Mile High wrote:FIRE UP wrote:As unreal and as silly as those TV shows are, they do wonders for getting our bond issues and mill levies passed! 🙂Mr.Mark wrote:
I find all the experiences and opinions from the real firefighters very interesting and educational.
Mark
Mark,
I for one, am glad to broadcast a REAL prospective on how things should, would, could, expect to happen, in real life. TV shows in just about all instances, are so degrading to a real firefighter it's not even funny. The newest fire TV shows, 911 and Station 19, should be outlawed in my opinion. If folks that know absolutely nothing about firefighter life, station routine, scene routine, hierarchy, rank structure, edicutte, RULES AND REGULATIONS, and a whole lot more, believed what they see on those two idiotic shows, firefighters would chastised beyond belief all across our nation.
But, TV is TV! A firefighters life, in the station, is in reality, NOT TV WORTHY. It's a whole lot of routine, training, education, yes-sleeping and eating, followed by shear adrenaline/excitement/nervousness/physical exertion and mental stress, ALL WRAPPED UP IN A FEW MINUTES OF AN EMERGENCY.
I don't know the actual ratio of paid vs volunteer but, I do know there's thousands and thousands of volunteer fire fighters out there. They don't get paid to take the risks but, they take them anyways. Normally or, usually, paid firemen, are much more highly trained, have better and more up to date equipment and are more adept to the ever changing times of our environment and hazards that they face, each and every day. Volunteers do everything they can to be updated and trained to try and cope with the newer issues of our environment, cars, and more.
Sorry again to the OP, get carried away once in a while.
Scott
There was a time when "Cops" TV dominated the airwaves and law enforcement got all the attention at the voting booths. 911 and some new TV has changed that a bit now. I was a volunteer 13 years and paid pro 22 years and there was a time back when "Rescue 51" went off the air and we had empty stations out west we thought about making our own TV show 🙂
Mark,
Remember "Rescue 8"????
Scott
Mr.Mark wrote:
I find all the experiences and opinions from the real firefighters very interesting and educational.
Mark
Mark,
I for one, am glad to broadcast a REAL prospective on how things should, would, could, expect to happen, in real life. TV shows in just about all instances, are so degrading to a real firefighter it's not even funny. The newest fire TV shows, 911 and Station 19, should be outlawed in my opinion. If folks that know absolutely nothing about firefighter life, station routine, scene routine, hierarchy, rank structure, edicutte, RULES AND REGULATIONS, and a whole lot more, believed what they see on those two idiotic shows, firefighters would chastised beyond belief all across our nation.
But, TV is TV! A firefighters life, in the station, is in reality, NOT TV WORTHY. It's a whole lot of routine, training, education, yes-sleeping and eating, followed by shear adrenaline/excitement/nervousness/physical exertion and mental stress, ALL WRAPPED UP IN A FEW MINUTES OF AN EMERGENCY.
I don't know the actual ratio of paid vs volunteer but, I do know there's thousands and thousands of volunteer fire fighters out there. They don't get paid to take the risks but, they take them anyways. Normally or, usually, paid firemen, are much more highly trained, have better and more up to date equipment and are more adept to the ever changing times of our environment and hazards that they face, each and every day. Volunteers do everything they can to be updated and trained to try and cope with the newer issues of our environment, cars, and more.
Sorry again to the OP, get carried away once in a while.
Scott
Mr.Mark wrote:
Looking at the video, it seemed like there was a good bit of delay time for the firefighters to start pumping water on the fire.
I know virtually nothing about firefighting but seeing that video is a very good example not to pass a burning vehicle, especially, a RV with propane. That was amazing to see the flames shoot out the side.
I'm also surprised that the fuel tank didn't explode (if it did, I didn't notice it).
Safe travels!
MM.
MM,
Your point about "not to pass a burning vehicle", well, an experienced officer and engineer take into consideration, all kinds of factors as they approach a vehicle fire scene. One of the very important factors IS the slope of the road and angles of attack. If, there's a slope down hill from the burning vehicle and that's the approach direction, (heading UPHILL towards the burn) a very, very large percentage of the time, the officer and engineer would agree to pass that buring vehicle right up and setup fire fighting ops from the UPHILL side.
