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He’s no Otis

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The 3 AM building alarm.  This is the Fire Service equivalent of an abdominal pain from a month ago.  Thing is, when it’s in a retirement home, all bets are off as to what might be going on.

THE EMERGENCY

Audible and visual warning devices triggered by an automatic alarm, water flow indicated.

THE ACTION

When the bells strike at work, I always get out of bed and sit on the corner and wait for 2 distinct dispatcher comments:

1. “Unit dispatch…” Which means it’s a medical job and I should continue waking up, OR

2. “Units stand by for the box…” Which means we have a report of smoke or fire in a building.

But there is a glimmer of hope when the dispatcher calls out a building alarm box because our Truck Company also covers 2 other engine areas.  Sometimes they’re the only ones going out.  Sometimes.

Tonight it’s everyone and we’re quickly on scene to a very beautiful brick 4 story type 3 we drive by all the time wondering what’s inside.

Old people.

We’re met by a security guard who of course is more interested in our supervisor’s name than telling us the situation inside.  A representative from the water department wanders over from a giant hole in the ground surrounded by water department vehicles and informs us they just turned the main back on.

As the pressure slowly built against the sprinkler valve, it likely shuddered and set off the alarm.  We relax and go in to make sure and reset the alarm.

Like in a zombie movie, we enter to see various persons in pajamas and robes wandering the halls and standing on the stairs, all staring at us as we go by.  They say nothing, only watch and slowly begin to come closer the longer we stand at the alarm panel under the grand staircase.  At some time in the past 100 years, this was one hell of a mansion, but now is populated by scores of the aged.

Which is odd, since I’ve never been on a medical run here before.

As we reset the alarm, the occupants begin to slowly shuffle away in different directions, except for one.

He corners the other firefighter and asks her if she knew they had a new elevator installed recently.

“OK, wonderful, thanks.” She says, being as polite as you can at 3:15 AM.

“No, you need a key to use it if the alarm goes off,” he informs her.

“Yes, we have that key,” she says, trying to walk away.

“No, it’s a new kind of elevator, come, I’ll show you.” and he begins to lead her down a hallway.

As much as I wanted to follow and keep her company, she went along as one might go along to look at baby pictures of your third cousin while visiting long lost family.

She eventually emerged, unharmed and still in good spirits, to inform us that it was a standard elevator.  Go figure.  It wasn’t until later I learned that the inventor of the modern elevator, Elisha Otis, died long ago.  I was half hoping that was him, remarkably old and well preserved, in a home for the very old and the very rich.

Hey Motorcop! It’s on like Donkey Kong!

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My Brother from another Mother, Motor Cop, spent another day at his “duck pond” monitoring facebook and scouring youtube for something to ridicule the FD.

He found a video you can watch at THIS LINK and proves that Fireman have all the moves down.

Don’t believe me?  Just compare that video to this one, featuring the REAL Motor Cop.


Village People – YMCA (version originale)
Uploaded by scorpiomusic. – Watch more music videos, in HD!

*No Indians, Manly bikers, cowboys or construction workers were injured in this posting, the Soldier, I’m not so sure.

e4, e6

Pop Quiz

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What a month it has been!

Your job, gentle reader, is to choose which one of the following calls I DID NOT get dispatched to.  Seriously.

1.  Motor vehicle versus pedestrian, driver of car in full bicycle riding regalia and parked up the block.

2.  Partial scalping.

3.  Stabbing.

4.  Building alarm set off by a BBQ 2 houses over.

5.  A fall down 2 floors of wooden stairs after an earthquake.

6.  A running toilet in a park restroom.

7. A person urinating on the sidewalk.

8.  A high speed police chase on the Golden Gate Bridge.

9.  Sprinklers spilling into the street.

10.  A child choking on a grape.

OK, have at it.  You know I left out all the boring full codes, hypoglycemics and basic MVAs just because that would be too easy.  So out of the 10 calls above, which one was I NOT dispatched to?

Make it stop

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Happy Hour on Firefighter Netcast

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Tuesday night at 6pm Pacific time I’ll be taking over the Firefighter Netcast show LIVE on blogtalk radio.  You can call in at  (347) 327-9920  and join the chat room at the link below.


Listen to internet radio with FirefighterNetCast on Blog Talk Radio

As is usual with the Happy Hour Show I’ve got a few things I want to talk about so I’m taking over.

Some topics discussed may include:

PPV fans

Crew size

Officer experience

Rural vs Urban and many many more.  But since it’s a live call in show, YOU can ask me about what you want to talk about.

See you on the radio!

Auxiliary Water System

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After the earthquake in April of 1906, San Francisco suffered huge losses from that famous fire that spread quickly due to a lack of water supply.  The City fathers decided to think ahead and developed an auxiliary water system fed from 3 large tanks throughout the City.  At an incident, the different tanks can be added to the system and a large amount of high pressure water diverted to the hydrants nearby.

