By the Light of the Full Moon

There's a kinda cute guy I've know awhile. He finally calls and asks if I'd like to do something Saturday night. He's a nice guy, sorta of citified, but says he thinks he'd like the country life. So I say “sure, what sounds good”. He says “its going to be a nice cool crisp evening with the light of a full moon”, then he asks, what sounds good to me. 

I think for a moment and reply, “Well, I have a swarm of honey bees I really need to move to a new area. That would be the perfect weather and amount of light. Would you like to help?”

Click.

Did I say something wrong?

Mother's Things

Mother's Things

Mothers are amazing. I always knew that about my mom, who has been gone for six years now . A few weeks ago I found the courage to start going through some of the boxes of her things. They were stashed in an unused upstairs bedroom in my home soon after she passed away.

One box was tagged “Vicki's stuff”. I never knew it was my stuff, I just thought it was an old box that had been at the house. Some of her clothes were in that box and after all these years, they still smelled of the laundry soap she used. It was like she was there with me somehow. At the bottom of the box were piles of papers. Documents I'd written in college, report cards from grade school, lots of letters I'd written to her over the years, and a July 1982 issue of Firehouse magazine.

I suspect I left the magazine at their home on one of my visits. My mom was a nurse and told me several times how she thought she would have enjoyed being a medevac nurse. Mom enjoyed hearing about my activities as a volunteer EMT, and my dreams of being a firefighter too someday. The magazine was something she'd enjoy reading through as well. And she knew I'd be back to read it someday.

I know mom's going to be a medevac nurse on a helicopter in her next life time. I want to fly helicopters, so maybe I'll be her pilot. But either way, thirty one years later, we finally finished reading the magazine. Together. Thanks Mom.

Does Anyone Here Speak Fire?

My Chief is very old school. When I brought out the NFPA certified pink camo helmet I’d won at a weekend fire school he just about went over the edge. Gruff words followed “There will be no pink worn on this Department”. Having learned long ago how to dodge a chief’s bullet, I just smiled and quickly turned the subject to other things I’d learned that weekend. Knowing full well that after a few weeks of seeing the helmet sitting by my gear he’d say; “it’s probably OK to wear it”. He’s is a great firefighter, a wonderful big brother, and a very good chief. I’ve been his Training Officer for several years and I’ve come to realize. Chiefs are very much like my other fire students – give them the “why” to the lesson and the desired shift in attitude, skill, or behavior, often follows. 

The pink helmet stirred much less attention than a question from one of our Junior firefighters later in the evening “when is our next training on fire behavior?” I casually mentioned sometime soon, and went onto explain that from now on we’ll call it “fire dynamics”. There’s a big difference. Fire behavior has inherent limits to its definition, but fire dynamics involves the fire’s reaction to all the actions of every firefighter and every happening on the fire ground. My chief stopped dead in his tracks, turned and looked at me and said “when are they going to stop?”

In all honesty, I wanted to answer - hopefully never, but I knew what he meant. Today’s changes are a lot to absorb, especially for Chiefs and chief officers. Not only do they have a calamity of endless paperwork, regulations, codes, and political issues to deal with; research and science seems to be changing all the definitions, training needs, and tactics at the same time. I sensed my chief’s growing frustration with the challenges and told him not worry; we’ve got it under control. We have the science, we have the technology, and we have fire fighters excited to learn. (What more could a training officer ask for?) And one more shining star: our Department’s internet service is now up to speed and can serve our rural western Maine town with ease. YouTube video’s and webcasts are broadcast without interruption. It will take time to adapt to the knowledge but we can do it. We can now talk fire. We can bring it all right to our little department. We can address the challenges, explain the science, expand our skills, and practice a variety of tactics. I sincerely believe, there is no greater time than now to be a training officer and an instructor.

But all this said, I think I’ll wait until next month, after my Chief says it’s OK to wear my new helmet to break the news: someday soon we’re going to have a class on flow path control. “You know Chief, all stuff that we used to just call ventilation but now we know there’s more to it. We have to help them understand the difference between flow path control and tactical ventilation?” Once again, he’ll almost be over the edge, but along with being a great Chief he’s a great firefighter as well. He’ll adapt and overcome and in that gruff voice he’ll eventually say, “OK, I trust you know what you’re doing”. Did I mention what a great Chief he is?

Maine Fire Incident Reporting (MEFIRS) by County

This series of maps shows the Maine Fire Incident Reporting for fire departments 2009-2011. This is a draft project with ArcGIS Online and presented via Arc Explorer. Feedback and comments much appreciated. . .
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Learning Arc GIS Online - 1982 Maine Rivers Study

This is a bit of a test. Working at learning ArcGIS Online. . This is a map project for the 1982 Maine Rivers Study. We'll see how it goes : ) Comments and feedback appreciated.
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Commanding The Box

Arriving home safe from a structure fire demands every firefighter fully understands knowing where they are located at all times relative to alpha, bravo, charlie, delta. Knowing the sides of the box, especially when that box is a residential home, is paramount for a firefighter to excel at situational awareness. But as important as it is for a firefighter to know the sides of the box, key leadership must also know the value of the other two sides, the inside and the outside. This combined knowledge sets the stage for reducing fire fighter injuries and fatalities.

