October Drill Of The Month: The Handcuff Knot

Short sweet and to the point, the handcuff knot is vital to RIT/RIC operations. It can be used to attach to down firefighters either using the loops created by tying the knot, or using those loops and attaching a carabiner. The biggest advantage is that the knot creates to pulling points for firefighter to use in the rescue attempt. This provides a great mechanical advantage in lifting the firefighter from below grade.

Bottom line this knot saves lives! You need to be able to tie it in the dark, in the smoke, with gloves on, under the most stressful conditions imaginable. Take some time this month (whats left of it) to practice this knot like someone elses life depends on it, CAUSE IT DOES!

As usual thanks for reading, spread the word, and STAY SAFE!

June Drill of the Month: Manual Pump Procedure

Your driving the engine for your tour, you get dispatched for a structure fire. In flash you’re heading to the scene and you see a column of smoke over the horizon! Your officer gives you the hydrant location, and tells you “LAY IN”! You make the block, stop at the hydrant get out wrap it, back in and your driving up to the scene. You arrive and see a 2 story single family dwelling with smoke coming out of the 2nd floor windows. You pull the parking brake, you engage the pump, put the gear selector in drive, and hop out of the rig. By this time your officer has made his lap and is reporting heavy fire on side Charlie, and the fireman with you has gotten the line pulled and is ready for water. You pull the discharge valve and begin to throttle up…..nothing……you keep pressing the throttle button…..nothing. You did everything right, but your gauges are at zero and your crew needs water now! What happens in the next few seconds makes you a hero or a ZERO!

Has this ever happened to anyone? I’m sure it has, the reality of the situation is that fire trucks are manufactured and with them becoming more computerized sometimes things break, or malfunction. In times like these you need to have an understanding of how to place your apparatus pump into gear manually. Usually it is not that complicated, but NONE OF THEM ARE THE SAME!!!! Even the same make and model can be different. For example in my department we run all front line Pierce Quantum engines. Even our reserves are quantums. Some of the older ones in reserve status are in the 1995-96 range and the one I ride on today is a 2011. The manual pump procedure for the new vs old is VERY different. In fact some of the older ones it takes 2 people to perform the procedure.  Then you throw in different manufactures and different years. The engine I learned to pump on when I was about 18 was a 1989 KME. In order to put that into manual pump you had to close valve A, open valve B, then pull the manual lever, finally placing the gear shift in drive, a far more complicated process.

The moral of this story is know the rig your riding, especially if you in a department like mine where everyone (except officers) share the driving responsibilities. Take some time this month to look over your pumper and go over your manual pump procedure. It is a simple drill, but could prove valuable in the right situation.

As usual thanks for reading, spread the word, and STAY SAFE!!!!

May Drill Of The Month: Know Your District and BEYOND!

Knowing your district is VITAL to succesful fireground operations. You may be the best hose stretcher, tactical officer, and firefighter around but if you do not get there all of those skills are for nothing. However knowing your district is not enough, you have to be very familiar with your second, third, and maybe even 4th due!

This is a lesson that has been reinforced to me hard recently, as I have been moved to a part of town I am very unfamiliar with. Sometimes the maps (whether hand drawn, or GIS) is not enough. This (hypothetically of course) could lead to you running a fire in your second due and not knowing 100% were you are going and ending up 2nd due. Sure you still get to do some good fireground work but you should have been on the initial attack line and….well Im rambling and this in no way really happened (lol).

But seriously knowing the roads, buildings, different routes, etc. is very important and sometimes gets very over looked.

So this month dedicate some training time, to driving your district and the surrounding districts, get in the map book, get in your buildings, and take some different routes back to the station to see some streets you may never see. Also no matter how good you know your district always look it up in the map book, or your mapping system it will get you used to using it and will make finding locations easier under the gun.

Be sure to keep following along on twitter @averagejakeff

As usual thanks for reading, spread the word, and STAY SAFE!

January Drill Of The Month: Ladder Climbing

 

With the recent injuries, and deaths involving ladders (I know they were aerialladders) I felt that this month it would be a good idea to return to some basic drilling and go over some safe ways to climb ladders.

Lets face it climbing ladders is tough on a normal day, people fall from ladders all of the time and they do not have to wear PPE, SCBA,or carry tools, and rescue victims.