If the nearly 10,000,000 gallons of water run out or are not available for whatever reason, the system can be augmented by pumping  salt water into the system in one of three ways.  Either from lines fed from the fire boat, by the pump house in the basement of Headquarters or this non-descript building in my first due area.

This is pump house #2 and walking inside was like walking back in time.

Inside the house, built in the 19teens, are the large coal fired furnaces that created the steam to push the water into the hundreds of miles of large diameter hydrant pipe. Here’s a pic of me and my fireman Joe in front of one of the three 3 story tall furnaces.  They are no longer fired, diesel engines have long replaced them, but they are so large and built into the structure, removing them would be cost ineffective and likely damage the entire building.  I can only imagine what it must have been like to be in this pump house when a greater alarm fire was working and water was needed.  Coal fire smoke, heat and exhaustion must have been all in the day’s work for the men assigned here.

We were stopping by to drop off a few fire prevention items and ended up staying for almost an hour looking around and asking the pumpman (yes, there is still a pumpman there) all about what we were seeing.

The valves and gauges are still the originals and are kept in good working order and polished clean.  After all, there is still the possibility of firing these big guys up should we ever need to.

Many of the components here were installed between 1912 and 1925 and while my East Coast readers may think this quite recent in comparison to their own services, out here on the west coast this kind of history is unheard of.  The building sure, the valves on display maybe, but a still operational unit kept in this kind of condition blew me away.

In addition to powering the water system, this building served as a large electrical generator for the nearby Army Depot.  On the other side of the room, right out of Dr Frankenstien’s laboratory is the electrical panel and breaker switches.  Around every corner was another confusing tangled maze of pipes and valves, coal doors and pressure gauges.

It made me more appreciative of where the water comes from, not unlike I felt the first time I had to repair a hot water heater and appreciated where that water came from all that much more.

This system can produce up to 300psi at 10,000 gpm and can operate for almost 2 days solid without refueling.  Which is good since each high pressure hydrant can move up to 12,000 gpm.  Of course the folks back then had to develop a way to handle such pressures, which occur naturally when opening the progressively higher altitude supply tanks.  the lower zone may rate at 60psi static, 150 with the first tank open, then 225 and 300 when the others are opened.

A special hydrant device was patented in 1926, the Gleason Valve, for this single purpose.  Made of spun brass and weighing almost 90 lbs, this special hydrant valve device attaches to the high pressure hydrants and can lead 2 3″ lines from a pressure reducing valve.  In the old days these were used as fire pumps without putting the supply through a steamer.  Nowadays we can either tie it into a pumper or use it as a stand alone supply for a master stream or to charge our above ground backup hydrant system.  You can spot the high pressure hydrants not only because they have a 10″ diameter supply, but have 3 3 1/2″ caps and a colored bonnett..  This allows the crews to see which reservoir feeds that particular hydrant.

It really is a remarkable system, even by today’s standards, and they did it all back before the horses were out of the firehouses.  Imagine engineering all this by lamp light:

More on the hydrants in another post, including the significance of our ball top hydrants.

SFFD – The Best in the West

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I found this video on youtube posted by SFirish06.  The title had me curious and I was looking for certain footage anyway so I watched.  This is a great video compilation featuring some neat footage.

Just a couple of points of interest before I let you watch.  At 2:10 you will see my classmate and co-worker Firefighter/Paramedic Mike Estrada fall victim to thousands of pounds of wall when trapped under a collapsing facade.  He survived and is still recovering from extensive leg injuries.  When this accident happened it was a topic of great discussion online and I was forced to remain silent since I was still anonymous.  I hope to interview Firefighter Estrada this year to get his first person account of this event.  And just another quick note, that hoseline he’s holding and moving like a garden hose is a 2 1/2″.

At 3:10 is the video I was looking for initially.  This is 1133 Mission street on the morning of December 17th, 2007.  Truck 1 has yet to stick the roof so I’m not there yet, but this is the fire I got hurt at.  Remember?

Enjoy the Best in the West, the San Francisco Fire Department:

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Where there’s smoke…

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blog engineI hate that saying “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” because we all know it to be false.  Don’t believe me?  Light a candle.  No smoke.  Now blow it out. Poof…smoke.  Where there’s smoke there are byproducts of combustion.

Now where did they put that darned combustion?

THE EMERGENCY

11 PM and things are winding down at the firehouse when the radio teases us the way they love to do, “Standby for the box” the voice calmly states as if settling on a choice of new carpet.

Most times the alarms hit somewhere else and we get to listen to the response, but when that tease is followed by the automatics firing on and the bells ringing, we get moving.  And fast.

“Engine 99, Engine 66, Engine 88, Truck 4, Truck 21, Battalion 5, Battalion 12, Rescue 3, Division 4 and Medic 99 respond to 123 Maple for a reported smoke in a building, alarm sounding.  Repeating…”

She went on but I was already heading for the engine, turnout pants buckling as I went, weaving in and out of the paths of the firemen descending the poles.

THE ACTION

There are folks outside of the 4 story type 3 with similar buildings on each exposure-attached and we see nothing showing.  Alarm bells are ringing and folks tell us of smoke on the third floor.

