight metal frames and thin wires for sup-port. These components can fail quickly when exposed to heat, trapping and entangling firefighters working below.

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B SHIFTER

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front to rear, you may set up a wind-driven fire, which traps searching firefighters and prevents crews from advancing a hoseline against the wind.

Long Hallway Rooms off to the SideSome apartment layouts include one long hallway extending from front to rear with rooms off to the left or right In this type layout, firefighters entering to search or to advance a hoseline must take care not to pass fire in one of the rooms as they go down the hallway. In this configuration, firefighters can be become trapped in the hallway if they accidently pass a fire room and flames spread, blocking their path back to the door.

Center-Core Floor AreaSome modern commercial buildings have center-core layouts, where a center core wall encloses stairs, elevators, lobbies, bathrooms, storage rooms and util-ity closets. An open floor area extends 360 degrees out from the core. This layout can allow a circular fire spread around the center core, requiring firefight-ers to have two hoselines: one to attack the fire and the other to keep it from encircling them.

Dead-End SpacesWe usually associate a dead end with hallways and corridors. Sometimes a dead-end space can exist at the end of a hallway, just beyond an exit. Occu-pants and firefighters who move down such a hallway, feeling the walls as they search for an exit, can sometimes pass the exit door and wind up in this dead-end space. When inspecting occupancies, firefighters must identify any area in which a person could become trapped when blinded by smoke. Fire crews who are about to force open a door from a public hallway should size up that hallway first, identifying the exit doors and any dead-end spaces that could trap responders should the area fill up with smoke.

Dead-End RoomsCertain rooms, such as bathrooms and walk-in closets, can also be considered dead ends. Firefighters and occupants have been found dead in these areas. Sometimes bathrooms have only one small, high window, impossible to reach when heat banks down, and large closets usually have no windows at all. When blinded by smoke, a person can easily lose their sense of direction and end up in one of these roomsall it takes is one misstep or wrong turn. Officials might list the cause of death as smoke or flashover, but the unofficial cause is disorien-tation and entrapment in a dead-end room.

Window SillsCertain window designs can prove deadly for firefighters. Any window that has a sill lower than 24 inches is a fall hazard. Firefighters searching in blind-ing smoke can easily fall from a window with a low sill. Typically, firefighters advancing in smoke will slide one leg ahead with a bent knee, feeling for a wall beneath the window. If the window sill sits 18 inches or lower, the firefighters knee will not encounter a wall; they can trip and fall through the window, espe-cially if that window has already been removed for venting by outside crews or if the window was open for any other reason. Large, upper-floor windows with low sills can be especially dangerous. One night, after extinguishing a fire in vacant building, I entered the steamy, smoky structure to find a window for mechanical venting. While I was moving forward blindly with my knee extended, the wind direction suddenly changed and blew fresh air into the 4th-floor apartment. I found myself halfway out a large double window with an 18-inch sill, looking down into a dark alley.

VOLUME 6, ISSUE 2 20

Window GuardsChildrens window guards keep children from falling out of windows and are a common on upper floors. They are great for kids but bad for firefighters. These metal half-gates or bars prevent firefighters from a quick bail-out to a ladder. Unless firefighters have the tools and the time to remove the window guard, they can get trapped by fire with no means of egress.

Floor LevelTerms like sunken living room, duplex and split level sound nice when discuss-ing interior design, but these features are bad news for firefighters. In smoky conditions, these layouts can create severe trip hazards. A firefighter conduct-ing a search or advancing a hoseline can stumble and become disoriented. When sizing up occupancies, check the floor levels. Any change in floor level must be noted.

Floor OpeningsFloors are the platforms on which firefighters operate. Any opening in a floor must be considered deadly. Some floors have openings, called trap doors, which open to stairs leading to a cellar. In commercial buildings, these doors are required to remain closed at the end of business day or if no one is in the cellar, but this does not always happen. They are called trap doors for a rea-sonif you fall through to the cellar, you will be trapped. Firefighters searching at night or in smoky conditions have fallen into cellars through open trap doors. If you encounter a layout with a trap door, notify all first responders.

ConclusionIt is important to know the inside of any dwelling when searching for sleeping victims at night or in smoky conditions. For example, the location of bedrooms is very important. Firefighters might not be allowed to inspect the interior of a private dwelling to gain this information, but if you obtain a floor plan of tract housing during its construction, you can use it for training and to assist with size up. For example, a floor plan will show that in a 2 story, center-stair colonial design, the second-floor bedrooms sit on both sides of the stairs. Conversely, in dwellings with side stairs, the bedrooms sit on opposite side of the stairs. In a split-level house, bedrooms are usually on the upper level.

When firefighters know the interior layout of a smoke-filled structure, it improves effectiveness and supports safety. You can examine a new buildings layout during construction, and you can usually examine vacant buildings. You can even thing about interior layout at a fire, while waiting for water at the nozzle. Take a quick run downstairs to check out the apartment below. A quick survey of a battlespace can give firefighters greater confidence.

