Episode #12 Single Family Dwellings

Colin Kelley, Mark Carcamo and Cameron Monahan discuss strategies and tactics for fires in Single Family Dwellings.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hey, welcome everybody back to another uh episode of the Firemanship Podcast by West Coast Offense. I'm your host, Cameron Monet, and with me again, Mark Karcamo and Colin Kelly. Good morning. Morning. Morning, morning, men, afternoon, you too, Colin. Yeah. Hey, we've been talking about uh this for a little bit, right? And going into maybe some different building types and um possibilities for strategies or tactics and different types of occupancies that we might encounter across the fire ground. And I think the best one maybe to start out with, because everyone goes to them, is that single family dwelling. And just maybe talking about some different ideas, different uh things that we could be doing on these um than what we're doing currently, or what we could add, or what we what we're doing, you know, differently, maybe on these single families. Um thoughts in general on single family dwellings. Where do you guys want to start with that?

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Um I'd like to do a shout out to both my drivers, Lauren and John, who crushed the Captain's test at number three, number nine overall.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Congrats.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Happy to hear that. Um well, we talked about this, Cam, and we said, you know, when this is this topic of single family dwelling house fires. I mean, across this country, that's very wide ranging and variation of type of structure. Meaning you got stuff I'm running into all the time, which is that, you know, pre-engineered or quote unquote lightweight, you know, cracker jack ranch style, uh or or just mass-produced track home, um platform constructed, floor by floor, and then, you know, obviously the gusset plate truss system on back to, I mean, as far back as your, you know, your turn of the century Victorian with the balloon frame, you know, not platform construction. It's all built at once with your non-lightweight roof where you have a lot more. So you have a fire truck, you have a fire spread potential in that up the walls, which is greater in that in that Victorian or that older Tudor, Cape Cod, Bungalow, whatever you want to call it, craftsman. But then you have a much more robust roof system versus vice versa. So the present day we have this floor by floor, no longer balloon frame, but we have this roof system that just ain't gonna stand the test of time. And I think that that's a really important thing to beat the shit out of when we talk about this and get into this further regarding tactics and responsibilities and what you should be looking out for. But yeah, I think that uh it's very wide-ranging. So and we're gonna do our best at hitting on those.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Yeah, and I think we talked about that before, a little bit like on hey man, just understand what's in your district, what how are they built, you know, on these med runs and stuff like that, and taking a look at uh what you're commonly going to and how they're arranged and all that kind of stuff. So then you have an idea of hey, this is what we're what we're fighting, you know.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

Absolutely. And and if I could add one thing on that, and that is uh I'm taking looking at the safety factor of these particular buildings, right? The bread and butter fires that I would say the majority of us are going to. Um, and I can't say everybody, but this this is just like for me when I got up and made AO and went to an area that had grass, and I was kind of, hey, I'd never been into an area like that, right? So we did a little research. Hey, what do these grass fires do? How does LAFE attack them? And what's the kind of history on it, right? And then it's read this thing, and I'm thinking, hey, I'm gonna find out that, and this is what I found out these brush areas that have these major brush fires like the Palisades and stuff like that, they they hurt firemen, but they rarely kill firemen. The killers of these things are our firemen, are these grass fires, 12 to 18 inches of grass. We let our guard down, we go to the same call over and over again, right? So, in our minds, it's just another day at the office. We can kind of start to, I could convince ourselves that hey, we can take a shortcut. And I think that single family dwelling kind of falls into that category, right? Where we've done a million of these. Uh, and we start to get that comfort factor. And with that comfort factor, then we start to stop stop tagging bases and start to, in my head, take some shortcuts that we probably wouldn't do when presented with a two or three-story Victorian versus this 900 square foot single family dwelling with a flat roof or a very slight pitch, right? That just that's what we do. We we let our guard down.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

And you you remind me of the statistics, Mark. And that is last time I checked, that's where firemen are overwhelmingly still dying. They're dying in the single family dwelling structure fire.

SPEAKER_03 4:54

Yeah, I mean, it's there's lessons to be learned here. It's it's it's a thing of it just when you think you got it down, then something shocks you back into reality. Um, and I think that kind of leads into what we're talking about here, and uh just the conversation that me and Cameron and have been having the last couple days, uh, and we hit on a little bit harder today again, is and and we're just talking about water supply, right? Coming into these things, what are you guys doing for a water supply? What is your department's SOP or SOG for that water supply? Are you riding three? Are you riding four? Do you always go in dry? Uh, and I say that, not letting any hose in the street, and then letting that engineer figure out how to get that water on board. And I will tell you, the smaller your tank is, the more you should be addressing that and going, what is a constant that we can develop within our department so that we know at the very least that line is laid dry. Now somebody has to come in and hook up and start the water flow in that thing. But I would say if you're laying if you're a four-man company and you're still about, hey, you know what, we're gonna beat the next in company. I'd always say, What's the reasonable expectation? And who is there first? Who's clearly here first? Both companies created equal and doing the same thing, knowing that they need to bring a supply in.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

It's like you can make the argument, you can make the argument, Mark, that the three the three-man unit needs to lay a line even more so because I I absolutely believe that you have to get the plumbing on the ground, and you don't have the manpower to sit there and handjack two, three hundred feet. And and that's silliness to begin with, but I mean, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

But at the at the very least, could you guys do something? And I know something that instantly comes to mind, and that is put a sling on your hose, have that guy wrap that hydrant and on that three-man engine, and you guys go in, and I go, you know, to make it comparable, take that company out and go, Hey, uh, we're gonna pull it in front of the fire and we're gonna do this uh, you know, little scenario. Have the engineer get out and go, it's a hundred feet back. He gets his line in operation, gets all the hose he needs on the ground, then he goes to address the supply. Think about that. I try to get these people to know over and over again, I'm gonna have this guy run a hundred feet, lay this hose on the ground, connect it to the hydrant, and if you're flushing the hydrant first, there's some more fucking time in there. Then you're gonna run back to the rig, break that line, plug it in, and then run back down to the hydrant to load that line. How much better would it be if you just have three guys to lay that thing dry? So that's one less step this guy has to do. He's not pulling that four or five-inch hose down the street, a hundred feet, two hundred feet, whatever his comfort factor is. And I'll say it over and over again man uh horsepower will kick manpower's ass every single time. Take that guy out and time him, watch the difference of what happens there, and you will see that it's a marked difference, and then you're not factoring anything else into that, right? Then that I say this again. How about this? I want my guy, if he's driving, to be in his full turnouts. In case I get in a pickle, can I depend on that guy to put a breather on his back and come and help us? Right? But if he's not, uh, so add that in. If he's just running around a brush jacket or his fucking work boots and a pair of shorts, he runs down and does all the shit, and then you need help. I it just to for me, it's just like it's a non-negotiable. That that thing is something you guys need to go play with, but understand you're uh you're basically playing craps with your operator and the guys in there on the end of the fucking nozzle when you're letting that guy come back and handle every time. I just I don't like that idea. Three or four guys, whatever you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Sometimes I I've read or seen or heard uh, hey, just have that second do reverse off of you, right? When you come in on tank water, and it's just I've never seen the work because the first two trucks are gonna take that outside spot or should take the outside spot, and now your street's blocked, so they always end up hand jacking, anyways, dude. Um, so it just is a is a big slow big slowdown.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

And when it when you do, when the arrival time did work out, and that second dude isn't competing with the truck and it's laying away. What happens to the five inch? So, what happens to the LDH? There's no fireman to address the line. So the engineer's not gonna reverse away to the source and then get out of the rig and then run back and chase the line over all the way back to the fire and then run back to the hydrant and finish. That's not gonna happen. So you're going to shut down access, especially if that I should say the caveat of the hydrant being on the opposite side of the street is a fire. Yeah, yeah, it's gonna shut down access, for at least in that direction. Yep. I'm a big proponent of forward lane and split lane, man. Like that is those are yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 9:33

