Face Piece or no Face piece?? That is the question...

[GTRider245]

If I'm in a 10-story building and there's a fire on the 3rd floor and I'm checking the 8th, 9th, and 10th, do I really need to be on air? There might be a slight haze of smoke that traveled up the stairs or elevator shaft, but there's no way I'm wasting my air for that. I'm not the only one that said that either, even though I'm the only one you called out.

Sorry if that came off as a call out, not my intention. What works for you may not work for the rest of us. However, who I am to tell you how to do things? I dont have the first 10 story building in my response area.

Do you guys do any kind of air monitoring while youre checking upper floors?

[pipeman1822]

Double Post

[pipeman1822]

Gear and pack on (and I guess it has to be said, face piece off), tool in hand. If its a high rise, we take hose bundle and standpipe kit up.

We make people buy and install theses systems in their buildings and we expect people to take the alarms seriously and evacuate when they hear them, so why the F&%# would the fire department not take it seriously? We show up to an automatic alarm ready to work. Yea most of them are false, but so are a good chuck of other structure fire calls.

I wouldn't say that we don't take them seriously. It's just how we work. We run probably over 100 AFAs every day in my department and haven't had a problem with this yet. Most of the time there's some kind of engineer or other employee that meets us at the door anyway telling us what the problem was.

Yeah, becuase we all know if there isnt thick black smoke the air MUST be ok to breath!

If I'm in a 10-story building and there's a fire on the 3rd floor and I'm checking the 8th, 9th, and 10th, do I really need to be on air? There might be a slight haze of smoke that traveled up the stairs or elevator shaft, but there's no way I'm wasting my air for that. I'm not the only one that said that either, even though I'm the only one you called out.

[ChiefKN]

Gear and pack on (and I guess it has to be said, face piece off), tool in hand. If its a high rise, we take hose bundle and standpipe kit up.

We make people buy and install theses systems in their buildings and we expect people to take the alarms seriously and evacuate when they hear them, so why the F&%# would the fire department not take it seriously? We show up to an automatic alarm ready to work. Yea most of them are false, but so are a good chuck of other structure fire calls.

Excellent point.

We do the same, pack on and tools in hand.

[BFDLT32]

We don a Facepiece as needed. Period. For one thing we have, and use, David Clark Headsets (We want to look like the NASCAR Crews) and anything like a Mask, Hood, etc would cause some serious problems with that. I also am in full agreement with those who mentioned Visibility, Communication, etc. Within my limited experience, I can't see any valid reason to don a Facepiece until you are Off the Rig...........

The voice of reason sounded again

[Dickey]

We don the SCBA in the truck while enroute and leave the mask off until arriving on scene. The only exception is when a fire is confirmed, smoke and fire showing kind of thing, and even then I strongly discourage it until they get off the truck and look around a bit. At least for the visibility of getting off the truck.

Sure, it's happened where guys get off with the mask on but we don't go on air until just entering the door.

[Eng34FF]

Gear and pack on (and I guess it has to be said, face piece off), tool in hand. If its a high rise, we take hose bundle and standpipe kit up.

We make people buy and install theses systems in their buildings and we expect people to take the alarms seriously and evacuate when they hear them, so why the F&%# would the fire department not take it seriously? We show up to an automatic alarm ready to work. Yea most of them are false, but so are a good chuck of other structure fire calls.

We do the same here. Pack up, tools in hand to include a TI. In addition, I will usually drop a supply line, but that sometimes depends on how it is dispatched.