Chief Vincent Dunn, FDNY (ret.), is a 40-year veteran. He is the author of Collapse of Burning Buildings (Fire Engineer-ing, Revised 2010); Safety and Survival on the Fireground (Fire Engineering, 1992); Command and Control of Fires and Emergencies (Fire Engineering, 2000); and his most recent textbook Strategy of Firefighting (Fire Engineering 2007). Contact him at vincentdunn@earthlink.net. Visit him online at www.vincentdunn.com.

www.vincentdunn.com

B SHIFTER

MAYDAY PROJECT

21

Our service has been struggling with the balance between taking action at the scene of structure fires and doing so in a manner that keeps everyone safe. Modern efforts to minimize maydays include OSHAs 2 in/2 out, the University of Illinois Save Our Own program and the IAFFs Fireground Survival program (the most recent incarnation of the Save Our Own program). OSHAs 2 in/2 out requires having at least four firefighters on the scene before making entry into burning buildings. This really is more about staffing levels than it is about firefighter safety and survival, as a pair of firefighters does not represent anything resembling an adequate mayday response. Both the Save Our Own program and the Firefighter Survival pro-gram focus on the task-level skills firefighters use once a mayday occurs and includes little to no tactical- and strategic-level training.

One of the main players in the effort to minimize may-days has been and remains Don Abbott. Don used to travel all over North America to deliver simulation training called Abbottville. Don built tabletop models of firefighter line-of-duty deaths and would conduct simulations of these events in an effort to prevent them from happening in the future. In 2001, after logging more than a million miles on the road with Abbottville, Don came to work for my former department as a project manager who helped to build and manage our command-training center (CTC). It became the hub where our department worked to fix the operational issues that had killed one of us. Recently, Don developed The Mayday Project, which studies actual firefighter may-days. He has been doing this for the past 18 months and has examined more than 1,500 firefighter maydays. The past three issues of B SHIFTER have reported the ongoing results of Dons Mayday Project.

The information in Dons study has been voluntarily supplied by the fire departments experiencing the maydays via personal interviews, incident tran-scripts and radio recordings. As you would imagine, much of this data is all over the page. There is zero regulation that applies to structural firefighting, so every fire department not only performs things differently, they also record, review and revise incident outcomes differently. Dons study does show a com-mon element, however: These 1,500 maydays are the result of common trends and practices; we have not found any new ways to get into trouble at the scene of structure fires. In a world where the application of standard actions to standard conditions produces a standard outcome, these maydays are pre-dictable. Keep in mind these statistics are only from fire departments that voluntarily participated in the study. Its a safe bet that 1,500 maydays within a year and half is just the tip of the iceberg.

Lets Have a Mayday!Hosting your own mayday isnt fun, but it sure is easy. Just follow these simple steps. BY NICK BRUNACINI

Abbottville foretold of Godzilla ravaging the Pacific rim.

Despite our best and varied efforts, maydays keep occurring. We know what causes them, but we keep repeating the same mistakes. One of the studys most glaring revelations is that only one in five fire departments made changes to their SOPs after experiencing the mayday. Hell, only a third of reporting fire departments actually performed a post-incident critique of the mayday event to share with the other members of the fire department. Sometimes it helps to look at complex issues from a variety of angles. Instead of looking at ways to prevent maydays, we should look at the strategies that allow us to produce them. If you cant beat em, join em. Now lets get some!

6 Steps to Making a Mayday1) Skimp on training.The Mayday Projects data collection reveals the following information about fire department mayday readiness:

Only 33 percent of fire departments responding to the study per-formed mayday training that included the strategic level (IC & com-mand team).

Just 20 percent of fire departments trained on mayday operations using simulation training.

Only 10 percent of fire departments trained the officers managing the rescue operation (tactical bosses).

Less than 5 percent of fire departments trained on managing multiple maydays as part of the same incident operation.

If you want to ensure a mayday situation, go light on appropriate training. Studying what causes maydays and then incorporating this information into strategic-, tactical- and task-level training helps us avoid life-threatening situations. If your members dont understand the factors that lead to maydays, they wont be able to avoid them. This produces situations where the fire chief makes the following statement to the media: Two hours into the structural firefighting operation, we had an unexpected collapse of the building. (Really? 35 years ago, my generation was taught the 20-minute rule: If the fire isnt under control in 20 minutes, abandon the offensive operation in favor of the defensive strategy because the fire is ready to collapse the structure. The 20-minute benchmark is no longer accurateif it ever was. Modern structures fall down much faster when exposed to fire. Real pros dont let maydays take them by surprise. There is no place in our service for amateurs running fire depart-ments who dont understand this.)