So so just keep that in mind. Hey, remember that tank uh it's got a limited supply of water on it, and that let's not even throw in the fact that guess what? You pull up and you go, Well, that house is a write-off because it's so well involved, and I've seen those houses. Um, now what? Because you better dump your deck gun. That's a tactic. You've got that thing sitting there. How does that look? You're purposely not gonna do it. I know what that driver's gonna think. Wait a minute, I got a hundred-foot hand lay here, and now I got to worry about there's no way they're gonna put the deck in operation. They're not. No, he can, yeah. He's got to have that safety factor for his people that got that line off there, and that hand line, you know, like it or not, that's gonna be the fire attack line. And I think that's something else that we should talk about on this thing is that the uh I would say the absence of us not wanting to put that deck gun wagon battery into operation. I I see it over and over again. That's bit I don't understand the fear in that thing. I really don't. I've heard a lot of different um opinions. Hey, uh, if you do that, and those guys are inside there, and it's like, wait a second, are you looking at the volume of fire I'm looking at? And then you're gonna tell me that if I take a hand line, they're gonna survive. Is that what you're telling me? Now I must be missing that. Isn't it knock down? Get the get the BTUs out of it so these guys can get in there and get that line moving and get that search accomplished. Yeah, but man, I I I just don't understand. I think the fire service as a whole is afraid of that tool. For what reason? I I'd love to have people you know comment and tell me, hey, why they don't want to use it. I'd I'd love to hear that. And I would say this even more so is what about as an exposure line, an unmanned exposure line.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

It's well, I think it's a bad tool. I think then most companies first do aren't using it because they didn't lay a line.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

Oh, absolutely, it's it's handcuffing them, but that's my point. It's like we're talking about these things that I think can ensure. And and Cameron said to me, it's a time thing, right? Uh he's saying, Hey, that's what the uh some of the reasoning he gets from people is hey, it's a time thing. And I and I go, everything on the fire grant is critical, but number one thing should be water on the fire. We all agree on that, and it's a limited source when you don't lay a fucking line. It's a limited source, limited resource, right? It's like, okay, once you're out, you're out. Doesn't matter if the guy's halfway down there to lay that line or not, you're out. Now what? I would say the silliness of us standing in the street, this house is ripping fire, and well, we can't do anything else because we're out of water. Now we got to address that.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

It's it's a tough call. I I get it, but it's really not. If you're ensuring the safety of the people that could possibly be in that building, if you're ensuring the safety of the members that are riding on your rig, and the you know, the the overall picture should be that we need to get in there as fast as we can. And what's once one way for me to bring an insurance policy is to lay a line, it's an insurance policy.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Yeah, one one thing I I I hear, Conra. I don't know if you guys have heard it or you you read or you seen it, right? Is those interior attack studies that UL did, and the gallonage needed to put out a one-room or a two-room fire or something, how low that gallonage was. My issue is just not real life, man. It's not real life. The the loads inside our houses are usually way more than what's presenting in a laboratory study that they had in these houses for these ULs, right? So uh I'm not taking account huge loads that I'm gonna have in these hoarder conditions in these homes. Uh, wind wind conditions outside in these fires, right? That are driving an outside in fire, something like that, garage fire that's extending in the home. I mean, you're just there's just so many variables that you can't go off of. Hey, a study said I only need 310 gallons to put out a two-room fire. So my 500-gallon tank is appropriate.

SPEAKER_03 13:21

It's just that's that's a shitty hedge bet. But I will tell you the crazier part is even the older homes, I don't care where you go in Los Angeles now, even to neighborhoods that are considered kind of uh not the ideal place to live. When these people buy these houses and these these flippers go in, what's the 90% of them do? Open concept. So you're not confining it to one room anymore. You're putting all this shit in one big room and go, okay. Uh, is it I would say there's a little bit of a difference to a room that's confined, you know, right? Hey, a bedroom and back or something, and then hey, to the front room, front room, dining, kitchen, laundry room, all one big giant space. You got a lot more fire going on inside that particular room, right? And that's something we can't factor in because we don't know. We don't know. Yeah, yeah until we open that door, we have no idea. It could be 400 square feet, and it'd be the fire that kicks your ass because guess what? Like you said, pack rat hoarder condition. It's like we it's it's all guess. How do I how do I mitigate that fucking guess? Bring some water, bring some fucking water, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Open up your open up your playbook, somebody.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Yeah, I think we're I think we are at a point in the fire service where because lessons have been lost, again, this topic's coming up, that I think it would be very smart for fire chiefs, operations chiefs to mandate who lays in the water supply. Because leaving it up to us, the American Fire Service, the guys out in the rig, it's not getting done till much later in the fire, and guys are having to shut down. I've seen it, they have to shut down the handline, and that's unacceptable. Now, don't get me wrong, you have a lot of ways around this, right? It's a standing order within my my company that if we're second due, we are we are connecting to the first two. We are connecting tech. So we're gonna now have a thousand while they figure out the water supply, but on top if they haven't done that, but also we're not we're not gonna dedicate relegate all of the handlines being pulled off one rig, right?

SPEAKER_03 15:20

That's another that's another thing.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

I guess that 99% of our house fires are put out by one line, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so goes the first line, so goes the fire. But tactically, we should be putting our engines at each corner of that home for the right now plus the 10 minutes from now, and that is the handline to the door. Well, Mark talked about the stang or that wagon battery down Brabo or Delta for the what if. And I'm gonna tell you something. Um, anybody that says, I uh I don't need it, you're not gonna need it most of the time. But then that fourth of July week's gonna come, or that New Year's Eve, and those bottle rockets or whatever are gonna land in the backyard, and every fire you go to for the next three shifts is going to be backyard fire that is extended into that home and is extending in the Broadway and Delta. And you're damn sure gonna wish you positioned our engine company to be able to use that wagon battery that's staying, you know, and you're gonna wish that one of those first two rigs laid in a line. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:14

Yeah, we're we're our own worst enemy without a doubt, right? Because we'll go right back to the bravado of it's just a single family dwelling, we'll take care of it. Because this is what the study said. The study said this, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

What does bread and butter mean? We know what bread and butter means, like from the the way we use it. We oh, that's just a run of the mill. But bread and butter also means that's why you exist, like that mission there, that thing. It's why you exist, and I would say more than any saving real estate, saving a commercial structure, that's a monetary. We risk ourselves from monetary there, property, and it does still matter, but this is people's man. This is people and their stuff. I'm not talking even about the walls of the structure, man. I'm talking about the stuff, stuff, you know. And we haven't really gotten into salvage. This is a perfect example or perfect show too, and I'll talk about salvage as part of this when we get into the tactics. But man, if you're not professional and you're not crushing your house fires, or you got this blase attitude, I'll bet you I can look at your house fires and say you're probably not coming up short somewhere. Unless you're crushing it A to Z, fire attack, vent, uh, exposures, search, salvage, inside truck work, all these things, water supply, you better go back and hit the books.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

You're you're right, because that should be that that basic operation should allow you to adapt to what other other excuse me, what uh what other fire you will uh actually confront in the scope of single family dwellings, right? Large two story, Victorian. There's a difference between those two, and especially for me down in this area, you know. These Victorians, especially in these these uh places that are lower income, they're trying to make their nut. What are they doing? They're going up and have things throwing up plywood walls in the attic, bullshit staircase, get you up in the attic. You got a map mattress, a little bullshit doorway with a hasp on it and a bullshit lock, and you got your mattress. That's where you sleep at night. It's like so. Think about the fire loss just in that thing.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

We're talking about bodies themselves, and then across the country, Mark, not just in Victorian's shitty ranches. Yeah, I don't know how many garages I have converted now into a residence, you know, and it's it's and and think about you know the access point.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

Like everybody thinks that these garages uh attached to the front of the house, they got that little bullshit fire door, and it's gonna keep it from going in the house. And that's like watch fire after fire, and they're going to the fucking bonfire. It's like crimady, man. The losses behind that door, that's where the loss is going to occur. You can't control the bonfire, you can, but you should be thinking, what's on the other side there? Is that door open? Is there a curtain in there? I've seen that I've been retired 10 years now, and I'd see that in these little places, you know, south of me in 13's first end. You know, walk in in the garage, and there's a curtain where the door should be because it's one family. And I say, generational family, right? They want to be able to pass in and go back and forth, use the bathroom. So, guess what? It's open to the inside of the building. It's like, come on, man. That think worst case scenario and and plan your operation around that, you know, because we don't know, we don't know until we get in and then we go, oh shit, what happened here?

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yeah, and well, one one in our in my particular area that always worries me is we have a lot of you know, 1940s, 1950s, small bungalows with these little three-quarter basements that are converted. And the the only access you have is an interior stair access, there's no outside access to them, right? So you're gonna have to go over the fire and then descend the chimney to get to the fire. And your window access, they're all you know, half buried in the windows are very small exterior windows, right? Not a full window. And um, man, if you're not prepared for the worst, right? And you're coming in and hoping you can get that out with your 500 gallons, that's a that's a big gamble, I think, when you're when you got those presented to you.

