Let's talk about the Fire Service

[henrik]

What about command structure - when several brigades respond to an event, how does it get determined who is in charge? First on scene? What about when it's a "complex event" with different kinds of responders, eg a shooter in a burning building or a train crash with multiple victims?

[Jason]

No, the water is stored in a baffled tank and is subject to outside temperatures which can create problems in cold weather as we don't want it to freeze.

So the fire truck itself holds water? How much? Is it a precautionary measure against no hydrant or hydrant malfunction? Do rural areas not have access to hydrants? When I am in more urban type areas I often see the firemen test the hydrants.

[henrik]

We follow the Incident Command System /.../ Somebody is always in charge of the scene and command is transferred seamlessly as more personnel show up that are trained to run an emergency situation. /.../
Hope that clears up some of what you asked.

It does and it makes sense, thank you for the explanation. The system seems quite similar to what's followed in many EU countries, right up to a national staff being set up to lead, which I imagine in the US would be run by FEMA.
As IC on site, how much authority do they give you to seize private resources (eg fuel, machinery) or task private persons?

[Gilberto de Piento]

If you'll look next time at hydrants, you'll notice that each top(bonnet) will be either light blue, green, yellow or orange, red, or black. These all indicate what they are rated in gpm with the light blue the best and the black a dead hydrant.

I was driving around yesterday so I started watching for hydrants. I passed at least 10 of them and they were all light blue.

[Jason]

arson is suspected.

What's your best arson story? Wife loses house in divorce and burns it down? Husband catches wife in bed with boyfriend and sets the bed on fire?" The Jewish lightning "I need money, what's this insured for?" Or the "Oops, I just burned my own shit to the ground?" via fell asleep smoking, put out grease fire with water, thought I just burn this pile of leaves and before I knew it the entire neighborhood is a raging inferno.


This is on my reading list.

https://www.amazon.com/American-Fire-Lo ... 1631490516

[henrik]

We don't want to use them for firefighting because they aren't protected or trained, but sometimes they will help you carry things such as hose or extrication tools. But we really don't want untrained people involved for too long, especially with real hazards.

How about forest fires? This summer was extremely dry in northern Europe (by local standards) and several countries saw record numbers and sizes of forest fires, which stretched resources quite thin for other everyday stuff. People will naturally self-organise and turn up to help (I was involved in one where hundreds of people suddenly just turned up a few hours before dark and demanded to help). It takes attention and manpower from the incident command staff, but in later stages of a forest fire (looking for and putting out remaining nests) untrained manpower can be quite useful if well organised. How is this handled in your experience?

[Riggerjack]

Speaking of forest fires...

If I were looking to prevent a fire on a 5 acre plot of woods, how much water is going to be about right? I'm envisioning something like buried water tanks, piped to irrigation sprinklers. Just fire up a pump, open a valve, and spray.

My understanding is that wildfires are best dealt with using a "dome of humidity" strategy. Basically get everything wet to stop sparks from catching.

How much water do your tanker trucks bring? How many get used for a small patch of woods?

This last summer, it seems like Eastern Washington was on fire or Canada was. It got me thinking about my house in the woods covered in oiled cedar shingles (or maybe the right term is kindling) and those weren't comforting thoughts.

Thanks again for this thread.

[enigmaT120]

When we were getting our first roof on our house around 1992 my mom's husband suggested cedar shingles as they look so good in the woods where I live. But even then all I could think of was kindling. Now I have a metal roof.

[enigmaT120]

I don't guess anybody was home? That's fast.

My whole house is solid cedar inside the aluminum siding and steel roof. Like a Lindal Cedar home but a different company. It's very thick vertical boards stacked on each other in a log house interlocking fashion. But cedar. At least it isn't any sort of lightweight construction method!

[henrik]

A young youtuber goes through aspects of fire and rescue training with the South Metro fire dept (I'm assuming it's the one in Colorado) in a 35-minute video. It's a well produced and somewhat dramatic piece. I hope @ffj has the time to take a look and comment.
I wonder if the target group here is mostly young recruits? It sure worked on my younger sister who sent this to me:)
https://youtu.be/CFbMRZNg4_I