2) Be unfit for response (old, sick, out of shape, tired).Although the NFPA reports approximately 60 percent of firefighter LODDs are attributed to a medical condition (mostly heart attacks), less than 5 percent of the maydays reported in Dons study were the result of heart attacks, seizures and diabetic emergencies. Still, if you are a fan of maydays resulting from pre-existing medical conditions, make it a point to include 65-year-old firefighters with a history of heart disease as members of the teams that advance 2.5 attack lines into burning buildings. In fact, any firefighter older than 65 should have a turnout jacket prewired with AED leads.

Fatigue is a major contributing factor in making poor decisions. When you are tired, you miss a lot of important information. Waking someone from a sound sleep and placing them in a life-and-death situation 5 minutes later is a recipe for disaster. It comes as no surprise that the majority of maydays occur during the sleeping hours (more than 80 percent of maydays occurred between 1800 and 0600). Forty percent of mayday firefighters participating in

VOLUME 6, ISSUE 2 22

Training that connects us to our actual response is the gateway to competence and accountability.

Imagine your day in court when you must explain why you failed to update SOPs after a previous mayday.

B SHIFTER

MAYDAY PROJECT

23

the mayday study reported having their sleep interrupted prior to the mayday incident. We respond 24/7, 365 days a year; there isnt a shift schedule that allows us to always be available round the clock that also eliminates fatigue. This doesnt change the fact that tired firefighters have more maydays then rested ones.

Of the fire departments responding to the survey, approximately 90 per-cent work a 24/48 shift schedule. These departments account for 45 percent of all reported maydays. Around 10 percent of all reporting departments work a 48/72 hour shift. These departments accounted for 33 percent of all maydays. The one thing we can take away from this: When the respond-ers show up fatigued, we have an 80 percent greater chance of having a mayday.

3) Dont use a strategic or task level.Connecting and aligning the operational levels (strategic, tac-tical and task) ensures safe, effective incident operations by allowing the IC to control the position and function of all oper-ating resources. Staging prior to assignment produces safer, more efficient incident operations, greatly reducing the occur-rence of maydays. If you want to experience a higher number of maydays, do not waste your time trying to manage the task level. Allow these workers to respond directly to the incident scene and take fast, aggressive, uncoordinated action upon their immediate arrival. This concept is evidenced by the fact that only 40 percent of the incident commanders responding to the study were able to track the task level using a tactical worksheet. To further derail the strategic level, command was transferred two or more times 70 percent of the time during incidents where maydays occurred. After the mayday took place, 60 percent of fire departments fractured the operation further by using two or more radio channels to manage per-sonnel operating within the same hazard zone.

4) Choose unsafe operating positions & other unsafe practices.Approximately 40 percent of maydays are the result of operat-ing above the fire. This includes operating above basement fires and over burning attics. Eighty-seven percent of mayday firefighters also reported routinely leaving the attack line when operating inside burning buildings, accounting for 23 percent of all reported maydays. (It should come as no surprise that around 50 percent of the mayday firefighters do not wear their seatbelt when traveling to the fire. Crashes in road vehicles accounted for 12 percent of the firefighter LODDs in 2015. This is the second lowest number in the past 39 yearssix deaths in four crashes.)

5) Vent and search well before water application.How many firefighter fatalities include the critical factor wind? Wind and ventilation act like identical twins when applied to structure fires. If you want to prime the environment for a mayday, vent and search earlyahead of water application. This will intensify fire conditions, increase fire damage and escalate search times (occurring in worsening fire conditions). The most recent fire research/science reinforces our oldest tactic: Putting water on the fire generally makes the scene much safer. Almost 95 percent of mayday firefighters report not applying water to visible fire prior to

! We would like to take this opportunity to rebuke a key principle included in the first edition of Fire Command, which was produced more than three decades ago. Back then, the fundamental tactical approach for offensive structural firefighting operations was to attack from the unburned side. This approach was suited to improved firefighter protective gear, SCBAs, fighting interior fires in smaller compartments (e.g. houses with low ceilings and smaller rooms) and Class A fuel loads with burn times of 20 minutes or more before flashover. These tactics do not apply today. The concept of attacking from the unburned portion is unsafe and less effective than applying water to the fire as quickly as possible This includes applying water from exterior positions while operating in the offensive strategy. The offensive strategy can begin (and preferably does) with exterior water application. Attacking from the unburned side oftentimes places these initial attacking crews directly in the flow path. As they make entry, fresh air accompanies them. Introducing fresh air into a ventilation-controlled fire will cause the space the crew is operating in to flashover. It is far preferable to knock down the fire from exterior positions whenever possible to avoid intensifying the fire. The tactic of properly applied water from exterior positions has proven to greatly reduce the size and intensity of the fire, making the entire scene safer for all.

VOLUME 6, ISSUE 2 24

making entry into the structure. Exterior water application in these instances has proven to make the incident safer for everyone (victims, potential victims and firefighters). The best beginning to any structural firefighting operation is the rapid elimination of the fire.

