ECN Forum Forums Safety Discussion and News Occupational Safety Discussion Re:Firefighters Thread

Pinemarten,
Just a note on the smoking thing,
there's no need to go bagging smokers, for the fact that manufacturers put these things in cigarettes.
I smoked for 14 years and I still have the odd one, but I prefer to smoke "Roll your own".
There was a guy over here that turned 100 last week, had smoked since he was 15 and yes he was an Electrician, had used "Roll your own" tobacco since then.

Just heading back to the original FF topic,
Sparky, if you look around the Volunteer Fire Brigades in NZ, you will see all sorts of improvised gear on thier Appliances, particular to that Brigade.
Need is the Mother of Invention.
Everyday my FF training enables me to think quickly for a solution, to a problem, do you guys have the same thing?.

Trumpy-
Sorry about the delay in response - I'm scheduled at our Station 2 for the month - with no internet. AAAGH! (On an overtime detail at 1's today, so I'm back online).

Here in the Chicago, IL, US area, most Driver/Operators (aka Engineers...chauffers on ladder trucks/aerials) have to be certified as a Fire Apparatus Engineer (FAE). We use the IFSTA (IFSTA.ORG (?)) manuals, with some areas adapted to "accepted" field hydraulic calculation numbers.

Officially, the "required minimums" are covered in the NFPA 1001 & 1002 Standards.

In the State of Illinois (and reality), the "Authority Having Jurisdiction" (i.e. Fire Chief) has to give you a blessing and approve you to operate the vehicles. Usually you have to pass some form of competency exam... there's no universally accepted standard.

Most FD's require you to have a license for the weight class of vehicle you'll be operating - in IL it's a "Class 'B' Non-CDL".

(Class B = unlimited GVWR single-body vehicle; CDL=Commercial Driver's License, a US Federal mandate from a few years ago for big rig commercial drivers who haul people or freight. It subjects you to more rigorous standards for non-work related traffic offenses and medical evaluation, and prevents drivers from having six licenses from six different states.)

The state allows FF's to operate under a "Non CDL" so that VFD's can have drivers with proper weight class licenses, without the additional expense of a full CDL monitoring program.

DougW,
Are you a Career (Paid) FF?.
All of our Fire Stations over here have Internet access and are all linked together using a FireNet WAN.
Thanks for your reply regarding Appliance Driving certification.
Over here by law, you have to have a Heavy Special-Type Licence to drive Fire Appliances and Ambulances, as a bare minimum, from there, you are required to be nominated by the District Commander(Chief Fire Officer), as a Brigade Driver.
From then on in, you get trained in Pump Operation using all the various methods of Draughting water, Communications Procedures and BA Control.
There are 3 levels of Driver training here and this normally starts with the candidate sitting a Defensive Driving course, which is really worth it, as your Car driving technique improves too!.
But, the Level 2 and 3 courses are really strictly tested and are hard to pass.
It takes about a year to qualify as a Brigade driver, and in that time, you would only be allowed to drive to Chimney fires and other such small fires.
The scariest experience I've had as a Driver was when a car ran a Red light one night in Timaru and went straight under the front of the Appliance, it wasn't pretty!.

Hey Doug (or anyone else that cares to reply)
How does the Rank system of Fire Department's work in the US, I realise that there is a Fire Chief, but what are the ranks below?.
Also, how is advancement achieved through these ranks?, I'm guessing exams and courses taken with the Institute of Fire Engineers, would have some part in your advancement, would it not?
Along with Fire-Ground experience?.

Actually both. Am an Engineer/EMT on my VFD (14 years) where I used to live (just south of here), and am a Firefighter/Paramedic for the City I live (jsut north of where I used to ... you get the idea) full time (24/48 schedule) for the past 9 years. I still have the rank of FF, but can engineer, and have acted as company officer and "shift commander" for the dept as well.

There really is no universally accepted system for rank in the US. (That's beginning to be an automatic intro for our conversations, isn't it?) Rank structure varies on size of department, as well as attitude.

A small suburban dept (mine) doesn't need the multiple layers of brass that Chicago FD does. [rant]Of course, the reason we have Shift Commanders instead of Lieutenants is because LT's were in the Union, S/C's aren't - even though they didn't hire "replacements" for the new "managers" they created, crying that they were poor, despite the generous raises they offered the individuals in question.[/rant]

Some dept's base their tests on NFPA, or some outside standard. Generally, the structure in bigger departments goes something like this in our area, and may or may not include all of the ranks indicated:

Chief (Fire Chief, Chief of Department, Commissioner)(5 crossed bugles (speaking trumpets))
Deputy Chief (4 crossed bugles)
Assistant Chief (3 crossed bugles)
District Chief (? 2 or 3 crossed bugles)
Batallion Chief (2 bugles crossed)
Captain (2 bugles side-by-side(or axes))
Lieutenant (1 bugle (or axe))
Engineer (may be actual rank, or simply operational position)
Sr. Firefighter (may be actual rank, or simply operational position)
Jr. Firefighter(may be actual rank, or simply operational position)
Probationary firefighter

Moving up in rank usually includes some form of promotional exam, and time in grade, except for the higher ranks (D/C & C in particular, usually require no formal exam, as they are politically appointed positions)

Schools over here vary from state to state - often without reciprocity. Almost everybody accepts training by NFPA or the National Fire Academy, but state schools really don;t carry over well. Rank doesn't transfer either, unless you get direct hired in as a training or EMS officer, or some such "special" rank.