SPEAKER_03 20:07

Yeah. Like I said, a 500 square foot house, 150 square foot basement, and and guess what? It might take every bit of 500 gallons to take care of that. Right?

SPEAKER_00 20:18

It's maybe that leads us right into our next one, which is um, hey, we got we were talking about water supply, but now let's look at line selection. And maybe that makes you know, for for us, it's it's gonna come into one and three-quarter. I don't know about you, Colin, but that's what that's what the the line selection is a hundred out of a hundred times pretty much on single family dwellings. We're one and three quarter. And what are you flowing out of those camp? We flow one sixty out of ours. So because we're gonna either be on a seven eighths or we're gonna be on a constant flow that flows at one sixty.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Same for us. Same for us. When I came on, it was one twenty-five. Some of the lines were 95. Um, but we are now in the within the last uh six years. We've been at this 150, 160, 50. So it's been a good thing. I've noticed, you know, young firemen don't realize how much faster fires go out with 25, 30 gallons, but um you I notice. I notice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:27

Yeah, and and that's kind of that's kind of like a bar graph, right? As the uh contents of these homes has changed dramatically in the last 40 years, um, and everything's petroleum based. You need that firepower. You do that that is something you should not take for granted. And and I see uh fire after fire within my agency, and you know, we have those three lines up there for us transverse are one inch grass and brush, you know, smaller lower grass, excuse me, lower brush, uh that inch and a half auto, larger trash buyers. And then the inch and three quarter, you know, primary attack line on single family dwellings. And time and time again, watch it and go, I'll look and go, I focus in what line is going inside the house. 125 GPM. Why are we regressing? Why do we fall back on stupidity, not knowing what it took to get that line there? You know, first off, how it's designed, the construction of it, how it's designed to pull actually easier than that inch and a half line. And then the flow for us, that's a 75-gallon difference. That's a lot of water, man. That's a lot of water.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

I would ask Mark, damn, like, why does NFPA even exist anymore? Because nobody follows their shit. NFPA states at 1710, I believe it's 1710, the first two lines, yeah, a single family dwelling fire will equal 300 gallons a minute. Yeah, it does. And I know damn well that when the first five lines at a certain fire in a certain fire department along the Pacific Ocean is 125, 125. I mean, come on. Um, what do you call it, Mark? Normalization of deviants because they get away with it, they get away with it, they get away with it. Ah, don't listen to the old timers, they don't know shit.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

Well, well, I I mean I was I was having a little talk with a uh real good friend of mine the other day, and we were talking about that very thing. And uh, he had worked in South Central for pretty good part of his career and was talking about that inch and a half line. And we always talk about that line, right? Uh talk about why, why, what is the reason that that thing comes off? And things that stick out in my head is like, okay, firepower, right? I can gate down the 200, I can gate it down, but I can't make more water come out of the 125. I can't. I'm stuck at 125. Okay, there's the first thing designed to pull easier. And I hear it when we used to change hose. You'd get it on that black top and you'd hear it, and this yellow line would sing and it would hum, but it was designed to pull easier, right? So you can't beat me on that one. Maybe when it's full, it's a little bit tougher to move around. But I say, don't I owe it to people?

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Go ahead. Yeah, they don't. I don't think the audience knows the color differences when you say the yellow line versus the okay.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

So for us, that the yellow line is it identifies itself as an inch and three-quarter with the 200 GPM spray nozzle on it, right? So that that's and then the inch and a half is that white line. Uh, we used to have a color code when the LAFD had some uh uh different ideas about you know hose identification, not getting it mixed up with other agencies we run with, but now they've given up on that, and I'm sure it's cost, right? How we identify that line. However, getting back to um at the very minimum, like I said, I can gate down this larger line uh with the flow, but don't I owe it to the people whose house I'm going to protect? The people who could possibly be trapped in there, and knowing what is involved in this thing and how we've decided that every one of these homes now are burning hotter and faster, isn't it better to have more firepower on a like line? And I say like line, you know, inch and a half or inch and three-quarter. But the crazier part I said is, George, don't you owe it to your family to be able to go in there and knock the balls out of this thing and not get in a pickle and go, shit, man, that was tougher than I thought. And don't you owe it to the people who are stuck inside that house to be able to knock the balls out of that fire, also? Those are the variables that I look at instantly and go, isn't that all the reason the world you need to actually go? I need that line. I got kids and a wife at home. There's people stuck inside that house. The quicker I can get this thing knocked down, isn't it better for all of us? It's like, how much of a debate do I need to have to get to convince you?

SPEAKER_01 25:33

I want to, I want to I want to pile on this topic because this is something that really bugs me. And it goes back to the this this we have this idea. I think our young firemen aren't being taught that you're stretching a line, you're not operating in a vacuum. There are people, other firefighters, relying on you to do your job to get that. This is a symbiotic relationship on our fires. It's not an individual team sport, they're not mutually exclusive. We stretch the line so that firemen can search for people because most of the most of the fire departments in this country, I'm not stretching an additional inch or two-quarter line to do a search. I am relying on the fire tag team to do their job. And so part of that reliance is that you're gonna make the right choice. We don't have a choice, it's inch three-quarter, two and a half. But if I was working in LA, my reliance, man, is this guy gonna choose the right size line? Why would you play around with it? Shit dries out, it doesn't unburn. So get bring bring the GPM. Bring the GPM. Stop playing with it. I mean, I've never operated an industry-quarter line at an LAFD, and I don't know what the nozzle reaction is on the floor or whatever that nozzle. I don't know what that feels like. But man, there the fire ground, especially in a single family dwelling, is a is a it's a symbiotic relationship between all companies, those big four that we always talk about.

unknown 26:57

Right?

SPEAKER_01 26:57

And that fire, it starts with that. The most important job is that nozzle team. They are they are facilitating the search. Ventilation is facilitating the search and the nozzle team to get to the fire. And that outside truck work is facilitating ways out of the structure and off the structure for all those three. We have said this time and time again, and it just bears repeating. Like, stop, take the blinders off, and think about the team. It's the entire team and who you are. You're not just putting the fire out, you are protecting other firemen so that they can do their job. That includes the guys on the roof by getting that line into the overhead. And then the guys on the roof are telling the fire tech team whether or not they can be under the roof.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

I mean, this is such a it's all connected. Yeah, horizontal ventilation. You could take a window on a house fire and flow that line, and it works very effectively for that bedroom fire. But you know what you can't do when you take that window? You don't know where the loads are, what the construction type is, pre-engineered or not. And if there's fire in that trust base attacking that, where that load is is predicting the collapse. And can guys be underneath that? That's what you can't do with horizontal vent. So that's why we get to the roof, man. Not just to cut the roof and vent for that, those guys inside, but to make sure they can come back out of that building and even you know be operating underneath that roof system when you're dealing with pre-engineered, man. And and and and mark said it many times the old stuff collapses too. But I'm I'm getting on a tangent here. I just like stop guessing, bring the bigger line if you when it's when it's inch and inch and a half to inch and three quarter. Yeah, come on. Right, that minuscule difference is so much more water, right?