6) Dont perform a 360 (aka abandon situational awareness).Skipping the 360 is an excellent way to increase mayday potential. According to Mayday Project data, the IC did not perform a 360 in more than two-thirds of incidents where maydays occurred. In 70 percent of the reported maydays, the fast-attacking IC remained outside (not supervising their interior crew). Fewer than half of the mayday firefighters (47 percent) knew the location of the fire prior to making entry. Do any of the following fireground scenarios seem familiar?

Firefighters on the Alpha Side think they are operating at the scene of a two-level house. Firefighters on the Charlie Side know they are operating at the scene of a three-level house with a working fire in the basement.

Strategic maydays happen when we operate in offen-sive positions (in the interior, on the roof or within the buildings collapse zone) under defensive fire con-ditions. When the roof of a large, commercial building falls onto several crews operating underneath it, the outcome is typically quick death. This also includes situ-ations where firefighters operate in large areas when the fire flashes over. Although it might occur during an offensive operation, getting stuck in a flow path when it flashes over falls into the category of strategic mayday because it has the tendency to grievously injure and kill anyone unfortunate enough to get in the way. There is a difference between a rescue operation and body recov-ery. Strategic maydays kill firefighters in bunches. The only way to alleviate strategic-level maydays is not to have them.

Task-level maydays are localized events that occur to a firefighter or a crew. These mayday situations typi-cally involve becoming lost, trapped or missing. Many mayday SOPs indicate the automatic deployment of safety officers and rapid-intervention crews. The pri-mary goal of safety officers is to ensure firefighters operate safely (a pretty broad goal), eliminating may-days. The purpose of rapid-intervention crews is to perform rescue operations during a firefighter mayday. In many instances, both of these functions are per-formed by a different organizational unit and on a dif-ferent radio channel than the tactical channel.

An effective hazard-zone management system sim-plifies the operation. One IC, one radio channel for all

units assigned to the same hazard zone; tactical bosses are paired with safety officers; and rapid intervention is a capability shared by the entire response (rapid inter-vention is not an assignment). Out-of-control incident operations produce out-of-control maydays.

These are some of the numbers from the Mayday Project:

38 percent of maydays occurred in aban-doned or vacant buildings. Almost 10 percent occurred in hoarder houses.

The strategic-level IC (chief) operated in a mobile position almost 70 percent of the time.

Water was applied from exterior positions less than 5 percent of the time.

Forcible entry was required more than 70 per-cent of the time.

The mayday firefighter was not able to get back on the radio for almost 4 minutes after declaring the mayday because of too much radio traffic.

Approximately 90 percent time, crews operat-ing prior to the mayday resolved the mayday.

One out of four of the maydays (25 percent) that required the use of an exterior crew (RIC, on deck, staged) to physically assist with res-cue experienced a second mayday (the rescu-ers required rescue).

The average reported time for clearing the mayday when utilizing exterior RICs was 19 minutes vs. 12 minutes for interior crews.

There are two kinds of maydays: strategic- & task-level.

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Firefighters with an exterior fire against the Bravo side Discover the fire has extended into the attic some time ago. Firefighters on the inside are asking for more attack lines, while firefighters on the roof are reporting heavy fire conditions in the attic. The building happens to be more than 25,000 square feet, or more than five stories high, or it has two levels below gradeall situations rife for really big mayday operations.

Firefighters with little to nothing showing on the Alpha Side make entry to investigate (without an attack line) while a company on the Charlie Side uses a ladder to vent an upper floor window. This is the result of independent task-level action taking place in the absence of situational awareness.

Firefighters checking for extension on the second floor become entangled in electrical wiring. A firefighter, who assumed power had been shut down because he heard the ladder arrive on scene 10 min-ute before, uses wire-cutters to free his partner. However, the ladder didnt secure power (they encountered a victim in the backyard), and they didnt report it over the radio for any number of reasons (too busy, too much radio traffic, etc.)

None of the preceding problems is solved by immediate water applica-tion. They are most rapidly brought under control through situation awareness and by slowing the operation down (taking command and assigning all later arriving units, operating within a single IAP, determining the critical factors and applying coordinated standard actions. These actions are rooted in securing the search and limiting property loss with aggressive fire control actions (i.e the application of water). Safer firefighting operations are one of the standard outcomes of using this approach.

If your departments goal is to not only increase your number of maydays but also to intensify their severity, then use safety officers and RICs rather than true strategic and tactical levels. You can further fragment the operation by requiring that whenever a mayday is declared, everyone on the incident scene must change radio channels. This creates situations where it doesnt matter that no one is in charge, because we cant talk to one another anyway.

Nick Brunacini joined the Phoenix Fire Department (PFD) in 1980. He served seven years as a firefighter on different engine companies before promoting to captain and working nine years on a ladder com-pany. Nick served as a battalion chief for five years and in 2001, he was promoted to shift commander. He then spent the next five years developing and

teaching the Blue Card curriculum at the PFDs Command Training Center. His last assignment with the PFD was South Shift commander; he retired from the department in 2009. Nick is the author of B-ShifterA Firefighters Memoir. He also co-wrote Command Safety.

www.bshifter.com

BY DAN MADRZYKOWSKI

Live-fire tests support applying water to the fire as quickly as possible.