Grabbing the can and a tool I’m right behind the officer as we make entry to the lobby to an old alarm panel that simply has a light flashing next to “trouble.”  Trouble indeed, no zone, no detector, we’ll have to do the walk.

The walk, as we call it, is the systematic check of all doors by opening them to check for fire conditions.  If they can not be opened we gently break the seal at the top of the door feeling for heat and looking for smoke.

As we continue our walk there is indeed a scent of burning paper on the third floor, but no visible sign of smoke.  the truck has made the roof and done a 360 of the building, (yes we do that part of the sizeup from the roof) and are now searching top down.

Minutes pass as we investigate the source of the smell of smoke.  None of the units have fireplaces, the garbage chute is clear, the grills are clean and cool, but darn it if we can’t find the source.

After making another walk through each unit I was resigned to take the apartment hose pack back downstairs when the firefighter emerged from the hallway and said, “Come take a look at this, will ya?”

Inside one of the kitchens he has a headlamp I admired at FDIC pointed towards the ceiling and said, “Do you see smoke up there or am I crazy?”

“Command Engine 99, we have smoke in unit 4.” was my traffic and we set out to discover the source.  As more bodies came into the tiny unit and the even tinier kitchen, all in full gear, I stuck my head out the kitchen windows and looked outside.  I could smell the burning paper, but where was it?

As I turned to leave the spot near the window behind a table, my axe handle rubbed against a large paper bag and the bottom fell right out of it.  The burnt bottom.  And all the trash in it was burnt.  We dug through looking for a match or a cigarette or some other source but found nothing but trash.

Where there was smoke, there had been an early stage of combustion.  but had it not been for the smoke detectors, the occupants likely would have gone to bed, not knowing they would be awoken by fire cutting off their only means of egress.

A 9v battery saves the day again.

2nd Alarm Addition

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Traveling the interwebs machine on a study break I found a blog post that was titled The SFFD is Stalking me.

So of course I had to.

Kent Firefighter Gary Lane runs the blog Coffee Talk Around the Tailboard and it contains a great mix of personal thoughts (He’s anti-triple load), embarrassing co-worker photos, and a fair bit of tips and tricks at the company level.  Take this video for example:

Not a bad company drill, right?

Now go over to the blog and dig back to the first day he started building that prop and you too can have these kinds of drills.

So welcome to the 2nd Alarm Board Mr Lane, I’m a follower.

You Make the Call…Man Hole Fire…My Call

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You Make the CallWell, shoot. When I first got hired our training Captain put up a shot of the Tokyo gas attacks and asked us the two best ways to handle such an incident.  People were running everywhere, others lying in the street.

He let us think about it for a few minutes, then let us in on the secrets to dealing with large incidents.

Option #1 is to reach over the center console while pulling out of the station, grab the steering wheel and pull.  The rig hits the door and you’re out of service in quarters, send someone else.

Option #2, if you forgot #1 and found yourself on the scene, was to calmly remove your coat and helmet and blend in with the crowd.

All kidding aside, this is a situation many firefighters will not encounter.  In my area we have large underground electrical vaults that serve as relay points for the City’s electrical systems.  More than once these have failed, caught fire, exploded etc.  hey, it’s electricity, a thousand different things could happen.

The important question, and the reason I shared this photo of an actual vault fire, was to get us all thinking about that first radio report and request for resources that can establish the tone and response over the next 30 minutes.  they say the first 3 minutes of a large incident can dictate the next 3 hours and I believe it.

My Department also has resources specifically designed and staffed to handle these incidents so I simply have to relay to the Battalion Chief that I have a vault fire and the system does what it has to do.

But, here would be my initial actions if that was not the case:

“Control, this is Engine 99, we are on the scene of what appears to be an underground fire, smoke showing.  We are staging upwind at 5th and Main, establishing 5th Street Command.  Strike a full first alarm and have them respond from the south to 5th and Main.”

You get the idea.  The point is to convey what you can without getting too wordy, but get resources rolling, including higher ranks to co-ordinate further response.

I would use the PA to get bystanders away and set up a perimeter, stretching a line part way there to protect persons who wander in if something happens.

That’s my call.

You Make the Call…Ladder Drill

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You Make the CallYou’re the boss on the ladder company today and have decided to run the troops through their paces.  The large extension ladder is raised in front of the firehouse.

You’ve sent the young guy up to practice working off the side and locking in when a woman with a clip board casually strolls up and begins to talk to you.

Even though all your member are in their PPE with helmets in place, she refuses to stand back as she makes notes on a sheet on her clip board.

“I notice your ladder is not secured at the top,” she tells you.

“Well No, Ma’am, it’s not, we’re practicing a situation where that doesn’t happen, that’s why this fellow here is holding the ladder,” you tell her while pointing to your foot man holding the ladder as he always does.

She presents credentials from the local occupational safety department and orders your member off the ladder.  She then demands to speak to your supervisor for a violation of safety laws.

