Texas, Memphis, Charleston, now Boston.....are we seeing a trend?

[HotTrotter]

Hey, no dead horse here. That was really the point I was trying to make. A couple of years ago, we went in to search for an occupant, and we were pushed out by fire. When we reentered, the victim could not be seen in the debris on the floor because the whole room was close to the same temp. The guy on the camera never saw our victim, we found her the old fashioned way.
The dummy was close to the same temp as all of the surrounding material, and proved a valuable lesson, at least that's what we hoped.

We also teach the oriented search, but it just seemed like guys in general depended on the camera too much. We try to beat it into everyone's head, but I think the short bus stops here more often than elsewhere.

Just a thought here. But if the victim is the same temperature of the fire aren't they pretty much cooked? That being the case, why pull them out until after the fire is out? After all, I cook my turkeys at 350 F. Point is, you use the TIC as a tool, not as the only method. I can walk in with a TIC, look around, and see the hot spots rather quickly. With a TIC I will see that the entire drop ceiling is hotter than it should be. You still push a tile down and do the old fashioned things. But you have a better idea of where to look and the extent to which things have degraded.

[HotTrotter]

Can you provide us with the $105,000 ($155,000 if we put them on our ambulances also) to put them on our remaining engine companies? Or maybe you can take our council into allowing us to get them. It is easy to say they need to be on every truck, but paying for them is another issue altogether.

On our first alarm structure fire we have 4 TICs on the scene (2 ladders, 1 heavy rescue, 1 on the squad.) Why would we need more? It takes little time to displace a ceiling tile and look into the void space. The TIC is also not going to show you smoke above the ceiling tile 100% of the time. Remember smoke only registers on the TIC when it is hotter than the ambient air temperature.

Looks to me like you are using a budget of many millions of dollars. By my calculation you need 21 more cameras. Given that quantity you could negotiate a very good price. A pumper cost about $250K, a quint cost $1,000,000. Given the cost of this equipment and the equipment that goes on the truck as well, the TIC is a very small portion of the entire truck. Perhaps rather than replace that 10 year old truck you purchase equipment instead, and replace the truck a year or two later. I know, it/s much more fun to get a new truck rather than a necessary piece of equipment for the old truck.

[FFFRED]

You left out FDNY.

Certain individuals here like to spout off about how perfect fidney is with their "140 years of tradition and damn anything we didn't think of here first" attitude but let's not forget that they still manage to kill firefighters (in vacant buildings) just like everybody else now and then.

Yes, that's harsh. However, there are some FDNY members who need a reality check now and again.

[Flame in PMs preferred. Why waste everyone else's time?]

Okay, I have gone round and round with some of the FDNY guys myself but I have never felt the need to post this kind of completely unnecessary inflammatory crap about LODD's. My opinion is this post went over the line and serves no purpose other than attempt to enflame passions from the FDNY guys.

I wonder how you would react if I made reference to your FD after an LODD about how perfect YOU thought you were...

FyredUp

The reason you've never felt the need to do this is you are a mature adult with some self respect, intelligence and common courtesy. Unlike this *****hat.

Don't look now Deputy Marshal...your inferiority complex and low self-esteem is showing itself.

FTM-PTB

[GFDLT1]

Just a thought here. But if the victim is the same temperature of the fire aren't they pretty much cooked? That being the case, why pull them out until after the fire is out? After all, I cook my turkeys at 350 F. Point is, you use the TIC as a tool, not as the only method. I can walk in with a TIC, look around, and see the hot spots rather quickly. With a TIC I will see that the entire drop ceiling is hotter than it should be. You still push a tile down and do the old fashioned things. But you have a better idea of where to look and the extent to which things have degraded.

Hottrotter you are right about one thing but so wrong about others. You are correct that you can cook a turkey at 350 F but you are wrong about the rest.

It may be only 130 F or so on the floor where that victim is, and you know what that victim will probably be 130 F as well. That means that if they are in a bed or covered in some light debris that they won't show up on the TIC. At 130 F they still have a very good likelyhood of surviving depending on how much smoke they have taken in.

If there is a light smoke condition below the drop ceiling or in the case of Boston from the fire in the back of the kitchen, your TIC won't show you that the tiles are hot. That TIC will show you the temp of the smoke and the heat current coming from the back of the kitchen. You still have all of that heat, smoke and fire above the drop ceiling that is hiding from you and waiting to bite the **** out of you.

Just agree that the TIC is just another tool, and that you or any FF needs to have a very secure hold on the basics before you start to play with the new toys. The basics will bring you home.

[Binaroundawhile]

To answer the question posed in the opening post of this thread, I do thnk we are seeing a trend. A clearly disturbing one. No one can adequately discuss the recent events of Charleston and Boston (Rest brave souls) since they are still under investigation. However, NONE of what is happening is new. It's the same old sh!* that has been going on for decades. Buildings fall down after a time when they are burning. If you are in them when they fall, you stand a good chance of finding out about the "afterlife". I still do not know why EVERY person that wants to go into these places hasn't read Brannigan (it's obvious that some haven't - no names, you know who you are) and every other resource available. KNOW YOUR ENEMY! IT HAS ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM KILLING YOU! ! ! Please, please learn all you can, and then use that knowledge on every incident. Somebody needs you more than that building. Come home safe!

[HotTrotter]

Hottrotter you are right about one thing but so wrong about others. You are correct that you can cook a turkey at 350 F but you are wrong about the rest.