The main reason is, if the fuel tank ruptures, especially gas but, diesel too, which way is that fuel, and quite possibly ensuing fire, gonna flow? DOWN HILL!!!! And you sure as heck don't want to have your rig right in the path of flowing fuel and flowing fuel that's ON FIRE with a whole bunch of spaghetti (that's what we all call hose spread out all over the place) right in it's path.
So, based on conditions, clearances (so the rig can get by without danger to it or it's personnel) and more, the proper judgement is to fight that fire from an uphill approach and, as has been stated, don't rush, take time but, not an OVER AMOUNT of time to get setup and go to work.
Sometimes, looky-loos (pain in the a$$) drivers will stop right in the way of approaching fire engines just to see what's going on. I have pulled up on those folks, WAAAAAAAAAY MORE TIMES than I care to admit and just LAY ON THE AIR HORN AND MECHANICAL SIREN, about a foot off their bumper in order to WAKE THEM UP and get them the he.. out of the way.
Anyway, this thread was not supposed to turn into a fire fighting operations school. Mine and good other firemen here just contributed to maybe how that situation the OP presented might have gone down or, maybe improved on this or that. Again, without knowing a whole bunch of particulars, (age and experience of all those ff personnel, general conditions, information passed to the first in company BEFORE they arrived at the scene) and a whole lot more, pretty tough to make an accurate judgment of what we see there.
Scott
Tvov wrote:
As to the engine being too close... yea, he could have stopped farther away. I think if the propane tank hadn't popped off it would have looked better. Of course, the driver should be thinking of that - or at least the officer.
I'm not a firefighter nor do I play one on TV, but I think camera angle had a lot to do with it. I think the fire truck was pulled up a bit more in front of the RV flambe than the angle shows. Watching it I was confused as to how the grass on the other side of the highway could have caught fire - looking at the camera angle it looks like those flames would be hitting the fire truck but in reality they were behind it.
The firemen weren't completely unphased. The big guy without the gear on decided to get on the other side of the fire truck when the propane tank first popped off. He was casual about it but clearly did not want to remain standing where he was. I know I wouldn't want to be standing there.
Mr.Mark wrote:
How much water would those fire trucks hold?
MM.
Mr. Mark,
All our "Structural" engines, held/hold 500 gallons.
All our " Brush Engines" held/hold 750 gallons.
The structural or, in technical terms, Type 1 engine, would have a 1500 gpm pump. The Type 4, brush apparatus, would have typically a 750 gpm pump. Now, just because the pumps had the capacity for those numbers, didn't mean you pumped that much all the time. The hose size and nozzle size and settings, would dictate just what kind of flow is needed. We had a phrase, "Big fire, Big water". That meant, if you rolled up on a scene that say, was a residential fire and, it was a two story home with first and second floor involved with flames showing from lower and upper story windows, you'd grab the large, 250 gpm nozzle, hook it to a 2 1/2" hose (if it wasn't already pre-connected) and put a lot of water on that fire, from potentially multiple attack angles, to knock things down quickly.
Then, as things simmered down, the fire was basically under control, you'd back off the large nozzles and hose and enter with a smaller, more manageable hose and nozzle to hit all the hot spots and finish wetting down everything that needed it.
But, as for that situation in that video, well it's been explained. Training, experience, schooling and more, make for smart and wise fire decisions in all different situations.
99.999% of the RV fires across the country, are a total loss within minutes from the start of a fire. Very, very, very seldom can one be caught in time to actually salvage anything. From the time the fire starts, to the 911 call, to the dispatch, to the "shoot time" (time taken for the crew to gear-up, mountup and shoot out the barn ) and, distance to the incident and traffic, all add up.
The average response time for us, (all 41 stations in our city) was around 4:45. In Four minutes and 45 seconds, even the smallest RV fire could and often would, totally engulf just about any sized RV. All we could do is, knock down the massive fire ball, protect surroundings i.e. potential brush fires, protect from collateral damage, i.e. closely parked cars, buildings etc.
Sorry for the detailed operations but, in order for the average "civilian" to even somewhat understand a fireground operation, like you see in the video, some details on how things work, have to be explained. And, no two situations are alike.
Scott