On May 30, 1999, a fire in a townhouse basement at 3146 Cherry Road NE, Washington, D.C., claimed the lives of two District of Columbia firefight-ers and burned several other firefighters. According to the District of Columbia

Fire & Emergency Medical Services Department report, The Cherry Road fire was

initially considered by most of the personnel to be a routine fire.1

The incident summary begins with the occupants at 3146 Cherry Road NE

responding to a smoke alarm that had activated in their residence. The occupants

went downstairs to the first floor, found hot, smoky conditions, and then exited

the residence via the front door, leaving it open. At 00:17 hrs, the first 911 call was

received. Engine 26 arrived on the scene approximately 6 minutes later.

VOLUME 6, ISSUE 2 28

At approximately 00:24 hrs, firefighters from Engine 26 began entering the first floor via the front door. The crew described conditions on the first floor as heavy smoke, with thick, black smoke coming from the front door-way. Seconds later, the crew from Engine 10 followed Engine 26 through the same door. Both crews had experienced nozzle men with charged hoselines. At this time, additional firefighters took out the front window on the first floor to provide ventilation. The window was cleared from the inside due to security bars on the outside. The second-story windows on the front of the house were also vented; the occupants had left the second-story windows on the backside of the house open.

Firefighters positioned on the rear side of the townhouse at basement level looked through a sliding glass door and reported the basement was fully charged with smoke. A truck crew on the rear broke out the basement-level sliding glass door at approximately 00:26. After firefighters broke out the door, they entered the basement to conduct a search. They reported a number of small fires on the basement floor, and they stated the fires began to rapidly increase in size after the sliding door was opened. The firefighters were ordered to leave the basement. They reported that a tunnel or path had opened in the smoke, which enabled them to find their way to the exterior just prior to the basement becoming fully involved. Within 2 minutes of when crews first entered the basement, flames from the basement extended up the backside of the townhouse. Engine 17, positioned at the rear of the structure, requested permission to knockdown the fire. The IC would not allow the fire attack without knowing the location of the Engine 26 and Engine 10 crews inside.

Seconds later, there was a report of a firefighter down. The firefighters who had been working on the first floor reported they felt an intense blast of heat prior to exiting the building. Two firefighters working on the first floor, one near the open doorway to the basement stairs and the other near the sofa on the back wall of the townhouse, died from thermal injuries caused by the fire. A third firefighter, positioned between the two who died, survived the fire but sustained career-ending burn injuries. Two other firefighters on the first floor incurred less severe burns and injuries.

Uncoordinated Ventilation Triggered FlashoverThe post-fire investigation conducted by ATF determined the fire started near an electrical fixture in the basement ceiling. The basement sustained severe fire damage throughout, indicating a well-mixed, post-flashover fire environment. The stairway from the basement to the first floor also showed signs of flame impingement on the ceil-ing and walls. The door at the top of the basement stairs had been open during the fire and was partially burned. The stairway led into the living room on the first floor, which had significant soot deposits but limited thermal damage. Most of the paper on the gypsum-board walls and ceiling remained intact, and sofas in the room only showed signs of pyrolysis or limited burning on the upper portions of the back cushions and top surfaces of the seat cushions. Areas in the living room farther away from the basement door had less thermal damage.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) developed a computer simulation of the Cherry Road fire using an early version of the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) and Smokeview models2. The simulation generated fire-condition estimates and events that correlated well with information from the fire departments Reconstruction Committee

Three levels showing in the rear. Inset: Walkout basement.

Plan view of first floor.

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and the damage, or lack of damage, to portions of the townhouse. The com-puter model simulated a fire that started in a combustible ceiling assembly in the basement of the townhouse. As the simulation progressed, the fire grew, spreading across the ceiling and into other fuels in the basement until it exhausted the basements oxygen supply. The lack of oxygen (ventilation-limited fire) constrained the fires heat release rate (HRR). The fire was in this condition when firefighters made entry on the first floor of the building.

During the simulation, venting the windows on the front of the town-house had no noticeable impact on the fires development. However, venting the sliding glass doors in the basement increased the fires HRR rapidly. In other words, the uncoordinated ventilation induced the flashover. The FDS model indicated that opening the basements sliding glass doors introduced outside air (oxygen) to a pre-heated, under-ventilated fire compartment, which then developed into a post-flashover fire within 60 seconds. When the fire filled the basement, it forced high-temperature gases (approximately 820

Approximate Timeline Based on Reconstruction Committee Input

00:17:00 First call reporting fire.

00:18:40 Second call: Fire in basement.

00:24:00 Engine 26 & Engine 10 firefighters enter front door. Engine 17 layout.

0

00:24:50 Battalion Chief 1 directs Truck 4 to rear. 50

00:26:00 First floor front window removed. 120

00:26:20 Basement sliding door half out. 140

00:26:30 Firefighters from Rescue Squad 1 and Truck 4 enter basement.