It may be only 130 F or so on the floor where that victim is, and you know what that victim will probably be 130 F as well. That means that if they are in a bed or covered in some light debris that they won't show up on the TIC. At 130 F they still have a very good likelyhood of surviving depending on how much smoke they have taken in.

If there is a light smoke condition below the drop ceiling or in the case of Boston from the fire in the back of the kitchen, your TIC won't show you that the tiles are hot. That TIC will show you the temp of the smoke and the heat current coming from the back of the kitchen. You still have all of that heat, smoke and fire above the drop ceiling that is hiding from you and waiting to bite the **** out of you.

Just agree that the TIC is just another tool, and that you or any FF needs to have a very secure hold on the basics before you start to play with the new toys. The basics will bring you home.

I agree that the person could be at 130 F, my point was that if he starts to get really hot, and we all know what that is, then chances are we are too late. In other words, if the entire room is at 200 or higher I suspect we need a body bag. Ever see what boiling water does to skin? It's just something we need to keep in the fore front of our minds. We have the best gear going wit hour fully protective bunkers and all. Chances are we won't feel the same heat our victim feels.

Not sure about the smoke thing. I have been told that the advantage of the TIC is that it can see through the smoke. Time for a little research.

[Haweater]

Coming from the person who didnt understand one of the most basic premises for fighting a fire in a taxpayer, Im glad it wasnt you who said it.

Damn, I hate it when taxpayers catch fire. They're hell to put out without a piercing nozzle. :P

[HotTrotter]

I do have a question though. The steel trusses will fail rapidly in a fire situation. I would expect that the steel trusses would last longer than the engineered wood trusses. Is this the case? Also, why do the steel trusses fail?

Prediciton - there will be a 50-50 mix of good responses and ball busting comments.

[newboot]

Not an expert here but I'll give it a shot
I would expect a steel truss to take longer to fail but me more catastrophic when it does. The reason a steel truss fails is the heat weakens one truss and it bends, a truss systems requires the help of a neighboring truss to support part of it's weight so when that first truss bends it adds more weight back to its neighboring truss which causes that to fail and so on and so on until the whole roof or a large part of it fails. I know wood trusses have been known to fail within minutes of the start of a fire so I would expect a steel truss to take sightly longer to reach temp of bending.

A thought that should start a good fight...... IF the ceiling tiles are holding heat and causing a backdraft condition wouldn't popping the first tiles in the door wouldn't that cause conditions to go back quicker? Wouldn't opening a vent hole above them be a better option to get the heat and superheated gases out? obviously roof conditions would determine if this is possible or not.



I have not read Brannigans book yet but plan to order it soon. Can anyone suggest other books along the same lines.

[RFDACM02]

A thought that should start a good fight...... IF the ceiling tiles are holding heat and causing a backdraft condition wouldn't popping the first tiles in the door wouldn't that cause conditions to go back quicker? Wouldn't opening a vent hole above them be a better option to get the heat and superheated gases out? obviously roof conditions would determine if this is possible or not.

Good question. Certainly this is a potential issue if the backdraft condition is not recognized, which is quite possible. Hopefully the ceiling in question will give indications that it is that hot above it (such as smoke pushing down and being pulled back in, sooty black around the tiles where there was any air leak, both of which hopefully are visible from outside where any small opening will also show the same indicators). But given a possible backdraft scenario, unless you never go in, at least by popping the tile at the door you're in the best survivable place to be. While venting high might be preferable, first we must recognize from outside the potential. Often these conditions overhead may not be such to cause backdraft, but may be heating the trusses to their point of failure.

The only obvious backdraft condition I witnessed at a true incident was just like the textbook says, every nail holes, and door had smoke puffing out and being drawn back in, black sooty windows. The roof crew took a skylight and the smoke pushed up and out fast and hard followed by ignition (of the smoke) about 10 seconds later.

[Lewiston2FF]

The best method I have heard to reduce the backdraft potential of a drop ceiling was to use a straight stream and push the tiles with that. The water entering the superheated void space will flash to steam and prevent the flashover/backdraft from occuring. If I remember correctly this came from one of the Brannigan articles here on FH.com. Perhaps the webteam can repost it for us.

[Dave1983]

People also get too reliant on the camera in checking for hot spots. Now, rather than opening up a ceiling or wall, guys just look at it with the camera to check for heat. We need to open up and look.
I'm sure that my job isn't the only one seeing this.

Ummm, you do know thats one of the reasons to use a TIC, right? The ability it gives us to lesson damage. I thought property conservation was still part of the job. Isnt it?

[Jasper 45]

Ummm, you do know thats one of the reasons to use a TIC, right? The ability it gives us to lesson damage. I thought property conservation was still part of the job. Isnt it?

Context Dave, context.

I was talking about buildings that had fires in them. I've seen guys point the camera around in rooms that are direct exposures to fire, and that was supposedly an alternative to opening the walls up.

Keep in mind that the majority of fires we deal with are in balloon frame structures, that are three stories tall, and all have plaster and lathe interiors. With these types of buildings you have to be very thorough with overhaul, otherwise you're back 3 hours later with the original fire building and all the exposures going; and that just plain looks bad.

The camera is great if the fire hasn't extended beyond the walls yet, or if you're looking for hot wires or a blown ballast.

So yes, property conservation is still a part of the job, but so is making sure that all hot spots are out as well. The camera can't replace checking for extension visually by opening up, when you need to.

[HotTrotter]

Did some research on this and found that a steel truss will begin to fail at around 1000 F. Given that the trusses are up in insulated areas that temperature is reached often within five minutes of the fire starting. The temperatures in these areas often exceed 1500F.