SPEAKER_03 28:31

It's I well, and that there's two other points I'd like to make. And the first one is lack of engagement from the guys that should be the ones that say, I have a minimum expectation, and this is what it is. This is what it is. We will not deviate, right? There are there are caveats. Hey, that sometimes the barricade to you pull up and see that you have something, and it's like that allows us the flexibility of being able to pull that engine half. Hey, we didn't lay in. However, I would say still, that's not a thing, a risk I'd be willing to take. I'd say, you know what? You're on the tank, be judicious with your water, still fill the inch or three-quarter line. We're gonna work on getting you supply, right? The second thing I would say is, and that thing that bugs me is uh talking to my buddy, right? That's good because because I like hearing him, he'll always give me a counterpoint. And I like when people want to argue with their point. And you know, he talks about flexibility, maneuverability line, especially within our agency. And he's oh, it's clearly an attic fire, right? So we're gonna get up here, get that inside ladder, get inside there. Well, you know, we got these ceiling joists, so they're always kind of in the way, and that thing is not as flexible on that move, right? It takes a little bit more to get it up and get it horizontal in that heck, and I go, I can fix that, I can fix that in two fucking seconds. Blow out a fucking ceiling joist with a chainsaw. Every engine in our fucking city has one. So, so you don't have that gameplay to go, hey, we need an interior, we need a saw inside here so we can take out this thing. Now you just double the space right next to the wall, and now this thing's gonna bend up in there. It's it's like, come on, man, stop throwing out bullshit. And he goes, he goes, That's a very good point, you know. And he and I go, I'm in agreement, dude. I've seen it done more than once in my career, and it's it works wonders, right? Where you're going, hey, I got it. It's a large attic, got a heavy volume of fire inside this thing, got to get inside there, and I can just squeak uh keep squirting water through the hole up in there in a circle, and then it comes out the ventilation hole. It's like, okay, you're pissing in the wind. Think about what you're doing. But I think my biggest gripe is guys are not holding people accountable, and I'm talking about from every level the BC that watches these guys come in and not lay a line and they'll go pull a line off the rig that's in front of the fire. Shame on you, uh, the captain for not having a standard operating procedure or the lieutenant and going, we will not do that. If we come into a fire, we will pull hose off our fucking rig. That's what we're gonna do, right? We're gonna bring water to this fire. And then the worst thing about it is for us is the is the choice. Hey, yeah, you brought the inch and a half. Well, why'd you do that? I I would embarrass the shit up. If I'm a BC and I see a second in company and they come out to a rig, and I first thing I'd say is stop, not doing that, go back to your rig and get the yellow line. I bet you that shit would stop dead in its tracks, right? I'm not embarrassing you, but I am embarrassing you because I'm telling you now I have to micromanage you, so I will fucking micromanage you. I I gave you the leash, I gave you the slack, you walked out there and you're fucking biting at the leash. Okay, I'm not gonna do that anymore. And now I and you're telling me that I have to tell you what to fucking do. I can't depend on you to do the right thing.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

And you think can you think of fires, Mark, where that inch and a half didn't get it in your agency?

SPEAKER_03 31:29

Well, I mean, you say didn't get it, but I mean, like you, like you, when I came on a job, it was 95, and I think we went to a 110, and then we finally got to the 125. Noticeable difference, though, because I was a rookie at 33s and they were testing the inch and three quarter. It was a blue line at the time, right? With the inch and a half nozzle on it, I if I remember correctly. So, nah, maybe it was. I I don't know, remember the exact thing, right? It's been almost 43 years ago. However, they we were stuck on that, right? Because we would still pull the inch and a half, even though we were testing this other one because we were just so used to it, right? So I I I say that and I go, Yeah, I mean, I've watched guys pull these lines, and it's like, know the difference, man. Put them side by side for us. Hey, anybody out in the LAFT, go put those two lines side by side, run the correct pressures, and look what you see coming out of the end of that thing, and that should convince you right there about what line you should be pulling out of fucking house fire. End of story. There's an argument.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

There's an argument to be made if someone was really paying attention, and of course, there's variables, but uh maybe fewer fewer second alarms, fewer greater alarms.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

I mean, with a well-placed line with the appropriate so I had a good buddy, yeah, I had a good buddy pull up to a very large house up in up in the northwest part of uh LA County, right? But it's within the city of Los Angeles, you know, six thousand seven thousand square foot home, first on scene, and you're not getting a truck right away. So he gets next to you as an engine company, right? So they lay a line in, they got a guy at the hydrant, he's laying a line, they come in, they pull the engine three-court off, get to the top of the stairs, gives his little fucking size up. Hey, yeah, it's well and bald attic fire with a couple rooms at the rear, you know. So, real hey, that should clue you in if you're the next you. The next dude did the right thing. They came from a different direction and brought a source of supply. And and I gone, shit, Craig, sound like they did the right thing. He goes, They did the right thing until they decided, hey, we pull the brakes. Hey, we got a supply here, but let's go to the rig in front of the fire and go pull the inch in half as the backup fire attack line. And he said they got to the top of the stairs and he asked them, What are you doing? We need 200 more gallons up here. We need that fucking line. Leave this one here and go get an inch and three-quarter. And I'm going, This is the captain that went up to the top of the stairs and asked him, What do you need? Well, I don't need you to bring a fucking pea shooter to a gunfight. Look at what you're seeing here, and that's what I'm saying. I think the ball is being dropped at so many levels within our agency that guys get to choose, pick and choose. Oh, you know, it's easier to pull, and I'm an older guy, and we're in a slower place, so I'm gonna take the easy one that way. I get up to the fucking top. I still brought water, so don't bitch. Don't bitch. I still brought you a backup a fire attack line. And it's just like, how much better? I asked Craig, how much better would that have been with two inches and three quarters? 400 GPMs. One to take care of the rooms, and the other to start taking care of the attic fire. He goes, I had to wait for them to pull another line up. And he goes, took a month of Sundays, right? Because now they got to go back out to their fucking rig and get that line coming off, right? Get it up there, get up the fucking stairwell. And it's like, who likes going doubling back doing work? I don't I fucking hate that. That's bullshit. You you had the ability to do it right, and you chose the easy way instead of I say work harder and work smarter. I want to do my hard work on the front end and then have that load lighten up as we continue on. Oh, go back out and get another fucking line. Hey, great job, dude. Hey, now bravo. Fuck, hey, give me how about you get a check back? We can you take a reduction in pace since you brought the lower line? Is that can we equate it to that? Hey, less money for the smaller hose line because you're not working this hard. It's like, guys, don't think, man. And I say this if it was your fucking house, what would you expect? Absolutely. What would you expect?

SPEAKER_01 35:08

You're you you're you're you're jogging my memory, and it's I've noticed since we've gone to this, you know, 150 gallon, 160-gallon a minute nozzle, lower pressure. Um, guys are pulling fewer two and a half on these house fires, on these garage fires. This, you know, just that increase in gallonies with at the fire seat has been a game changer, in my opinion, anecdotally, for my fire department. Um, I'm noticing like what would be a two and a half inch pulled on a garage fire per se. We didn't need it. We don't need it. We can knock the sh, we can a lot of the times you guys are knocking the shit out of it with 160 gallons a minute when it's you know in its compartment. And uh that's been a no, I'm not saying it two and a halves aren't needed on every garage fire. It's not what I'm saying, folks. But we've noticed that we're getting away with a lot more um knockdown or or or what would have you know not been the case by by just increasing our gallonage and and with that inch and three-quarter line.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

Well, let's keep talking when we're talking about garage fires there. Um you see them all the time, right? And there's a lot of talk back and forth, I guess, about where to attack them from.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Attack them from why why is there this conversation?

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Yeah, yeah, or attack them from the interior man door.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Sorry, lay the ground, I apologize.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

No, no, no, yeah, yeah. So, where to attack them from, right? Is he were attacking it from the exterior uh roll-up door? Uh are we attacking it from uh the interior man door?

SPEAKER_03 36:38

And why let's let's make sure that these people understand we're talking about a connected garage, yeah. Attached garage. Keep keep that in mind. And and I don't think the tactics, I mean that the attached garage is gonna change your tactic dramatically to me. There's there's only one choice. That first line should be going inside that house. That's gotta go in the house, it's gotta find that mandor and go, okay, we're gonna keep it from coming here. And Cameron pointed out a fire that Stockton had here, uh, that was on YouTube real recent. And I tell you what, time and time again, I I cannot say enough about those guys that do so much with so little. They really do. Those guys get after their shit, they're all about the business. And uh, smart move on on their engine company's part, and then smart move on where the truck company decided to pop a fucking hole. It's like they're thinking about what is gonna happen, not just now, but three, four minutes from now. What is gonna happen?

SPEAKER_01 37:33

I don't know if we're talking about the same video because that's the immediately what I thought of, Cam when you brought that up. There's a video, anyways. Anyways, the the the the garage fire SOG is completely about it's all about has the has the fire gotten into the home? What's the conditions in the home in the living room?