What do you tell her?  You make the call.

Layout

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Sunday Fun - Get MotivatedIn my opinion the most important person on a hoseline is the layout man.

Some departments staff 3 to an engine, meaning there is no layout man unless the Officer goes back down the line to make things right.

Not mine.

We run 4 to an engine and for good reason: You need 4 people to mount an effective primary fire attack.

Driver/Engineer: Operates fire apparatus, engages and monitors pump and water supply.  Good so far, we have a way of getting water into the hoses, that’s a plus.

Officer: In command of the team. Calls for type, length of hose and where it is to be deployed.

Nozzleman: Operates the valve at the end of the hose, points it at the fire.  Really more complicated then that, I know, but than again, so is…

Layout: Ensure the hose is properly deployed from the apparatus and unkinked entering the building.  Follow the attack team around corners, untangling and advancing line as needed.  Block open doors and move furniture so that when the line is charged it isn’t trapped under something.  Stay back from the firefight to pull line back so the nozzle team can redeploy to another location without standing on a load of spaghetti in the hallway.  And, possibly THE most important role of the layout position is to slow additional responding companies if conditions are unsafe ahead of you.

Even though the Officer has a good view of the seat of the fire, and a good officer knows the conditions around them, they can’t see what the layout person sees.  From a safe distance, possibly at a corner, ready to pull hose while the nozzle gets the “glory,” the layout can scout conditions in other rooms and maybe even get some ceiling fall on them when the truck cuts a nice hole.

The layout knows all the trouble spots that line may encounter if it needs to move through that area again.  The first two folks through had their attentions elsewhere.

The layout is also the one who will be assisting the nozzle team should the conditions warrant an evacuation.  From that position you know where the exits are, not just where the line goes out, but also rooms of refuge, should they be needed.

When the fire is out and overhaul continues, the layout man needs to make sure that line is still available to knock down hot spots in the ceiling and walls by looping it into an unburnt room and placing the nozzle, with nozzleman still attached in a position to redeploy if necessary.

We should never leave the engine without a tool of some kind, but as the layout we need full flexibility so a sheathed axe can really get in the way.  A pump can can also get in the way but makes an excellent door chock and point of no return doorway device.  That little can can keep an advancing fire from getting through a doorway if teams are retreating behind you for at least 2-3 minutes when used properly.  So what to bring?

Depends on construction, location of fire and your Department’s SOPs.  A cop out answer I know, but the truth.

So next time someone else “grabs” the nozzle, remember that they have it easy, now you’ve got the most important spot on the hose line.  If the fire goes out you did your job right.

Now get those kinks out and feed line up to the third floor!

That’s twice

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blog engineI’m walking through a busy shopping center looking for someone, not sure who, and it’s stressing me out.  Panic, confusion, anticipation.  Then a loud tone strikes me from my sleep, the shopping center nothing but a dream.  The lights are bright in the dorm of the firehouse, the time is just before 2 AM and the tones finish just as I sit up to the corner of the bed awaiting the inevitable magic voice telling me where the sick people are.

“Units standby for the box!” the voice says with a tone of excitement.

A fire.

The dorm springs to life, sleepy firemen now scrambling into their turnouts and heading for the pole hole as the dispatcher rattles off the companies due.  Downstairs we dress, the doors are coming up and the rainy night awaits our response.  The dispatcher finishes reading the first alarm assignment by telling us this is a report of smoke in a building and we take that very seriously.

The engine beats the truck out the door, as we should, but not by much and I can see them following from my rear facing jump seat.  The green light on the front gives away they are a truck company, letting our driver know to let them take the block ahead of us if we’re second due.  The MDT tells me that we are first due and by the address, we’re less than 3 blocks away.  I might just be ready by the time we get there.

Hands still tingling from waking suddenly we are on scene to the large apartment building with nothing showing but an audible alarm sounding and young people milling about in the lobby.

My walk around the engine to my airpack gives me a chance to size up the building.  If we’re going above the ground floor, we’ll need a bundle to extend a pre-connect.  The first door on the first floor (first above the garage level) has a smoke detector alarm sounding and an odor of burnt food.  Deadbolt secured, we’ll need to force the door, damaging it completely, to make entry to investigate.

The truck is laddering the fire escape when they see a haze through the window of the unit in question and the decision is quickly made to enter through the window.

From our position in the hallway outside the door, the haligan tool is just being placed in the door jamb when we hear the truck make entry through the window.  The old thick windows break loudly and we now hear our brother pushing the mini blinds aside.  Boots thunder to the floor and footsteps get louder as the lock on the door clicks and the smoke wafts out as he opens the door.

“I gave at the office,” he says as I grab the pump can and go in search of the source of the smoke.  As we converge in the kitchen we hear shouting from the back room.  Shouting about waking up.  Shouting only from our people.  Being the Paramedic, I peel away from the burning pizza making all the smoke and meet the truck in the back room with a man curled up on the couch, completely passed out asleep.

