Aerial Operations at Structure Fires

Make sure you know how your truck needs it’s water supplied.  In Iowa, most of the aerial apparatus you will find are going to be Quints.  While this is not a bad thing, it does require some knowledge about how your apparatus will perform.  When you are using the pump on your aerial, the engine RPMs are going to be dedicated to the water supply function, which will eliminate “high-idle” movements of the aerial device and cause them to be much slower.  If you have the resources available, task an engine company to supply the aerial inlet on your aerial.  This way, the Engine company can send as much water as you can handle, and you will still have high idle available to position your ladder or tower and adjust water flows or angles of attack.  With engines and ladders on scene, hopefully the engines will allow the truck to position in front of the structure or “take the address” for ideal positioning.  If the front of the structure isn’t available, make every effort to get your turntable, whether it’s a mid-mount or rear-mounted device, onto a corner so you can have the maximum scrub angle available on the structure.  This can get tricky when you're talking about a truck that is normally 40-45 feet in length.  With the emergence of tiller ladders in our area, those units can be 55-60 feet in length, some even more.  If the engines arrive first and leave you room at the structure, great care must be taken by the engineer not to drive over any hose lines. Again, ask how I know!  If aerial master streams are going up in the air, take the time to move or break down hose lines if feasible so you can get your truck or trucks into position for maximum effectiveness.

Now you're on scene, trucks set up, and your getting ready to rain down on this fire from above!  You’ve waited for this day, and finally, here it is!  Lets go up as high as this ladder will fly and start dumping thousands of gallons of water onto the building, or is there a better option?  Yes, yes there is.  If you’re on a multi-story building or a house where you’ve decided to use an aerial master stream, what do these buildings have in common?  They all have something built into them that is designed to keep all of the elements out.  They have a roof, whose sole function is to prevent water or snow, or whatever from getting into the house.  What happens when we start hitting it with our elevated stream?  Water starts going everywhere but where we need it.  Even if a portion of the roof has vented or started to collapse, the roof, and even the damaged section, is preventing us from getting to the seat of the fire.  The optimal method of attack is to go low and shoot your stream up into a window on the fire floor, or below the fire if it’s in the attic space or voids above the top floor.  This way, your stream is still making its way into the building – almost all of it.  The high power of the stream punches through drywall and does massive amounts of opening walls and ceilings to get at hidden fire.  You can move window to window and keep attacking with your aerial master stream and get the maximum effect of your GPMs on the BTU’s.  You're completing overhaul and pushing debris out of the way, which ends up helping us when extinguishing these larger fires.  While every situation may be a little bit different, switching to this style of attack is much more effective then just raining on the building from above.

While a discussion on tactics or tools is always a great way to start arguments at the table while having a coffee with your crew, always be open to trying new things.  Tactics and equipment are changing so drastically anymore, that it truly is our duty to explore what may be a more effective method.  At the end, our goal is always the same.  To do the job we love, arguably one of the best on the planet, and share our knowledge with our crews, our professionalism, skill, and compassion with the citizens who need it, and to be able to talk about the “big one” one day and how we slayed the beast!