SPEAKER_00 37:53

The big exposure there, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Yeah, so we get a line off to start hitting the garage. Well, we while we take a line to the front door, force entry. What's the condition in the home? Right? And then, like Mark said, we ensure that that man door is secure. We deadbolt the thing if it's not, so that no dumbass firing later on comes in there and opens it because he doesn't know his interior layout, and uh we check the attic above. Has the firewall done its job? And that's it. And based off the reports from that interior company, it's gonna determine everything because it's no longer a garage fire, now it's a house fire. And now we go back to that, support that with the you know, and in terms of the truck companies, we do not cut garages. And I that's there's not a lot of constants in this job, there's not a lot of nevers and always. Like I think Mark said before, but I'm sorry, stay off of garage roofs, especially if you have run the risk of pre-engineered is in your area, which everybody hasn't. What are you doing vertically ventilating a garage roof when the companies are going to use the reach of the stream at the base of the damn driveway? No firemen are even going in there. It doesn't, you're right. We have to we have to we have to support why we're doing what we're doing, not just because, right? And that is we do we cut the roof to support interior operations. There are no interior operations any at any time point early on on a garage fire in the garage. There's no there's none. Talking about a legitimate garage fire, not a place that's been converted, talking about a garage fire. You run out of, you run out, you're you're not you're not justifying the risk of your putting yourself on that roof. And I don't want I'm not gonna sit here and rattle off the the the near misses and then some of the unfortunate ones um that have happened, but if we if we we we want if we want to, we can, but but there's no there's no place for a roof team on top of a normal garage on a little ranch style home or track home or what have you. There's just no you can't you can't fight they need on that roof, right? At that firewall, just like that interior company is at that cutoff to make sure the fire doesn't go that way. But in terms of ventilating the garage, why are we ventilating the garage? Now that doesn't mean I haven't gone up after the fire is knocked down on a on the garage roof because the space above was nothing but storage and we had smoldering fire up there that we had to put out from the top, you know. But we we damn sure made sure it was safe to do so. Like this was still a stable roof, but to ventilate just for the sake of ventilating a garage, it has a huge horizontal opening to ventilate itself. It's huge. Your hole will never beat that hole.

SPEAKER_03 40:35

Yeah, you're absolutely that that's like fuck and you know, the guys that are opening these doors, I watch it and they're fighting these doors, and I'm going, Yeah, the sectionals are a little tougher, but why are they kicking our ass? Right, and and I I fall back to I I I think I look at it and I go, Well, let me see what it what does training entail with uh any kind of agency that's going to uh actually encounter Dodge Door. And I'm thinking to myself, are we so blinded by right? This is just Mark's fucking take on it. Are we so blinded by the irons that are we giving our guys sets and reps with power saws? Are we right? And I say that I don't know that. I'm just asking the question. Uh, and you you have to ask yourself that with your agency and within your actual station is are we taking that irons in lieu of or in a junk to right? It's like uh if I'm a guy that's assigned an entry, I want to do the most impact with the least amount of work possible because it may not be my only door that I'm going to get into. And timing-wise, for me, it's like uh I'll say it again. I think every single person should know how to manipulate an axe, a halligan, hayward, crowbar, whatever the hell you're taking to get a door open. I do believe that, but I also believe that if you're not getting the steps and reps with your power saws, and you start to come into these things. I think a lot of people have these ideas in their head because I've heard this, I heard that, but they've never actually applied these lessons or tried to cut these things in a non-emergency thing. And it's like it's different. If you've never cut a door and use it, starts kicking your ass, and I'll be the first to admit it. I had a fire, I think I've talked to it earlier, uh, one of the shows, and got to a door. Here I am, high in this high stress position. Here's a fucking security door, punch through it, double key deadbolt. So now I can't get it that way. There's a wall right next to the locking system, right? So now I can't put a Hayward in there and pop it open because this door, this lock set is right next to this wall, two inches away. Now what? Okay, let me. They said hey, they said the plunge cut it, and I had never done that. Uh the saws running, uh it's like, and here these fucking guys are come on, man. What the fuck? Shit, okay, that's not working. Let me go to the hinges. Somebody said the hinges are good. Okay, start cutting the fucking hinge, right? And it's like Jeopardy clocks playing in my head. Yeah, okay, that's not working. Let me go back to this fucking plunge cut. This guy grabbed the fucking saw for me and did a two-sided cut. He cut horizontal, or I mean a slight angle above a lock set, slight angle below the lock set. It was still able to get into the actual framework of the door, and it popped open. He flexed it, popped it open, and they were in the fucking door. And it's like, if you don't possess that skill set, you won't find that skill set when you get to the fire. You won't. It won't come to you. It won't come to you.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

I gotta bring up, and you you sorry, Cam, if you're it's uh I we have based off the age of the home, pretty common was that side man door into the garage, not just the main front, right? Yeah, and time after time I see fire companies arrive, take the time to cut the entire garage door down, let just give the garage fire all the air it needs. I don't need a UL class to know that this is gonna be a bad thing. It's gonna be it's gonna be visually spectacular, and it's gonna require more GPM when I could keep this thing confined, go to that side door. And if you don't have that, take your axe out, bash a hole high in the in that sheet metal garage door and steam it out before you fucking open the door, before you drop the entire garage door. Takes no time, and you're and you're you're getting away with a lot more with the water you have because the fire isn't ventilated, right? We know what ventilation does for fire tech, for for for that lift inside. But when we ventilate a garage space without any water, that large of an interior opening, it you just went from a you know what could have been a I don't know, 100-gallon fire to 350 gallons. I mean, it's just it's unnecessary, it's unprofessional. Uh, we need to do a better job of that. Like, slow down, use your brains, use the water and the confinement to your to your advantage. It's not, it doesn't make for good magazine covers. Sorry, you don't have an entire garage belching fire because you were a pro. You bashed a hole in the corner of the garage door and you steamed it out, and then you dropped the rest of the door and you went in and you mopped it up.

SPEAKER_03 45:03

And I would say, remember, uh, we don't exactly store good shit in our garages. I'm guilty of it. So keep in mind what the contents of that particular space is and what you're gonna find in there, right? And it's fuel, there's everything known to man, and and and and think about this automobiles. I mean, there's so many things you can find inside those. Nobody keeps the methyl ethyl bad shit in their fucking house. They go and store it in the garage.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

Where do you store your propane tanks for your barbecue?

SPEAKER_03 45:32

There it is. Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying. It's like keep in mind what you're trying to accomplish here and what the hazards are in that particular. Probably the worst thing you can encounter is that garage. And again, I say fly by night when I was a young fireman, and we'd get them all the time, all the time. Fuck just to cut the fucking door, right? Get the thing in there, start working it. And nine times out of ten, there's fucking gasoline on the floor now. You know, just like the cans melt, the fucking heat, they don't hold up. Now you got this other issue. It's just be wise. That's what I'll tell you. Be wise.

SPEAKER_01 46:03

We talk about can we briefly talk about using the wagon battery on a garage fire? And uh, um if you're gonna do it, you better have laid a line. And if you're gonna do it, at least in the homes that I'm going to responding to, which aren't, you know, these are sheetrock walls, even the two-hour rated wall separating the house from the garage. That stream off of that master stream device will blast a hole. You will strip mine the firewall into the home needlessly. So if you're gonna use, I'm not a fan of using this the deck gun on a garage fire, but if you're gonna do it, turn it into a sprinkler. Maybe aim at the top of the driveway and let that stream deflect up into that space so that you're not introducing all that shit into the home and flooding out the inside of the home and just and damaging the kitchen and living room space. I mean, we people that shit matters, man. Like we didn't start the fire. I can't stand that. We didn't start the fire, but uh so um but but now it's mine and we're gonna do what we need to do. Like, no, we can be that's not a that's not a professional thing to do. That's not pro. Understand how your equipment works, cause and effect.

SPEAKER_00 47:23

Yeah, and you mentioned a we're still getting on that roof in case it is an interior fire or at that firewall, or it's rolling into that attic. We have now an attic fire that's extended out of that garage, and hey, we're we're cutting it off right there where the engine company, that interior line's at to put that out. Um what about what about uh let's just get into maybe talking about first due truck and we've talked about it maybe a little bit in the past, but why it's important to get on that roof right away. What what what's the advantage of making that roof with that first due truck instead of waiting until second due truck comes in and letting them perform all the roof work?

