Fireground SurvivalComment on this page

See Search and Rescue for related material

IAFF Fireground Survival Course

IAFF Fireground Survival Student Manual.pdf

Fire Exposures of SCBA Facepiece Lenses.pdf (NIST)
NIST conducted experiments which demonstrated a range of realistic thermal exposures and environmental conditions that firefighters could be exposed to. SCBA facepieces were exposed to thermal environments during these tests. Eight facepieces were tested in six different experiments, with three facepiece lenses showing evidence of thermal degradation from the exposure. Maximum exterior lens temperatures were as high as 300°C (572°F) in these cases. The environments that caused the failures were identified in an attempt to characterize the thermal performance of SCBA facepieces. Although much was learned about conditions associated with thermal degradation of SCBA facepiece lenses, more experiments are needed to be able to understand the thermal degradation and more definitively predict the conditions that are likely to cause a facepiece lens failure.

Fireground Survival by Tyler Shook.pdf
Slides for presentation

Meeting the Rapid Intervention Challenge.pdf (Jeffery Pindelski)

Portable Radio Placement in the IDLH.pdf (Fairfax County Fire & Rescue Department)

Rapid Intervention Isn't Rapid (Steve Kreis)
The reasons firefighters are dying during structural firefighting operations have not changed much over the past 250 years of the American fire service. Smoke, thermal insult, structural collapse, getting lost, and running out of air continue to be leading causes of firefighter deaths. The number of line-of-duty deaths (LODDs) annually hovers around 100 (excluding 2001, in which 343 additional firefighters were killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center). Of these 100 annual deaths, approximately about half die from cardiovascular disease-associated problems and roughly another quarter die as the result of vehicle accidents that have occurred en route to and from emergency incidents. This article focuses on the remaining fatalities, the traumatic deaths that occur during structural firefighting operations and that result in physical and emotional shock for members of the fire departments.

Understanding, Anticipating and Avoiding Flashover (Ed Hartin)

Drills

4 Fireground Survival Training Drills.pdf, includes:

PASS device familiarization
SCBA familiarization
Left or Right Hand Safety Checks
Locating and following hose lines

Grab Lives and LUNAR Poster.docx

How to tie a full-body hasty harness
Traditional and alternate methods that provide a 3 point harness

Calling a MAYDAY (Lyndon Cousins)

OPFD Mayday Drill 2012