They’re shaking his feet, being polite as can be in an effort to let him know we’re there and his apartment is filled with smoke.  It’s amazing that the breaking window didn’t wake him.  The tillerman and I exchange a look and the politeness is gone as he shakes the man’s shoulders shouting “Wake up! Fire! Fire! Wake up!”

Nothing.

Down in his face. “WAKE UP!”

“Whoa! What?” He sits up defensive, most of the first alarm compliment standing in his living room.  Escorted to the hallway, he is still confused about what is happening and I make my way back to the kitchen to help remove the source of the smoke.  The pick end of the haligan has a number of uses, one of them being removing small pizzas from ovens, so out it comes onto a baking tray and it is carried outside into the rain.

Back upstairs one of the firemen from another company looked around, saw the man we awoke and cried out,

“Let me guess, pizza in the oven?”  He went to the man and held up two fingers, “That’s twice!”

Small fire, small water. Big fire…

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Well, did you finish the statement?

Did you finish it the same way most do? “Big fire big water”?

Is that really the right answer?

I think it is the wrong answer.

Pumping high volumes of water into the 7th floor office complex isn’t going to help us if we haven’t trained with the tools used to knock that fire down. Yes having larger amounts of water on the fire floor will help us, but we must remember the layout of our commercial sites. They are commonly open with organized furnishings, and heavy on false walls and highly flammable file cabinets, records etc.

Training needs to include coordinating multiple lines, finding the seat of the fire, and knocking it down. Sounds simple and straight forward, but when all you hear is, big fire, big water, then train residential and not commercial, things can get tricky.  But even in a multi-residential situation, we need to get our water to the fire, otherwise it will ricochet off the ceiling, fall to the floor and run into the street.  All that big water right down the drain and the fire is still burning.

I prefer to say “Big fire, SMART water.”

Get in there with the large line but use it appropriately. Get your fog nozzle off and gain the distance from a smooth bore nozzle. That will give you a chance to get closer to the seat of the fire, find it and effect a knockdown to facilitate a search.  Defensive fires are no different.  Shooting a line from the street and aiming for the ridge line will direct all that water up and over the fire, not into it.  If you don’t have fire to hit, why are you training a line there?  Use that water to your advantage.  Collapse an issue?  Then get the lines up and out of the collapse zone with aerial pipes and platforms but don’t just “surround and drown.”  Aim for areas of heavy fire.  You won’t be “pushing it” somewhere else, it’s already going there, knock down the bulk of it’s heat and support and it will slow it’s advance.

When it is commercial and you’re trying your best to get as many large lines as you can into the office building, what are we doing?  Each of those lines needs 2 persons on the nozzle, an officer and then a member at each corner feeding line.  That exceeds even the best staffing models I’ve seen.  Take that first line and make a difference with it.  Keep it dry until you absolutely need water, then your layout person and other companies can help you stretch as you go.  Charge that 2 1/2″ line with 2 people at the door and all it will be good for is holding the front door open.You’ll need help getting it where it needs to be, but once there and trained on the seat of the fire, conditions will improve and smaller lines can chase the fire back as you advance, knocking down a lot of fire.  All because of SMART application of water.

Think I’m wrong?  Know I’m wrong?  Show me.

These are my observations and do not reflect the standards and practices of my employer.  Nor is the Department in the image used being singled out, nor were they the inspiration for this post, just a nice shot of an outside defensive line and an officer who appears to REALLY love that tree.

Christmas Day, 1909

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One of the main things a love about the San Francisco Fire Department is the history that still lives in these halls.

The journals of Truck 12 and Engine 12 (Old Engine 30)

This morning, Christmas morning, I was doing my morning chores when I needed supplies.  In this house the supplies are kept in the journal room.  Most stations have a journal room which houses all the old records of the companies assigned to those stations.  Some have those dating back to the 50s, some the 30s, and a few have them from the 19th century.

Engine 12 used to be Engine 30, so pre-1970s the journals are labeled Engine 30.  The numbers were changed when engines were moved to co-habitate with Truck companies, taking the truck number kind of like a wedding.  Only completely different.

Not far away, in fact, is the old firehouse for Chemical engine 5 and Truck 12, which is now a Daycare but still has the old wooden doors and red lights out front, not to mention beautifully restored and maintained company insignia.  I’ll try to get some shots up in the new year.  I decided to take a moment from my morning toilet cleaning and share with you Christmas Day at Engine 30, 1909.

Christmas Day 1909Staff at 8am: 1 Captain, 1 Lieutenant, 2 Hosemen, 1 Stoker and 1 Driver.

The exact type of apparatus is not listed as we do now, but it was a single steamer company.

The horses were exercised at 10am, one of the Hosemen took leave to attend church, they had 4 alarms for service.

Merry Christmas from Old Engine 30.

New School, meet Old School

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I was sent this video by a friend on facebook and had to make sure it spreads as far and as wide as we can get it.  Maybe you’ve seen it before, maybe it’s been on other blogs or outlets, but this video from almost 80 years ago could be dubbed over modern video and be just as important.  It is about 12 minutes long and comes to us thanks to the folks over at flashovertv.com, a site I will spend most of the day wandering through and suggest you do the same. But first, a company film.