SPEAKER_01 48:07

All those things we've mentioned, right? What is the attic conditions over the home telling me? If when in doubt, dip the cell and find out, right? Do a little curve. That's an easily, easily patched uh slice that you've made on that roof. Did the fire start in the garage? Is this a seaside fire? Is this a delta side fire? Are there people in the backyard that abandoned the home? What's showing on the back of the home? Is I mean, you are the you are the the ghetto bird for the cops. That's what the roof team is for the on the fire ground. You're the eyes and ear up in the sky for that incident commander, but more importantly, for those interior firefighters.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

I mean that's just by getting up there, just just by making it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

That's what I'm saying. Like so many fires, you know. We go obviously, we go to a lot of fires that aren't always this full-blown working incident. So they're smaller incidents, they're out, they're handled quickly, and we get up there quickly. I mean, it's a hurry up and wait on a garage fire for a roof team. It's probably a hurry up and wait, unless it is obviously extended into the home. It's a hurry up and wait. Get up there, be fast about it, and then survey that roof. What is going on? You're less about vertical ventilation at this point, and you're more about that roof report. But I mean, that's to me, with what I go up on top of and underneath of those are 50-50, those are of equal value. The actual ventilation operation and the roof report for all the things we mentioned.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

Well, I think this is go any type of any type of fire inside that single family dwelling, whether that's an interior fire, lower floor fire, attic fire. Roof team is off of that first due truck.

SPEAKER_02 49:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:51

Right. We talked about hey, we we prefer on a previous episode, we talked previous podcasts, we talked about hey, we prefer the split. We prefer the split off that first due company to accomplish multiple tasks on the fire ground. And one of those big tasks is to get to that roof and provide vertical ventilation. One of the benefits you just mentioned, hey, all those benefits of just making the roof and giving uh the that extra set of ice to the iC and to everyone on the fire ground, but there's some other huge advantages to obviously cutting that roof and getting on that roof for the interior teams.

SPEAKER_01 50:26

I just want to piggyback on what I said earlier, man. If you're on a truck company as an officer, or however you guys run your truck, and you're any you you whoever you are on that truck that may be in charge of running that roof off. It ain't just about cutting the hole. You better know how the construction is, how it's put together, how it, how it, how it behaves under fire, and you better have those visual cues that trigger you saying, and you better have the the you better have the the stones to get on that radio and say whether or not yes we can continue offensive or no. They need to get back to the front door. I'm concerned with collapse in this area of the home. I mean, we that's that is a prerequisite for a strong, solid roof operator. I don't care what rank. And I don't know if I mean your question was maybe separate from that, Cam, but I just wanted to add that, man. Like, if you're just going up there and just oh, I'm just gonna cut it, go up and cut a hole and get down. You are you are so narrow-minded and short-sighted on your viewpoint of that of that tactic. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:35

Cameron, I I just sent you something, Cameron. I don't know if it's it's able to be brought up. I don't, I mean, probably not, but I just sent you a picture that I find is everybody that's thinking about going to the roof of a garage fire or using the roof as an access point to the home. I want you if it's ever possible, that and look at it, Cameron. I don't know if you can use it, but I know it's when something works you brought up. Yeah, it's it's like what's the line size on that picture, so so the line size is an inch and a half on the garage fire, right? So that's the one. I I'm just I'm just in my head, I'm going, okay, did they pull the inch and three-quarter interior? Okay, I'll I'll buy that. That's the single it's first engine in front of the fire. I'll get that. However, just when you look at the pieces of this puzzle do not fit, and it's like, why do we keep putting ourselves in those positions? Why are we doing that? Uh, and and it's a perfect example of what what I think you should probably not be doing at this particular fire. And and where you see these guys are committed and they're on the floor, and it's like, why are we on the ground and we're outside of a freaking building? Why are we on the ground? Could I move back 10 feet and still have the same effectiveness? I truly believe I could, and not be hey, in front of this ball of flame, and I'm sitting on the fucking ground waiting for it to overcome me. It's like it's it's a great photo. I will tell you that.

SPEAKER_01 52:57

It's are you able to pull that up, Kim?

SPEAKER_00 52:59

I'm trying. I'm trying. That's this is like pretty hard from my uh skill level here.

SPEAKER_01 53:07

But but it's a it's a that blows that picture blows my mind. An inch and a half on a well-involved, wide open, ventilating garage fire, and then the individual going up midway down the wall.

SPEAKER_03 53:23

Yeah. And and you can see that the uh the other part of the company is actually up on the roof there, but this is their access point. They've chosen the garage as their access point to the ladder fire, right? To the home that's connected to this, and the mandor is blowing fire like nobody's business, right? So I'm gonna say that that man door probably leads into the unit. I mean, it just makes sense, right? Because you come out of a man door, you don't want to walk around your garage to go in the house. It's probably a shortcut to uh park your car, hit the garage door open or shut it, walk out the door, and you're on your porch. Um I I may be uh mistaken, but uh, I'm just going with uh how do most people think, well, I don't want to walk around my garage, come out of Mandor to go to that. However, um, I've seen dumber things, so but I I would just say it's it's it's an amazing photo. Um, and it it should show you why you don't which you probably don't want to do, you don't want to use that as your access point.

SPEAKER_01 54:23

Can we talk while you're looking at that about yeah forceful entry of the garage? Mark started to talk about that. Um there's for for the typical paneled sheet metal garage door, we're not talking about the old wood slab that's pretty cut and dry. Um, exterior padlock, you know, lift it up, whatever. But uh oh.

SPEAKER_00 54:44

Yeah, I see that um there it is.

SPEAKER_03 54:47

Yeah, I I can see it.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

You guys are in the whale mod. Sorry. Oh, so talk about that again, Mark.

SPEAKER_03 54:56

This particular incident where I mean this picture we're looking at, yeah. So so what I'm looking at is everybody watching uh breaking it down, and and and it's very interesting to me, right? And and I'll just talk about the guys that are actually involved in a firefight. So you see two guys on the ground in front of the door, it looks like they probably did some entry work, or that thing got so hot that it decided, but I think it just fell down, right? So why am I bunching my line up? Why about why have I chosen that to be my initial point of attack instead of being back 10 feet? Uh Colin talked about the line. I'm telling you now, look at that volume of fire in there. That's pretty good fireball. 125 GPMs or 200. You tell me, what would you pick, right? Uh, I don't think you can see the man door, but it would be to the right of the guy with the rotary saw. It's blowing out just as much fire as the front door, right? And then we have this guy that has used this point as his access point to get to the home to go and take care of business as a roof team. And to me, it's just like they've broken every rule in the book to go, why why use that one? Was it a secondary? Okay, if it was a secondary ladder, I would buy it, but I really wouldn't go because I'm thinking, what was gonna be your route of escape if that first ladder you threw was not good? You were gonna walk back over this garage that has this volume fire in it, open studs, everything's 99% of them are unfinished. I'm gonna tell you that, right? And uh, is that a wise choice? And then the last thing I see is I see a guy in front with a pike pole in a brush jacket. Don't see any brush fire around there. I don't. There's no brush. The grass is not on fire, so you're not going to a grass fire. Um, and that and that bugs the shit out of me. I hate the drivers that don't suit up. And you can say whatever you want. If you're manpower rich, hey, we don't need him up there, or hey, he's stationed here to move the aerial ladder. I I would argue every single fucking time. If you got a guy that's running around in a brush jacket um and you need help, how much help do you think he can give you? That's what I would say.

SPEAKER_01 56:50

And you can mark, it doesn't matter if that's your primary or their secondary ladder. Yes, a terrible spot for a ladder.

SPEAKER_03 56:55

It is, it's fucking horrible.

SPEAKER_01 56:56

And the path that that individual chose to get to the rest of the team is is even more terrible.

SPEAKER_03 57:02

Now, now, what we don't know is is he getting is he getting on the ladder to get off the roof? I don't know that, right? It's a moment in time. We don't know that. However, I see the fact that I see a hook in his hand tells me that he's approaching that ladder, right? He's approaching that roof line from that ladder. He's stepping off, is what I think is going on. And and you know, that's just my my take on this whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 57:23

But now the roof team itself, they look far enough back where they're on the main roof, maybe right on the firewall. Maybe they're cutting the garage from the from the main roof, maybe cutting the garage roof from there. That that can happen, you can do that. But again, why?

SPEAKER_03 57:38

You know, yeah, it's it it's a risk versus gain at that point, right? It's like, what did you gain by doing that?

SPEAKER_01 57:43

That pose line is pissing in the wind.

SPEAKER_03 57:47

It truly is. It's for for lack of something better. That's why I say tell you guys tell me. I'll just leave it up to everybody there. Would you rather have that extra 75 gallons, or would you be satisfied with crouching in front of this fucking fireball and going, yep, man, it should be nice if I had 75 more gallons to fucking put on this. I would think that's just for me.