150

00:26:40 Basement sliding glass door completely removed. 160

00:26:50 Engine 17 firefighters in the rear: Fire small in basement. 170

00:27:20 Firefighters from Rescue Squad 1 and Truck 4 exit basement. Basement almost fully involved.

200

00:28:00 Estimated time that firefighters from Engine 26 and Engine 10 are burned on first floor.

240

00:28:40 Engine 17 in rear: Fire extending to first floor. 280

00:29:00 End of simulation time. 300

Note: Direct comparison of simulation conditions with the actual incident conditions begin at approximately 100 s of simulation time.

Incident Time Actions Simulation Times (s)

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31

C/1,500 F) up the basement stairwell at veloci-ties in excess of 8 m/s (18 mph). The high-velocity gas stream flowed into the pre-heated, oxygen-depleted first-floor living room. The FDS predic-tions show the hot gas flow moving across the living room ceiling and banking down the back wall of the townhouse. Between the doorway to the basement and the sofa on the back wall of the townhouse, the temperatures from approxi-mately .5 meter (1.6 feet) above the floor down to floor level ranged between 180 C to 260 C (350 F to 500 F). These thermal conditions developed within seconds of the fires rapid growth in the basement. Even though upper-layer hot gases have predicted temperatures consistent with flaming conditions, that cannot be assumed. In addition to fuel and heat, flaming combustion requires oxygen. The hot upper gas layers in the base-ment and on the first floor in the living room contained less than 6 percent oxygen when the basement fire was fully developed and extending up the stairs. In these areas, particularly the living room, the fire might not have had enough oxygen to produce visible flames.

Lesson Learned: Put Water on the FireSince the Cherry Road fire, there has been a significant amount of research on fire dynamics within structures and firefighter PPE, both of which have led to revised fire-ground tactics3-12.

Unfortunately, fire incidents similar to Cherry Road continue to claim firefighter lives. In the past few years, LODDs have occurred in San Francisco (2011), Boston (2014) and Philadelphia (2014). Each of these incidents involved a fire that occurred below the entry level on the front of the structure. Firefighters entered from the front, and as fire conditions evolved due to changes in ventila-tion on the fire level, the firefighters were overcome.

For the past 15 years, there have been many ques-tions about which tactics could be used in fires like Cherry Road to prevent the deaths and injuries. The most popu-lar question has been, What if we attacked this fire from the rear of the structure after venting the sliding glass doors? Recent experiments conducted at the Delaware County Emergency Services Training Center with the support of NIST tried to answer this question.

A structure was built to represent the basement and the first floor of the Cherry Road townhouse. The dimen-sions, floor plan and ventilation openings (i.e. the doors and windows) were similar. The interior finish of the Cherry Road basement comprised wood-based products and carpeting on the floor. The basement ceiling comprised wood-fiber tiles attached to wood furring strips that connected to the bottom of parallel-cord wood trusses, which supported a plywood subfloor. The basement walls consisted of wood paneling. Upstairs, the interior finish materials included gypsum board on the walls and ceiling and carpeting on the floor. There were upholstered furniture items in the

Front of test structure.

This image shows post-flashover temperatures in the centerline of the stairway and up into the living room. The cooler (green) area in the lower right portion of the image is a large closet beneath the stairs. Dark blue area is approximately 70 F; red is 1,500 F.

Plan view of basement level.

Rear of test structure.

VOLUME 6, ISSUE 2 32

basement near the bottom of the open stairway, as well as in the living room at the top of the stairs.

The basement or lower level of the test structure was lined with oriented strand board (OSB) on the ceiling, walls and floor. The OSB on the floor was covered with polyurethane foam carpet padding and poly-olefin carpeting. Three sofas were positioned in the basement as part of the fuel load.

The ceiling and walls of the upper level were covered with a layer of cement board to limit fire propagation and damage. The floor was car-peted from the open basement doorway at the top of the stairs to the rear of the living room. A large upholstered chair was positioned against the rear wall of the structure, opposite the open door to the stairs.

The test structure was instrumented to measure gas temperatures, heat flux, gas pressure, gas velocity and gas concentrations (see image, right). Of course, the upper level where the firefighters were located was the area of the highest interest. Therefore, our focus here will be on the conditions near the top of the stairs. It was important to see if the fire in the test structure evolved in a similar manner to the actual fire. Testers ignited the fire on the lower level. The fire grew and then became ventila-tion-limited. The fire went into decay due to the lack of oxygen available for combustion. The order of ventilation followed that of the real incident. On the upper level, testers first opened the front door, then the kitchen window. At this point, the lower-level doors were opened.

This image shows post-flashover oxygen concentrations along the centerline of the stairway up into the living room. The oxygen-rich (blue) area in the lower right portion of the image is a large closet beneath the stairs.

Flow path conditions at the top of the stairs, before and after the lower-level doors were opened.