Please to enjoy the Los Angeles Fire Department training film “Company Response”

The Lost Art of Poaching?

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There are tales in the Fire Service of old of companies scouring the edge of their districts hoping to jump a run, beating another company to a fire on their own turf.

It was nice to see last night that art is not completely lost.

Dispatched as part of the first alarm assignment in another part of town, the first companies called for a second alarm before we were even out of the station.  Heavy fire was reported from two large homes, both 3 story type 5 ordinary balloon frame construction.

While responding quite a distance to the growing fire (Later we learned our assignment had been a dispatch error)  we heard the sirens of some of the second alarm companies.

As we passed through one district, like I said we were a ways out, we saw one of the busier trucks in the country on the side of the road, just on their border, dressed and ready to work.  They were no doubt monitoring the tactical channel and listening for command to order up a third alarm so they could be on scene before the bells even rang.

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This video was taken from the house behind the fire building and shows the early efforts of the first in companies.  Well, it’s an orange glow and some saws, but it did go to a third alarm when the B exposure started rolling.  And no doubt that Truck we saw was the first in on that third.

The art of poaching is alive and well after all.

You Make the Call…Restaurant…What Happened

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You Make the Call...Line UpThis was the situation I gave you on friday, standing at the top of the stairs, no smoke, no fire, only an odor of burning paper.

We had all our PPE, including air of course, and multiple companies arriving behind us, so we took our pump can and went in search of the odor.  Back under the stairs in what likely passed for a store room 100 years ago, we found a small section of charred drywall at the floor level.  Opening up the wall led us to a large section of brick which likely went all the way up the inside of the building, but all the drywall was clear.  Oddly enough the other side of the brick wall had a large amount of trapped smoke so the Truck went to work opening it up.

In the end the conditions were such that having a charged line before going down there would have gotten us knotted up for sure.  Turns out the source of the smoke may have been above us, at the street level in an alley where a man was seen smoking prior to our arrival.

If you said have a look, but be safe, you made the right call.

You Make the Call…Restaurant

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You Make the Call...Line UpOK folks, back to the grind.

You are dispatched with your Department’s first alarm compliment to a report of smoke in a restaurant.  You are unfamiliar with the layout, since this is not your usual assignment and the building is in the oldest part of town.

On arrival you have nothing showing from the 4 story, mostly brick building, folks still seated at their tables as you arrive.  A quick inspection finds a labyrinth of hallways and stairwells behind the kitchen and a clear odor of burning paper.  No smoke is seen from the top of the stairs leading down to the storage area, which appears to have been retro-fitted into another kitchen area.

You have no charged line, only a pump can, but all your PPE.

Do you inspect the basement without a line or wait?  You make the call.

the Handover – Close Calls Edition

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Last call for the HandoverThis month’s handover draws from our friends across the interwebs stories of close calls. Times when they or their patients, colleagues or family almost didn’t make it. I was inspired to make this the theme not just because of the holiday weekend here in America, but to remind us all that we are fragile and put ourselves out there sometimes. Hopefully one of these links rings back when you’re in an unsafe or curious situation.


Found with the Where did the angry guy go files-

“What do we do?” asked Eric, his eyes wide.

“I don’t know about you two,” I said, “but I’m about to jump through that window over there.  I don’t know if that guy’s getting a gun or what.”

by Buckman who runs Gomerville

From the I don’t think you should be driving file-

“I was overwhelmed by the dreadful realization that I had just accepted a ride from a highly intoxicated snowmobile rider and we were hurtling through the dark northwoods at 70+ miles per hour.”

from Greg Friese of, among many, Every Day EMS Tips.


From the Thank God you’re driving category-

“This was a serious incident. This was no routine, boy, we almost had an accident. This was my death.

I don’t know if my partner would have stopped on his own if I hadn’t shouted. Maybe. Maybe he had it all under control and was already getting ready to hit the brakes.”

from Peter Canning, a new contributor to the FireEMSBlogs family, at StreetWatch:Notes of a Paramedic

In a section titled simply Gulp

“Jill and I found him lying on the floor, fully clothed and in a coat, eyes shut, but eyelids flickering. An almost certain sign of pseudo-unconsciousness. A fake. I took a step back and called out to him. Jill was still standing by the front door, uncertain how to proceed. Something still felt wrong, so I asked her to go and call for police back up. With hindsight, I should have gone with.”

writes Ben Yatzbaz, resident Insomniac Medic


Found in the Basement selection

“This moment, this intense moment, was where I made a decision the likes of which I hope I never have to make again. I knew that if I stayed more than a few moments longer, I would suffocate and burn to death right there on that floor.”