SPEAKER_01 58:06

We don't have a we don't have a choice. We don't have it, shouldn't be, we don't have a there's no preferences. It's what the fire needs, it's what those people's home needs. Oh, yeah, well, my back sore today, or uh, you know, it's hot out. No, we don't have a fucking choice. Be a pro and stretch the appropriate line with appropriate flow for the appropriate fire load, fire condition.

SPEAKER_03 58:25

I mean I I say it to you again. You owe that to your family, but you also owe that to your co-workers.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

Good picture, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:39

Regarding those garage doors, the force for entry, and this is obviously a very specific task level thing, but they typically either do do three cuts and drop it, or they do this two cuts, increase it, and like turn it in and open it like a s like a door. And I can't stand the ladder. Yeah, opening up opening that garage, forcing entering and doing the customer, you just slide a door the garage door open down the driveway. You're cutting off one side of the home. In my area, in my districts, you're cutting off one side of the home. Get rid of it, drop it in its place all the way down so that we can just deal with it and it's right there. And I that's the in my opinion. That's the I think that this one side or the other sliding it, you're gonna cut off the brother with the delta access.

SPEAKER_00 59:27

You're going to, yeah, yeah. And how many times have you seen it?

SPEAKER_01 59:30

If you got a garage and the you've got a car in the garage, I mean it's not exactly gonna fucking work.

SPEAKER_00 59:34

You can't even open it. So that's your go-to, you're already host. But how many times have you seen them trying to crease that or trying to get it to move all the way open and it's not wanting to behave right? And they're just yeah, it just turns out.

SPEAKER_01 59:45

And gentlemen, firemen, I'm sorry, firefighters, female or otherwise, male, I don't care what you are. Stop cutting at the cr at the seam. That's where the the galvanized steel hinge is. Yeah, put the saw in the middle of the panel. I don't care how tall or short you are, put the saw in the middle of the panel, not in the seam. You're you're not you're fucking yourself.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:07

And and at the risk of me beating a dead horse, understand the construction of that rotary saw and where you're gonna get the most bang for your buck. And that's outboard position cutting from left to right. That that head cut needs to go from left to right. That's where you're gonna gain your maximum real estate. I don't care what you're cutting overhead, start with that thing up on your shoulder that and go from left to right.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

It's fucking you're absolutely reminding me too, Mark. And this ain't in the IFTA book. You've probably not taught this in your academy, but especially for our less physically strong upper body folks. Take your hand, you get that saw in there, take your hand off the hand guard and put it right on the shroud and push that blade, and you can you can just you can it's a it's a gas pedal, it's literally a gas pedal based off the RPM and a balance, you take less pressure, but you can easily move that. And it's you're you're losing so much energy when you keep your hand on this handrail and there's a 14-inch blade out in front of you. Put it right on the damn blade cover, you're you're gonna be fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:06

Yeah, good point, good point.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:10

Um there's a very good video out, and I don't know the exact title of it, but it's uh lane camper, and a guy that was that took a lot of uh interest in forceable entry on the LAFD, and uh it's an amazing video type in uh LAFD forcible entry, and it'll probably come up. Uh and it was that was probably been done 20 plus years ago, I would think, but it's Lane Kemper, and it's uh it's a great uh informational video on manipulation of rotary saws, type of doors you will encounter with them, and cut sequences to make sure that you're successful in doing that. And anybody that wants to to look at it, and if you can't find it, you know, hit us up and we'll see if I can get it, get you a proper title for it. But it's an amazing video. It I sent all new guys to that going, watch that thing over and over and over again. It's it's pretty damn good.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

Can I talk about uh mobile homes? I know Mark probably didn't go to a lot of those. Nope. No, I I have I have those in my district. Cam, you got mobile homes?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:10

Yep, sure down.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:12

I'm gonna tell you right now, the tactics kind of change on on mobile in mobile homes, mainly for the truck, because we're not going to the roof on a mobile home. It is a stapled one inch by one inch truss that there's it doesn't carry load. There are no loads on the roof, thus, the truss system is so small. You have no business going up on mobile homes, just like we probably have no business going up on garage fires. There's always that caveat, but I can't really think of one, and I've been to a lot of them. And um, I would advocate strongly that as that arriving truck, whoever that outside team is, instead of to the roof, turn the sides of that thing into Swiss cheese, starting at the fire area. If you got windows in the fire area, cut the windows down. If you don't have a window, cut the cut a hole in the wall. That's what our that's what the outside truck work is for us on mobile homes. The truck gets there, we we we turn the outside of that, we we turn the outside of that mobile home into into, we just create a bunch of openings for a quick search right there. We can look at that area, that bedroom, whatever. We can initiate ventilation horizontally. And anybody that's been on these knows that those things can the walls are thin with a considerable fuel load. The fire will burn right through the wall and wrap around behind that hose team who's in a very narrow hallway. It is not your typical Takode hallway. It's got wood paneling that's gonna burn like the like the Dickens, and that hose team will get caught. Don't even throw in the the potential for falling through the floor because they're raised up and fire burns along the underside of them. We have guy after guy fall in, and now he's like, how how focused is that nozzle man when he's stuck and he's trying to get up out of this hole with flowing that line, right? So there's interruption there. So we try to really turn, we try to just make that building behave so that our firefighters inside have a way out.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:07

So, just for my information, Connor, for other people out there that don't deal with those regularly or have it yet. Um, are you guys using a rotary saw for that access? Or are you using the chain?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:17

The 460 with the RDR chain kicks the rotary saw's ass. However, you have to be very mindful of death. Yeah, because you're gonna suck up a bed blanket, you're gonna suck up a curtain, you're gonna end up into their arm law chest of drawers, t-shirt drawer. Um one time I cut one down, and thank goodness, man. Not that I'm a cat lover, but thank goodness, thank goodness I kept it shallow because as I reached in, kind of did a half half-assed kind of search into that room, right there I found a shoebox full of newborn kittens. That was the makings of a horror movie. Um, but thank God I didn't get them. But I mean, yeah, you're gonna have to keep it very shallow and very vertical. And don't let the don't let the uh uh the molding of the window, the sash and the molding of the windows, that sheet metal stop you. It'll it'll get through it if you just come in at the right angle. Come at it very parallel to the wall with that chainsaw, be mindful of the kickback and just put that it'll it'll and if you're not comfortable with that, use the rotary saw to get past that and then go chainsaw the rest of the way. If you're running those blades, I can't speak for anybody uh you know, but those RDR blades are extremely robust.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:35

Well, I'm sure all the cat ladies in the world are are probably in love with you now. So great job on that. Good save, good save. Yeah, I'll give you hey, hey, what we'll just go with the only good cat's a dead cat, so let's just keep that in mind.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:49

There we go. Pete is gonna be on us now, Mark. Now we got Pete in the field.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:54

Yeah, hey, we're we're right out at an hour, guys, a little over an hour that we've been going. There's a ton more. All right, let's hit it. Let's hit it. Let's hit it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:05

That attic fire in that house fire that's all attic, or even that bedroom that's now attic, what have you. If you're if you're a later arriving company and you're assigned to the interior, and hose lines have been stretched, searches the easy, you are inside truck work, and that inside truck work means the search has been done. Now it's opening up and salvage. And sometimes the salvage can come before the opening up. It can't. And slow the F down. If your head's up on that, you got the assignment, assist, assist interior. I don't know. Sometimes that's not clear cut. Firemanship and experience tells us, okay, I'm gonna grab my salvage equipment, I'm gonna what to complement my hook and my hand tools and that inside ladder, and we're heading in. And we're gonna, we're gonna uh we're gonna vigorously, aggressively cover these people's shit, protect these people's shit before we start dumping ceiling down and you know, opening up and mark talk. We didn't we didn't even get into the you know fighting the attic fire locations. This is indirect where you choose to fight an attic fire is in direct correlation with where you choose to salvage.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:22

Absolutely right. I mean that that should be your priority, but but you look at that whole thing and go, um, if if you don't have that in your playbook, you'll never have it in your playbook because I see fire after fire, and they dump the entire house, the ceiling, and the entire house is on the and it's like, why did you do that? Why did you create like Colin talked about with this garage door? The man door is the obvious choice. Sit there and work the line in the man door, you're gonna knock down that thing, you know, 30, 45 seconds, shut that bell off, you're done. The same goes with that attic fire, you know. I hate to say it, it's a compartmentalized space. The more air we introduce, the larger the volume that fire is gonna be, and the bigger the fucking issue we're gonna have with that thing is. So we look for crawl spaces first, right? I have one in my hallway, but they're hidden in closets a lot too. Okay, that would be my priority. That room, right? Or the room right next to it, because I'm probably not going to be perfectly straight up with this thing. However, kitchens and bathrooms are a priority all the time because of lack of furniture, the televisions. I can get a ton of water on my refrigerator. I can. I can probably get water on my stove and it'll operate after I sop up the excess water. What about my couches, my bedroom, my TV, my clothes? Both of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:36