B SHIFTER

CHERRY ROAD

33

Approximately 30 seconds after the lower-level doors were opened, the basement transitioned through flashover, and thermal conditions at the top of the stairs increased dramatically. The peak gas temperatures near the ceiling increased from 500 F to 1,500 F. The heat flux at 3 feet above the floor increased from 2 kW/m2 to 40 kW/m2. The oxygen concentrations at the top of the stairs decreased from 11 percent before flashover to 4 percent after flashover. The velocity at the top of the stairs increased from 6 mph to 20 mph. All these mea-sures align with the values generated by the FDS simulations.

So now to answer the big question: What happens when 150 gpm of water is applied into the lower-level fire compartment through the doors on the lower level? Typically, the fire goes out within 30 to 60 seconds depending on the movement of the nozzle. After water application was stopped, the peak tem-peratures on the upper level were below 200 F. The heat flux was reduced to 5 kW/m2. The bottom line is that conditions throughout the structure began to improve as soon as fire suppression started. In an experiment, where a coordinated attack was made, suppression began as soon as the basement was vented; the peak temperature on the upper level never reached 500 F.

Flow path conditions at the top of the stairs, before and after suppression with water. Less than 150 gallons of water were used.

Left: Large flames coming out of the test structures basement doors. Right: The flames were quickly knocked down with a hosestream.

VOLUME 6, ISSUE 2 34

Although this might seem like no surprise, there are still a number of lead-ers in the fire service that express concern about fighting the fire from the burned side. The studies have provided data that support getting water on the fire as soon as you can to improve conditions. References1 Fire at 3146 Cherry Road, NE Washington, DC, May 30, 1999 Report from the Reconstruction Committee. District of Columbia Fire & Emergency Medical Services Department. Washington D.C.2 Madrzykowski, D., and Vettori, R.L., Simulation of the Dynamics of the Fire at 3146 Cherry Road NE, Washington D.C., May 30, 1999, NISTIR 6510. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD., April 2000. 3 Underwriters Laboratories, Structural Stability of Engineered Lumber in Fire Conditions. UL, Northbrook, IL., September 2008.4 Kerber, S., Impact of Ventilation on Fire Behavior in Legacy and Contempo-rary Residential Construction. , December 2010.5 Madrzykowski, D., & Kent, J. L., Examination of the Thermal Conditions of a Wood Floor Assembly above a Compartment Fire, NIST TN 1709. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD., July 2011.6 Kerber, S., Madrzykowski, D., Dalton, J., & Backstrom, Bob. Improving Fire Safety by Understanding the Fire Performance of Engineered Floor Systems and Providing the Fire Service with Information for Tactical Decision Making . Underwriters Laboratories, Northbrook, IL., March 2012.7 Barowy, A.M., and Madrzykowski, D., Thermal Behavior of Structural Fire Fighting Protective Ensemble Samples Modified with Phase Change Material and Exposed in Full-Scale Room Fires, NIST TN 1739. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD., March 2013.8 Madrzykowski, D., Fire Dynamics: The Science of Fire Fighting, International Fire Service Journal of Leadership and Management, Vol. 7, Fire Protection Publications/IFSTA, Stillwater, OK., 2013.9 Scientific Research for the Development of More Effective Tactics: Gover-nors Island Experiments, http://www.firecompanies.com/modernfirebehavior/governors%20island%20online%20course/story.html, accessed May 4, 2016. 10 Kerber, S., Study of the Effectiveness of Fire Service Vertical Ventilation and Suppression Tactics in Single Family Homes. Underwriters Laboratories, Northbrook, IL., June 2013.11 Kerber, S. and Zevotek, R., Study of Residential Attic Fire Mitigation Tac-tics and Exterior Fire Spread Hazards on Fire Fighter Safety. Underwriters Laboratories, Northbrook, IL., November 2014.12 Zevotek, R., and Kerber, S., Study of the Effectiveness of Fire Service Posi-tive Pressure Ventilation During Fire Attack in Single Family Homes Incorporat-ing Modern Construction Practices. Underwriters Laboratories, Northbrook, IL., April 2015.

Daniel Madrzykowski is a fire protection engineer with the UL Firefighter Safety Research Institute in Columbia, Md. He has a masters degree in fire protection engineering from the University of Maryland, and he has conducted research and investigations to improve firefighter safety for more than 30 years. In 2009 he received the ISFSI/Fire Engineering Instruc-tor of the Year Award. Dan is a Fellow of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) and currently serves on the

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A ccording to the NFPA, fewer firefighters are dying on the job than ever before. From 20102015, the fire service experienced about six deaths per month com-pared to about 10 per month from 19802000.1,2 Turnout gear is better, and train-ing and safety are now a departments top priorities. However, its what develops after years

of exposure to the products of combustion thats killing firefighters prematurely: cancer.