from our pal Chris Kaiser at Life Under the Lights


From the lost in the snow pile-

Dear God, they’re working a search pattern. Please, not tonight. It’s not mutual aid to another fire department; they’re working a grid search with the police. I grab my boots, then pad to the garage to check the fluids in the IV warmer. Anyone caught in this weather without shelter will be near death, if not there already.”

by Mack505 at Notes from Mosquito Hill


From the trust your guts file-

“I give my partner the “time to leave pronto” hand gesture. “Code 3, hurry up”. I give a little oxygen and attempt the IV enroute with no success. I realize that something is not going well for this patient and I don’t have the means to diagnose or fix the problem.”

by Rescue Monkey of Paramedic:Life on the Streets


From the Old School section-

“The smoke level now was to the floor as I grasped the hose line to find my way out. The urge to rip off my mask was strong but my training had taught me this would be fatal for sure.”

by HMHQ Contributor the Angry Captain


and finally, from the Hmmm…that looks wrong category

“A back board was brought up and one of the other Paramedics on the engine teams attended to him pulling off his jacket.  Justin asked us if the building was still on fire. We we told him that yes, it was still on fire, he asked us to put his jacket back on. Not completely out of it.”

from yours truly and the event that launched me into the blogosphere.



Next month’s handover will be hosted by Ambulance Driver, theme TBD, watch his space for details as they develop and, above all else, be safe.

HM Clear.

the Angry Captain’s Close Call

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The Angry Captain is on sceneThis month’s EMS Blog Carnival, the Handover, will be hosted here and the theme is “Close Calls.”  With November in the US including Thanksgiving, I thought what better time to share an experience when we had that thought go through our mind “I/they might not make it.”

Send in your submissions about a time when you, a patient, or someone you know had a close call and I’ll put them together to share.  If just one person can use that information to make their job safer, then we’ll have succeeded.

So with that theme in mind, here is the Angry Captain’s Close Call.

8:30 pm February 1982

The call:  Structure fire, “house across the street has black smoke coming from it.”

It is a cold winter night with temperatures well below freezing; we are in a relief unit that had no inboard seats so I was belted in on the tailboard. On arrival, we found a residence with black smoke pouring from the rear.  Reportedly, no one was home.

The home is typical for the area in that the base of the home started as a house trailer with several additions around it. As the first engine to arrive, we pulled a 200’ preconnect and forced entry on a side door that appeared to be the entry. The captain and I crawled in below the smoke and worked our way through a maze of doorways to what appeared to be a fully involved kitchen area. The ceiling was flashing over as I trained the nozzle at the base of the fire. Suddenly, my air pack warning bell went off.

We could not have been on air much longer than 5-10 minutes. I patted the captain on the back to notify him that we needed to back out. He gestured for me to head out and took the nozzle from me. My training from my previous department was never to leave anyone alone in a fire. As I turned, my air pack quit entirely; no air at all.  The smoke level now was to the floor as I grasped the hose line to find my way out. The urge to rip off my mask was strong but my training had taught me this would be fatal for sure. Holding my breath was all I could do as I struggled to focus on following the line out amid my disorientation from lack of oxygen. As I moved along, I remember hearing a loud mechanical sound further confusing my strange journey through this black maze. The sound grew louder as I slowly followed the hose line hand over hand in the seemingly longest moments of my life.

Suddenly light appeared as the noise grew to a roar, but I crawled out, finally ripping off my face mask, gasping for air, and collapsing in a snow bank. My next memory was lying on the gurney in the back of the ambulance.  At the hospital, they ran blood gas tests and flooded me with plenty of O2. As my color returned to normal (apparently I was quite gray), I was told that they found me outside our entry point where the truck had hung a mechanical fan at the top of the doorway for ventilation. (The loud disorientating mechanical sound.) I am not sure how long it was that I lay there in the snow bank before I was noticed.  But Mrs. AC got the frightening call about 11 pm to pick me up at the hospital….no one likes that call.

Lessons learned:

1.       The air pack I was wearing was found to be working properly back in a warm station house and in fact still had about ½ its air. The speculation at the time was that the moisture in the diaphragm froze causing it to stop the air flow.  Had it been checked at the scene, it could have provided the exact problem.

2.       Never allow a member to leave alone or leave a member alone in a fire. This was long before 2 in 2 out.

3.       Always follow your training; i.e. following the hose line out and keeping your mask on in heavy smoke.

4.       Do not block the egress of the hose line with ventilation. Had I been on all fours coming out feeling ahead with my hands, my fingers may have been lost to the whirling fan.

This was a true wake up call for me and cemented in my mind how important my training had been and how things can go wrong in a matter of seconds.

Hi…Fire Alarm

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blogengineIn the early 20th century most municipalities were encouraged by multiple fatality fires to take note of fire safety in public places.  Some of these ideas included not locking exit doors, marking said doors, building standpipes and installing high tech fire alarms.  But none of this matters if people ignore the bells and flashing lights when the alarms sound.

THE EMERGENCY

Automatic alarm activation at an elementary school

THE ACTION

I’ve only seen half a dozen actual fires in a school during the school day, one of those when I was a student.  Surprisingly, way back then, they didn’t activate the fire alarm evacuation, but instead chose to shelter the students in place.