What about these people, these kids untouched bedrooms? Like the bedroom was pristine, the door might have been closed, and then we choose to go into the bedroom and initiate fucking attic fire attack. Yes, I mean come on.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:48

It's it's it's remember, guys, it's lives, then property, right? That's what it is. It's those two things. That's that's how that flow chart should work. Lives, then property. How do we maximize saving property after we did we've taken care of that live part? And that is how we choose to attack this attic fire, how long we spend getting this buff in place, and it's simple. That biz queen is a wonder, what a tool, right? It's like it stays in place. You could put something heavy on it, you know, an ashtray or whatever, a statue, put it on the bed, put the TV under there, lay it out. Okay, go for it, guys. You got it. The Biz Queen over the dressers. It takes two, three minutes to do a room really quick, and that's probably being long on it. Yeah, two or three minutes, right? It is cut it, cover it, move to the next one. And it's like, shit, let's let's stop destroying this shit because it's an attic fire and we think we got to come out of there with the insulation, all that bullshit on our coat. They go, Yeah, we kicked ass on that one. Not like walk it and go, Oh my goodness, man. Really? Yeah, were you thinking about what you were trying to accomplish? It because it should be the least amount of damage, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:54

And that's the bedrooms are still probably carpeted. The rest of the house is tile. Yeah, well, even that, initial fire attack from the don't and don't be in the main hallway where everyone's gotta travel. Like Mark said, get to the kitchen or get to that bathroom and start from there and use horizontal. Yeah, and then for firemen like these the this queen, take the roll, get a broom handle, cut it down, run it through the center of this roll, and put a little connect a little freaking ambulance gurney strap. Now you've got the roll on its shoulder into the home. Pull what you need, slice, go, pull what you need, slice, go. You're never running out.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:33

Yep, and and the guys that are heads up will keep a nice pair of trauma shears on there and and a uh utility knife. So now hey, what without anybody else? And without anybody else, I'm in business, but just that, but just what's on that roll, I'm in business taking compared to 90% of the salvage that I'm gonna encounter. And think about it if you had another engine, the backup fire, you got four guys now. Four guys could make a huge difference with that, right? And Colin's talking about carpeted floors, but I will go in further and go, I just hey, because I'm such a hymn, and it's like I just did my wood floors. Think about that bullshit. Think about that cost on hardwood where we just go water weenie fucking crazy with the line. It's like and you and that's something where I truly believe somebody has to be at vertical, know that they can work the line and shut that line down and go, now what happened? Am I good? Right? Can I direct somebody to get something closer? Always try to start that thing from the sidewall, like I talked about earlier. Hey, get next to a wall. Now you got somebody something to lean up against to get up inside there, maybe blow out a ceiling joist in that area where you're working to give you that space to get up even more horizontal, right? And it's like that it's it's not anything that is trick. It's just about what are we trying to save here? We should walk out of that place, and these people go, man, those guys are professionals, they did a good job because they possess a skill set and a playbook.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:59

That viscreen, just to just to give these firemen listening if they're that they're not sure how I mean to staple it to the wall and you create a lean to over something up against the wall, a TV. You can create a shoot out of a window from from the ceiling. You can uh do Hall Runner, you can you can obviously do a balloon throw over top, put everything in the center. Do you can use tuna cans or cans in their pantry to get furniture up off the ground? That's all it'll need. I mean it just takes a little bit of uh uh uh professionalism and creativity and and and and it's firemanship, man. It's firemanship. And if you don't know one, I still remember this fire today. This lady's attic was burned off, and we came, it was the other shift, and we came back to look at the fire, and the homeowner showed up, Japanese lady, older lady, and she says, she comes up to us because we had just gotten done walking through and looking at the fire, and uh companies did a outstanding job with salvage where it counted. Why am I saying that? Because this lady walked up and said, Hey, I'm really I need there's something inside the home. I'm hoping that it's there still. Can you help me look for it? Yes, ma'am. Go around, we go around to the back side. Um, and she says, There's a little pair of my daughter's baby shoes, they're Japanese baby shoes made out of like straw. I'm thinking, straw, baby shoes in a fire? Yeah. Where would they be at, ma'am? They were on this this set of cabinet, set of this curio thing against the wall. And I go look, and underneath this Vis Queen, there they are, untouched. And man, when I gave that to her, that's all she gave a shit about. She didn't care that her roof burned off, she cared that she had that, man. And so this stuff matters, guys, gals, it matters. You know, it's not all about cutting holes and stretching lines and forcing doors. It's also about this. This is what these people pay you for as well. And a lot of the public doesn't even realize we do it until we do it, and they're they're shitting themselves. They're like, Wow, we didn't know you guys did this. Yeah, well, we're supposed to.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:05

Yeah, yeah. Hey, even you know, move removing stuff off the walls, pictures, they're timeless objects for these people. All the other shit could be burned, and if they have their picture, and I say, Hey, pictures on a couch, and then the biz queen over it, you just preserved everything that those people really find valuable. They really do, right? They can buy a new bed, they can buy all the other bullshit furniture. If you take care of their pictures and stuff like that, I you know that's the things that they find the memories that they can't recreate, right? They want to take that with them.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:33

So good points, good points. Any other closing thoughts, guys? Before we wrap this up, suck. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:45

Yeah, yeah. I I I I would say keep in mind what your what your mission is, right? Regardless of what other people think, and uh be able to stick to your guns and uh all the things we talked about here from the land the line to the correct line choice, if you have that ability to pulling off the side of the rig versus pulling off the rear, those are all things that you got to look long and hard at as an agency and go, are we doing this because it's the tradition of the agency, or are we doing this because we know it works? That stuff, man. That stuff. Don't just okay, yeah, it's way we always done it. Okay, that's great. If it's if it's something good, keep that on the playbook. But if it's bullshit, it's like I want to pull a hose off the fucking back if I don't have to. It fucking takes time. It does. I'm sorry, it does. That transverse bed is amazing, right? And and pre-connect versus hey, having the static load sitting there, it's like okay, 200 feet is 200 feet. If it's a 210 foot fire, I'm boned. I'm boned. Now I'm gonna take more time to do something else. It's like uh I don't know. I'm just putting putting stuff out there for you guys to think about things that that should be considered if we're wanting to be good at what we do.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:49

And uh I just want to use this opportunity to remind the listeners if you've got topics that you want covered, again, send it to our email and we'll get back to you. Uh the westcoast offense at gmail.com. And uh um we uh talked about today was a topic on a specific building type. We talked about just so you can expect kind of what's coming down the pipe. We're gonna we want to get into each type of building fire we go to and talk about everything that we talked about today regarding single families. We want to do that for the rest of these, you know, apartment houses, gardens, center hall, commercial, standalone strip, so on and so forth. Um, you guys, uh anything else that's coming down the pipe that we haven't covered, Mark?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:35

So I I I think that uh one of the classes that's coming up here is I think is going to be really uh good for people to listen to. And that is um, we're gonna get our uh some drivers on here and talk to guys that have chosen not to promote. Uh and it, you know, we picked drivers, there's firemen out there too, but we're talking about the core people that are making it happen at these fires, the guys that have chosen to stay in their position and help control where the rubber meets the road versus hey, I'm just waiting for my next check and that next big raise. They're actually staying in within their rank and perfecting themselves and unpacking their bags and making it right. So I think that's gonna be a great uh podcast for people listening. And we got it from three different areas of the uh west coast here, and it's I think it's gonna be really good. Three different agencies, uh, and I'm sure there's gonna be some things they agree on, but things they disagree on. But um I'm hoping that uh everybody's liking what the content that we're putting out. And like Colin said, if you got something you want to hear or something addressed, uh give us a chance to look at it and see if that's if it's uh worth everybody's while.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:36

Yeah. Okay, appreciate you guys. Appreciate everybody tuning in. Uh all those that are that are watching, subscribing to the YouTube page. Appreciate it. Um yeah, be on the lookout for these future episodes, and we'll see you on the next one. Thanks, everyone.