In 2006, the University of Cincinnati published a study covering 37 years of research that

showed firefighters have a much higher incidence of multiple myeloma, prostate and testicu-

lar cancers, and non-Hodgkins lymphoma (click here to view the study). Today, experts have

identified more than a dozen cancers that firefighters are more likely to get than the general

population. The World Health Organization even ranks firefighting as a possibly carcinogenic

occupation. Most firefighters would agree that the word possibly should have the word

very in front of it. Firefighters and the organizations promoting their health and safety fully

recognize the risk. In 2013, the IAFF promoted a new law to establish a national cancer registry

for firefighters, partly to bring awareness to the risk of acquiring cancer on the job.

BY BRIAN CRANDELL, ED.D

http://www.iaff.org/hs/PDF/Cancer%20Risk%20Among%20Firefighters%20-%20UC%20Study.pdf

VOLUME 6, ISSUE 2 38

IAFF President Harold Schaitberger has stated, Cancer is a looming per-sonal catastrophe for all our members, and we are just beginning to under-stand the magnitude of the problem.

Today, the majority of states and Cana-dian provinces have adopted presumptive legislation that recognizes firefighters are more likely to get cancer than other profes-sions (click here for more information). In most cases, the states require that employers provide compensation to the employee when claims are made for cancer.

The cancer problem is one that will likely worsen as builders continue to use new, more combustible materials. Modern furnishings are equally combustible, releasing dangerous chemicals when exposed to heat and fire. The particles in these materials can actually seep through turnout gear, reaching the skin and the bloodstream.

Once under the skin, these chemicals quickly travel to the organs of the bodys detoxification and reproductive systems, where they can start to produce malignant cells. Firefighters are trained to survive running into burning buildings, but the potentially lethal damage is happening at a microscopic level after they are safe at home.

SCBAs keep smoke from entering the lungs, but short of wearing a her-metically sealed space suit, there is no way to avoid blood exposure to the hundreds of carcinogenic chemicals at every fire call. Cancer has become the new normal in firefighting.

If firefighters cant avoid chemical exposure, what can they do? Since cancer cant easily be cured, maybe we can prevent it. In recent years, new SOPs have emerged to treat black, sooty gear as a hazardous material after every fire. Many fire departments require two sets of turnout gear per firefighter so that one can be cleaned after a call, and firefighters never have to put on dirty turnouts. They even wear surgical gloves to handle the soiled gear when plac-ing it in the washer. (Thats a long way from the old days of going months never cleaning turnout gear and wearing the dirt as a badge of honor.) Its a novel approach that is still gaining traction in the fire service and is being promoted nationwide by the Firefighter Cancer Support Network. Other preventive mea-sures include simple acts, such as hosing down fire apparatus after a fire. Some fire departments no longer allow food consumption at the scene because car-cinogenic chemicals can cling to fingers. Others bring wet-wipes to clean their necks and faces within minutes of leaving a structure fire.

Even though many stations and entire departments are incorporating these new protocols, others still maintain old-school habits and have yet to adopt prevention as standard procedure. For example, some departments outfit new stations with magnetic attachments to their external exhaust-removal system, so the exhaust hose remains attached to the muffler until the truck has left the truck bay, while other stations operate without any exhaust-removal at all, contaminating their indoor air with diesel exhaust at the begin-ning and end of every call.

A Sweaty SolutionTaking cancer prevention to the next level, some forward-thinking depart-ments are attempting to clean their firefighters from the inside out after every fire. Theyre using medical-grade infrared heating technology and mild exer-cise to generate sweatlots of sweat.

Image 3

When exposed to fire, modern furnishings and building materials relaease a frightening cocktail of toxins known to cause cancer.

www.iaff.org/hs/phi/

B SHIFTER

SWEAT IT OUT

39

Saunasspecifically low-temperature infrared saunashave been used in medical clinics to treat chronic illness from environmental exposures such as lead, pesticides and household mold. Their success has made them prominent at colleges of naturopathic medicine; in fact the biggest naturopathic medi-cal colleges in North America train their doctors in the use of infrared sauna therapy as a primary means of treating illness from environmental exposure. Evidence-based schools, including the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Ore., the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Conn., and other schools throughout Canada, have ensured that most naturopaths understand the health benefits of infrared saunas.

Studies show infrared saunas can also be used to prevent illness by remov-ing harmful chemicals from the body before they can trigger disease. Example: In 2010, a group of doctors working with infrared sauna technology conducted a study using more than 2,000 lab test samples of blood, urine and sweat. (Click the paperclip, right, to download the study.) The results showed that we sweat out 10 times more toxic heavy metals than we excrete through our urine.

This discovery paved the way for fire stations to promote sweating as an effective means to remove particles that now claim more lives than falling roofs. Today, there are special chambers designed just for fire stations that combine a medical-grade, infrared heating system with an exercise bike. Pairing minor exercise with infrared heat is shown to make people sweat profusely in just 10 minutes without raising their core body temperature.

Were trying to make our fire stations cancer-proof if we can, says Chief Jim Parrish of the New Philadelphia (Ohio) Fire Department. His wa