Back to today.

I am  an imposing figure in full gear.  I have been known to scare small children visiting the firehouse when I am geared up.  When we arrive on the scene of a reported fire we take it seriously since most of our City is made of 100 year old wood and spaced 1/8″ apart.  The alarm bell is ringing and strobe lights flashing when the engine arrives.

The usual administrator, hand held radio to her ear, is meeting us at the alarm panel as our officer investigates the source of the alarm.  As he does that I hear the truck company arriving and grab another administrator, similar radio and stance and ask what I thought was an important question.

“Has the school been evacuated?”  All I was thinking about was back in 8th grade when they ignored the plan.

“Yes, it’s clear.” She tells me, and you already know where this story is going.

“General alarm, second floor” the officer calls out and I gather my tools and away I go.  I have my usual 40 lbs of turnout gear, helmet, 40 lb airpack, flat head axe and 10 gallon water can in hand.  My eyes are flying around the hallway looking for smoke, flames, a pulled hand alarm station or the tell tale red light on a smoke detector.  As my eyes are moving they come across a human form in the hallway who sees me and quickly turns away.

“Hi…Fire alarm, you need to evacuate the building.”  Maybe she didn’t hear me.

“Hi,” I reach her and look into the classroom directly in front of her. “Fire ala…Hi there, Fire Department, those lights and the alarm mean you need to leave the building,” I said to the half dozen adults and TWO CHILDREN sitting in the classroom.

“Oh, OK, we thought it was a false alarm, so-” she began, but I had no patience for the example they were setting.

“Now.  Down the steps to the front. Now, thank you.” I said with what I perceived as forceful, but kind.  Standing 6’3″, 6’8″ with helmet and all that gear, I hoped to put the fear of those trapped in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory into them, but I likely only made them uneasy for a few minutes.

Back downstairs a few minutes later without signs of a fire, I inform the officer of the folks upstairs and he spun on a top to the administrators, radios still to their ears.

I didn’t hear the entire conversation, by choice, as I see people squirm enough in the ambulance, but I can only hope it was something out of an episode of Hell’s Kitchen.

You Make the Call…Garden Apartments…What Happened

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You Make the CallA fire in these kind of apartment buildings can get away from us fast.  It is important to remember the flexibility of some of our more common leads and use them to our advantage.

Approaching the scene we were lucky enough to have a hydrant right out in front, so water supply was not an issue.  Hearing the unit was empty and seeing a large volume of fire from the door and window let us know that rescue will not be a primary concern at this fire.

A 150′ 1 3/4″ line was deployed and charged from the courtyard and trained at the doorway and the balcony directly outside.  If we’re going to get in there, that balcony needs to be protected from outside and cooled quickly to keep it from weakening.  As the firefighter opened that line, the officer and I stretched a 3″ line with a wye to the landing on the B side and stretched an apartment or “highrise” pack and called for water.  As we approached the doorway, the line in the courtyard shut down, but kept a good eye on us incase we needed to back out fast.  By the time we got past the first room, the smoke suddenly lifted and the room was light from above where the truck company had cut a hole.

The 3″ line served almost like a horizontal stand pipe and allowed us to get a large volume of water near the fire and gave us versatility to add another line there if needed.

If you said get a larger line and split it off, you made the right call.

You Make the Call…Garden Apartments

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You Make the CallYou are the Officer assigned to a three person engine company dispatched for a reported oven fire.  On arrival you find a large courtyard style apartment complex with a main front pedestrian entrance leading to a large 75 by 75 foot courtyard, at least 50 feet from your location out front.

In the back of the complex you see a fully involved unit with smoke and flames showing from the door and front window.  The manager states the occupants have escaped and are in his office, accounted for.  There are stairs on the B side of the inner courtyard leading to the second floor.

Does your preconnect make the stretch?  If not, what will you deploy?

You make the call.

You Make the Call…Smoke Showing…What Happened

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Seems every time we put a fresh pot of coffee on, something comes in.

In this scenario I was actually the eager young fellow out in front of the station reading the smoke in the early morning hours. I was beside myself when the boss looked over to me and told me we were out of service and there are other companies to cover it. But, the red stuff, it’s…red and burning and hot and stuff. Huff.

My jaw was on the floor. I wanted to throw the radios back in our coats and head over there. I don’t need my ALS kits at a working fire, that’s what ambulances are for.

If you said hang back, you made his call.
However,
If I was in the seat that morning we’d be right back in service on the air and responding if we were due. I think most of us work in a place where if you can see the smoke, chances are you’re due.

If you said get off your butt, there’s a fire, you made my call.

A quick note on our You Make the Call series. There are often comments about not knowing my situation or my SOPs, etc, etc. The point of these situations is to get us thinking about what WE would do in our own districts with our own SOPs, staffing, equipment, etc. Don’t wonder what I did, tell me what YOU would do. Hence the “YOU” Make the Call.