Fire in the Hole! 

Thank you!

Thank you!

Generally speaking, I refrain from judging other ways of “putting the wet stuff on the red stuff”, because I don’t presume to know more than them or be able to do it better than them. It’s RU-vid, after all. But, you always have a person behind a keyboard with an opinion. I would also consider a fellow firefighter stating a fire being “bread and butter” as one they regularly go on and not call into question that it’s a fire, and as it being a fire, is inherently dangerous. Fatalities occur on such a fire, we know this. But, still, the commonality of said fire can be inferred as “bread and butter”. The frequency of said fire versus fatality is, well, more something people use in the comments section as complacency? I’m not sure the inference. Look up the amount of firefighter fatalities during vertical ventilation as a trend the last twenty years. I’d say, we, as a whole, are doing a good job, despite firefighting as a whole being inherently dangerous. Regardless, since 2000, I have seen a lot of progress in the fire service. We put science into our approach now. Transitional attack is a thing. Understanding flow path and not just blowing out all the windows is a thing. We recognize PTSD and the need for behavioral wellness. We recognize all our people and appreciate their contributions. So, I’d put our training staff, or any professional fire dept, up against anyone who would call into question tactics such as vertical ventilation. Especially, saying they are blind to the science and simply see what they want to see. I work with ranking Firefighters far more educated than I, who would put me up on that roof. And I Trust them. Because You should be able to do that. But, also, because I’ve been in fires without water on fire where vertical ventilation made a significant difference, in heat and, especially, in visibility. One of the many things I’m proud of about my profession and where I work, is that our training staff never presume to know all, despite traveling the country for educational enrichment, are fully aware of a NIST UL studies, along with others. To presume a professional fire department of the top ten most populated cities would have no clue as to the research your citing demonstrates, if not anything, an ignorant, or egocentric way of stating our way is somehow wrong and you are inherently right because you mention a NIST UL study. As a member of a major metropolitan department, I wouldn’t presume to know as much as my counterparts in our training and education who specialize in being progressive, but I will say that they still encourage us to get on that roof and cut a hole. The message with the fire minute, generally, is one of humility and expressing a lesson learned where we don’t look great because things didn’t go all that well. What’s to learn from everything going right? We check the ego and try to share a lesson learned, rather than how good we look ( which can be many fires or edited to look that way). All this being said, 32 years in the fire service, regardless of where, is to be respected. Thank you for what you do and, by all means, reach out to said metropolitan departments with this data you have and change how we do things. I, personally, would be more than happy to oblige.

@@thefireminute625 thank you for your reply. I will agree that it is easy to sit back and look from the cheap seats and look at an operation and second guess. I believe this forum however does lend to the discussion. We should never shy away from questioning what we do and why we do it. The things that bother me are when we make statements that firefighting is inherently dangerous. Our goal should be zero injuries and deaths. We should strive for that in all we do and evaluate the risk benefit of all operations. Calling a methodology that has been done for decades yet new science demonstrates as having negligible success, rather adds to the overall risk of operations, calling this “bread and butter”. The other term for this is normalization of deviance. We can do it over and over but will it eventually lead to major injury or death? We must take that into consideration. In this case, single family vertical vent is something I’ve performed for decades. Many times a week. It wasn’t until observing the fire ground realities through the lens of new studies and science that my views of what was actually occurring changed. We must always strive to grow and learn. We must decide if putting a brother in the ground is a part of the inherent danger of the job on a 1200 square foot house that was probably torn down anyway. Use of videos with an open forum to debate or ask why something was done is one of the greatest tools we have to discuss together what we see. Otherwise the videos are for entertainment purposes only and their value diminishes as such. Thank you for your opinion, and taking the time to reply. Stay safe and keep moving forward.

Sorry for delay. Was off for six months dealing with Cancer, only recently back. All good now, fingers crossed. We use the rake on the roof for sounding. I think the surface area of the rake gives a good feel for what's going on below. Pulling ceiling and interior operations, we use a pike pole or a NY Hook. We prefer the penetrating power from below. But, of course, it's whatever works best for you!

water on the hill