“Walking” for Safety in Fire Structures

By Nicholas A. Martin

In the academy, we learn early that we will spend little time on our feet inside the fire, that to improve visibility, stay out of heat, and so on, we need to get low, stay low, and move low. But with this important, almost obvious, concept often comes one of our first bad habits: moving on our hands and knees. Moving on our hands and knees is an awkward and a restricting body position for many reasons. Most of these problems can be solved by "duck-walking" or moving with one knee down and one foot out. Let's discuss these body positions in connection with some fireground considerations.

Recently, I was the engine officer for a first-due to a house fire. As we moved in with the line, I was a few feet behind the nozzleman and pulling some line with me. The fire was in a fully involved kitchen on the first floor. As we moved from the living room down a hall to the kitchen, the nozzleman moved almost instinctively straight toward the kitchen, which was the obvious source of fire. He was on his hands and knees with the pipe in one hand. I was duck-walking. What he couldn't see was that the fire was rolling out of the kitchen and coming down the hallway over our heads, back toward the living room. I got his attention, and he quickly hit the hallway ceiling and then darkened down the kitchen.