BTW, we also have no real "portability" for pensions in most jurisdictions, unless your FD is enrolled in a state pension plan. So once you're on a job, you're there for 20. (you can take your $$ and go, but virtually nowhere will let you buy time to make up for your time on the job elsewhere)

[This message has been edited by DougW (edited 11-02-2003).]

DougW,
Thanks for that explain!.
Over here, the New Zealand Fire Service is a Government Department, funded by the taxpayer and through the collection of Fire Service levies on everybody's Insurance policies.
This means that the NZFS Commission, has free reign over a HUGE amount of money and no, the trickle-down theory does not apply here either.
What is the difference between a Snr FF and an Engineer?, in terms of skills.
What size and type of hoses do you guys in the US use?.

Once again, the American fire service does things differently, not only from country to country, but from town to town!

Senior FF can be a rank, or simply an informal recognition of time on the job.

Engineer can be a rank or a job description.

Often, a senior FF will perform Engineering duties, but, if there is no rank of engineer, it is a detail position, rather than a promotion.

Over here, it depends on the use of the hose (duh!)

We have Booster line (aka "hard line" or "red line", which is stored on reels of 200-300 feet, appx 1" I.D. - flows about 25-50 Gallons/Min at 150-200 Psi. Used to be used indoors, until the safety guys realized what they were doing. Use them for trash and grass fires mostly.

(Now of course, the salesmen are introducing "high pressure-low volume" interior firefighting. Guess nobody is buying the "new and improved" smooth bore nozzles this year, huh? Oh well... wait twenty years, they'll try to sell you the same items you just bought over again.)

For interior attack, some FD's still use 1 1/2" rubber lined double jacketed hose (100-125 gpm). Most FD's have gone to 1 3/4 w/ 1 1/2" threads. since you can flow up to 200 gpm (one heck of a lot of reaction on that, lemme tell ya)

The next "standard" size up is 2 1/2", or "deuce-and-a-half" NST fittings. This rubber lined, double jacket hose was the only hose carried for years by many FD's. Now used for defensive mode ops, and for supplying to a "Y" inside a building. They're a bear on interior, but MAN do they flow nice (200-300 gpm).

We (city) still hae some 3" RLDJ w/ 2 1/2" NST couplings for supply lines, but mostly we use...

4" (100' long) reinforced plastic jacket LDH (Large Diameter Hose) with Stortz fittings. The stuff weighs a fair amount (65-85 lbs/100'), but your friction loss is nothing compared to the old deuce and trey hoses.

For REAL FL modifiers, many FD's have gone to 5" LDH. That stuff weighs a ton (120 lbs / 100'), but your FL is something like .5 PSi / 100' @ 1000 GPM. It's virtually portable water main you can carry in your truck. They use it a lot in the unhydranted areas west of us, or for high risk industrial areas.

A note about threads - a least the metric system is easy. When the US first started forming FD's and fire companies, man ytown used proprietary threads - that way equipment wouldn't get stolen and used elsewhere, and there was no ANSI to generate a standard. That's why (for example) a "Chicago" 4 1/2" hydrant fitting used a 10 threads per inch measurement, and a "New York" 4 1/2" fitting used one at 8.75 tpi.

That's one reason why 2 1/2" is still a standard (national) item. Deuce is deuce is deuce - thanks to the National Standard Thread. (IIRC, it came about after some big fire or another, where the big city called for help, and nobody responding could tie into their hydrants or engines )

Doug,
That's a very interesting post!.
Would your Redline be the same as what we call a First-Aid hose-reel, high pressure-low volume?.
I note your comment:
Why on earth did this happen?, we still use FA hose reels until you can get a decent supply of water after arriving at a house fire, that's why it's called a "first-aid" reel.
Just on the subject of hoses, we don't use threaded joints on our hoses, here, we use Hermaphrodite(sp?) couplings on all our hoses, no threads to worry about, apart from our Suction hoses, which are used to Draught water from Rivers, Creeks and Swimming Pools, these are 6" in diameter and have a Strainer on the end.

Another question,
What sort of boots do you guys wear?.
We have boots that have steel plates and banding all through them.
Makes them a heck of a lot heavier, but at least you don't get nails and so forth through the soles.
Also, do your boots have the loops at the tops of them?