August 22, 2010 - 3rd Alarm Structure Fire

Sunday I did a last minute trade and worked for a coworker on another shift. That morning after we finished our morning station duties, we went out and trained a bit on rig placement and walked a roof of a building in our first due. Rig placement is important because once an incident gets under way, more rigs arrive and hoses are put down and charged, it becomes increasingly harder to move the rigs. It's much better to set ourselves up for success from the beginning of the incident.

After figuring out the best spot for the truck, we raised the aerial ladder to the roof of the building. I and a few other members of the crew climbed the ladder to get a better look at the roof. We saw that one side had about a 5' drop from the parapet wall to the roof while the other side had a two foot drop. If there's a fire in this building we may have to take an additional ladder to the roof to climb down the parapet, depending on which side we raise the aerial ladder to. Additionally, one of the engineers pointed out a drainage pipe at the base of the building under the side of the roof with the bigger drop off. The roof was slanted to allow for water runoff, thus causing there to be a bigger drop on one side than the other.

Just when we were wrapping up our training, we dispatched on the 2nd alarm to a fire in San Jose's east side.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_15860272?source=most_viewed

Once on scene we were assigned as the Rapid Intervention Company (RIC). Sometimes when people see larger fires, they don't understand why there seems to be quite a few firefighters standing around, apparently not working. Well, RIC is one of those jobs. RIC companies were established to be a readily available resource incase any of our personnel become lost, trapped or incapacitated inside the structure. If we were engaged in other activities at the fire when someone became trapped in the structure, that would delay our response to that person by precious minutes. Still though, standing outside the structure in full gear for two hours proved to be physically challenging in its own right.

Other reasons people might seem like they're just standing around is because we rotate crews throughout the incident, and also to allow for a "cool down" period once the main body of fire is knocked down. We rotate crews after about 40 minutes usually so that we can make sure the crews are staying properly hydrated, give them a chance to cool off, and monitor their vital signs. Working in superheated conditions while wearing 75 lbs. of gear for 40 minutes can be pretty arduous work, that can get your heart rate and blood pressure up in a hurry. At fires, all of us want to get in there, work and help out as much as possible, sometimes to our own detriment. Overexertion/strain was listed as the number one killer of firefighters from 1990-2000.

http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/downloads/pdf/publications/fa-220.pdf

This is why they mandated rotating crews during an incident. The "cool down" period also allows crews to get a break, while letting smoke and fire gasses vent from the structure, and gives us a chance to reevaluate the structure for structural stability and any other hazards that we might not have initially seen while engaged in the firefight.

After close to 4 hours as the RIC, we were assigned inside the structure to salvage what belongings we could, and to overhaul (find and extinguish any hidden or smoldering fires).