The momentum of knowledge streaming in from research by the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) and Underwriters Laboratory, (UL) combined with such agencies as the International Society of Fire Services Instructors (ISFSI) needs no introduction. Firefighters and commanding officers everywhere have experienced what high-level technical research can now prove to us; the buildings reaction to fire in the modern box is different from that experienced by generations before us. Echo the words of one undeniably passionate instructor, Peter Van Dorpe, Chief of Training at the Chicago Fire Academy, “everything about the built environment has changed”.

A decade ago few could have envisioned the new wave of fire terminology that changes in building construction would bring to fire sciences. Words such as flow path, heat release, ventilated limited, and “the spike” were rarely heard. And, as is still the case today, were not included in the commercial fire curriculums used by most fire training academies. Modern firefighting demands everyone involved understand the knowledge behind the new terminology, and more importantly that everything that happens on every side of the box has a direct and immediate impact on the flow path and in turn - fire behavior inside the box.

As a fire commander, when you pull onto a reported fire scene and see little or nothing showing always ask yourself “at what stage of the fire are we arriving”. Know the time it takes from the moment the air brakes are set to the time your crew will have water ready to attack the fire. You might arrive post initial growth and the report of “little smoke showing” is masking a ventilation limited fire. Enter into the box of a residential fire, whether VES without immediate isolation or an aggressive attack through the front door and the result will often spawn an immediate secondary growth of a ventilation limited fire; termed by many as “the spike”. The spike occurs when a secure and ventilation limited “box”, the residential home your crew is about to enter, is violated. The air fed to the fire due to the violation, causes the ventilation limited area to flashover. Temperatures during the ventilation limited flashover caused by this second growth phase will often spike to over 1000 degrees in less than ninety seconds.

Modern commanders need to know how their commanding actions outside the box are going to impact the flow path and resulting fire conditions inside the box. Commanders must be prepared for an immediate change in fire behavior and conditions. If your crew reports “its getting extremely hot in here” order an immediate evacuation. Those words are a red flag that your crew has entered a ventilation limited area and the area will spike. Additionally, the high degree of heat release is negatively impacting the structural components of the building and global failure, usually a ceiling or floor collapse, is imminent. Study research noted by Dan Madrzykowski of NIST and Steve Kerber of UL and you’ll understand the impact of our tactics on ventilation limited fires: how to better recognize them and how to prevent firefighter death and injury due to them.

Change happens, whether a decade of research and a few definitions, or a few seconds of fire attack and a resulting flashover. Know where you and your crews are at all times, both inside and outside the box. Additionally, know at all times how you and your crews actions, both inside and outside the box, will impact the flow path, heat release rates, ventilation, and the resulting building behavior. 

View on FireChief Mutual Aid with video links:

http://firechief.com/blog/determining-fire-behavior-modern-construction-furnishings-related-video

The Enemy Environment

Spend just the minimum of hours teaching building construction to a classroom of new firefighter recruits and you'll most likely state the words: The building is your enemy; know your enemy. The late Francis L. Brannigan, coined the phrase in his 1971 book “Building Construction for the Fire Service” and a devote following of fire instructors have echoed it for decades.

Near the start of the next class you instruct on structural fire attack ask your students; “How many of you are hunters?” With luck, most of the hands will go up. Bless your lucky stars as delivering your message just got easier. While the building is still the enemy, the modern firefight takes this enemy territory one step further. The modern firefight is about the prey and the predator. The prey is you and your firefighters, the predator is the fire.

Survival of the prey depends on the ability of the prey to expertly respond to changes in its environment. The keener the prey the sooner it learns and responds to the changes. Ideally, the prey learns to adapt before the predator takes advantage of the changes to help confuse, trap, and kill, the prey.

Fight and flight are survival skills inherited by the best of prey. Fight the fire at its source, but know when its time for flight. Flight is a valuable life saving skill practiced by the most skilled of prey. Flight is never quitting or giving up. It’s a viable conclusion based on a split second summary of knowledge, training, and experience. It is an instinctive reaction that launches a survival based action. Reacting with instinctive flight avoids major injury or death; ignore the warning and fall prey to the expert predator.

Nature does not reason or rationalize, nor can it apply research. The ability to take research and apply reason and rational decision making to its conclusions is an ability unique to humans. As firefighters, company officers, administrators, and instructors, we need to take today's research and apply it not only in the classroom, but to our fire ground command, tactics, and strategies as well.

Study and learn to instantly recognize and react to the signs and signals of the modern fire environment. Beat the predator at the game by making inspection holes above and below immediately upon entry to any building that could harbor lightweight construction (LWC). Look at more than just the surface temperatures noted on your thermal imaging camera; learn to recognize the thermal signatures and clues of LWC and probable compromise of structural materials that will lead to global collapse of the structure.

And most importantly, know your lead out time complete with a command 360 of the building. Make it the first due engines immediate priority to get sufficient suppression water between any possible victims and the fire. Suffice to say “get water on the fire”. Beat the predator in the new enemy environment, and live to fight another day.