Unfortunately climbing ladders is something I feel we take for granted especially from an engine company perspective. Think the last time your ladder came off the engine? It probably only comes off to check it, or to clean it.

So now lets look at some important points when climbing ladders:

1. Always maintain three points of contact with a ladder:  This is accomplished by using the beams instead of the rungs. When your climbing let your hands slide along the beams, this way you always have 1 foot and 2 hands in contact with the ladder at all times, making it easier to catch yourself if you were to slip. This also in my opinion makes the climb smoother. When you use the rungs the ladders tend to bounce a lot due to the shifting of your entire body weight from one side to the other, you really see this in your straight stick aerials and longer extension ladders (35-40 footers). If you slide up the rails if takes some of the bounce out making the climb easier. This also makes victim rescue techniques easier.

2. Slide the tools: This goes along with the above but we should never be empty-handed on the fireground, so we need a way to carry tools up the ladder. With smaller tools like the halligan and axe using the same slide technique as mentioned above works well, and maintains ladder contact. With longer tools like hooks, simply use the length of the tool and hook it on the highest rung you can reach. When you reach the head of the tool repeat until you have reached your destination.

3. Use Rope: Were we really get into trouble is carrying saws to the roof. Saws are heavy, they take a hand away causing us to break contact with the ladder, and they can through us off-balance. In this case rope is the answer. Take a rope bag (I carry a 50 footer on my air pack at all times) tie or clip the rope to the saw, then start climbing (with the bag attached to you of course) while you’re climbing the rope should play out. Once you reach your destination you can then hoist the saw up. Utilizing this method allows for you to climb the ladder safer, more efficient, and faster than having to lug the saw up. It also allows you to carry your hand tools as well.

4.  Aerial Ladders: Climbing Aerial Ladders is a different animal all together. Some of the same techniques work (using the beams when at low angles, and using the hook method for long tools) but all together it is different. If you have a bucket try to utilize it as often as possible. This will reduce fatigue (easier to ride than climb), allow you to carry all of the tools you need, and give you a relatively safe working platform. If you must climb an Aerial ladder then you must be equipped with a ladder belt, or some sort of fall protection device

5. Footing the ladder: It amazes me that people are still getting taught to foot the ladder from the rear. The best place to be is in the front. You can see what is happening to the building, you can see what is happening to the firefighters climbing the ladder, you are in the perfect position for victim rescue (firefighter or civilian), and you can assist in taking the bounce out of the ladder. In addition you can keep an eye what is going on, and avoid falling debris.

Bottom line is climbing ladders is a serious, and dangerous part of our job. It should never be taken for granted, and should be practiced often. Take some time this month to pull the ladders off the rig and climb ladders. You should of course be doing this in full PPE and SCBA in order to get the full effect.

Do not forget to keep following along on twitter @averagejakeff

As usual thanks for reading, spread the word, and STAY SAFE!

 

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January Drill Of The Month: Ladder Climbing, posted with vodpod

August Drill Of The Month: Ladder Fall

While things are still busy at the house, I wanted to put this video up on the site. It is one  have seen several ties but it is a true example of even when you do everything right on this job things can still go wrong.

Not saying this guy had done everything right but for the most part he had gone up to rescue a victim that was in trouble in a fire building, sure some stylistic differences, and tactics might be used but at the end of the day this guy was doing the right thing.

The victim he was removing was conscious and just needed assistance, but as you see even in this scenario things still went horribly wrong, causing the victim and fireman to have significant injuries.

The only way to lessen our chances of things going wrong is to control the factors of the equation that we can. We can control our skill level through training, we can control our level of protection by wearing all of our PPE, we can control our physical fitness and fire ground performance by working out, and we can control our safe arrival at the incident by driving appropriately and wearing seatbelts. Will doing this stuff make things 100% safe, no way but by allowing ourselves maximum safety,fitness, and skill level we can lessen the chance of things going wrong and increase our survival when they do.

So this month focus on a serious self assessment. Are you operating safely with maximum PPE protection on every run? Are you physically fit to perform all of the tasks on the fireground? If not what are you doing to fix these problems?

Leave your responses, comments, or questions in the comments section, twitter, or email. Also do not forget to follow us on twitter www.twitter.com/averagejakeff

As usual thanks for reading, spread the word, and STAY SAFE!

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Ladder Fall, posted with vodpod