十秒of Water

The title of this article may conjure up some doubt in one’s mind, or it may elicit a comment at the kitchen table of, “No way 10 seconds of water can put out a fire!” The information I will present here comes from years of observation from practical fireground experience and teaching fire service classes. I have given people a hard time for not being able to manage a hoseline effectively and efficiently, and I have received banter from members for not being able to handle a hoseline. I have also tried many ways to improve my and my company’s hoseline management when advancing on a fire. Through some recent education-based on classroom and field experience-and a few trials with various career and volunteer personnel, I present here the “10-Second Flow Method” for advancing on a fire. (Note that I did not say “extinguish”; I said “advance.”)

Some members are better nozzle firefighters, some are better operators, and some are better backup firefighters. So, the first step is knowing your team and each team member’s capabilities. Then, put the right people in the right spots. Next, ensure that your personnel understand their roles and responsibilities on the team. When I describe this to people, I use the analogy of a track team, a wrestling team, or a gymnastics team; for the team to be successful (win), you must understand your individual role on the team (winning the event). I tend to rely on semantics when giving descriptions; everyone must understand that personnel can know their role by simply being told what it is or training in the classroom. However, personnel understand their role when they practice it repeatedly.

我不会深入研究讨论顺利生了一个d fog nozzles; the beauty of this method is that you can apply it with either stream. The thing to remember is the amount of time that we apply the stream. I took a long, hard look at nozzle reaction when it came to applying water. The work of Danbury (CT) Fire Department Captain David P. Fornell and the London Fire Brigade’s Paul Grimwood determined that if personnel are fighting the nozzle reaction, then they are not concentrating on fighting the fire. In my career department, we use 125-gallon-per-minute (gpm) fog nozzles on 1½-inch attack lines, and we have put out quite a number of fires containing modern fuel loads. That said, I posed the question to my personnel, “What is the minimum fire flow needed to advance on a fire where we have decided to make an interior attack?” The answers varied, but we all agreed that it was 125 gpm. I then posed the question, “Why do we need to flow 186 gpm at 50 pounds-per-square-inch (psi) nozzle pressure for a smooth bore to advance on the same fire?”