A special welcome to a newcomer on the Mutual Aid Board, a new site I caught on day 1 following along on Twitter. Firecritic.com has some great stuff so far, with just enough angst between the lines to have your old pal Happy grinning and giggling.
Giggling aside, attached to a good piece about the Mexico daycare fire is this great video about residential sprinklers. This should be required viewing for every municipality considering requiring the installation of the little life savers.
As I was watching it and marveling at the effort someone went through to build the prop only to light it off, the nozzle team comes in and makes me pause the video and rewind.
Are they still teaching this "cool down the ceiling with fog" stuff in fire college? Watch the video:
I posted a comment over at Fire Critic and wanted to expand on it here. I was taught more than a few years ago about cooling the ceiling with fog, then I had a chance to try it in a residential fire. When the darn thing kept burning I chose to aim the wet at the red and, wouldn't you know it, the air stopped burning too.
Perhaps fire works differently where you are, maybe I'm in a vortex, but watching the amount of steam that escapes this prop when hey "cool" the air takes me back to how hot that hallway got when I tried it for the last time 10 plus years ago.
Yes, yes, I know, the fire went out. My point being, has anyone else noticed that a smooth bore from a distance works better and removes this need to "fog above?"
I am curious to especially hear from Nottrainedbutwetryhard, Lt Morse and the Road Dr on this one, mainly because I think they show a nice cross section of both readers and departments. (I only know one of them, that'll do.)
To fog or not to fog, that is my question.
Comments
Yes, they still discuss cooling the hot gas layer in FF-I. Thankfully, it's not reinforced as much, and the use of the combination attack (T/Z/O patterns) is more heavily emphasized. Were it up to me, combination attack with the combo-fog would be second to direct attack with a solid-bore in many if not most cases, but discussing nozzle selection would be opening up a whole other can of worms.
However, you break the thermal layering with it and it just plain hurts.
Interestingly, my department just did this exact demonstration last night. We passed a district wide residential sprinkler ordinance and need to get the local politcos on board. There's video iff'n yer interested
The approach that was taught was still an indirect attack (water aimed at ceiling), but to do so w/ a smoothbore, or a combi nozzle on straight stream. The were VERY adamant against using a fog pattern inside ever.
On a personal level, I would choose a smoothbore over a combi nozzle for interior fire attack any day of the week..
I don't think they wanted people to lose sight of what the purpose for the video was - the need for sprinklers.
However, your thoughts are right on target for actual structural firefighting. I have always put the wet stuff on the red stuff and gotten the job done.
We are now teaching our boots to pencil the smoke layer and see if any water comes down, apply fog to the layer only if you can't apply it to the seat of the fire and only enough as to not disrupt the balance.
I don't go in as often as I used to, but still tend to use the straight stream more often than not.
If one of my guys starts spraying water at the smoke, he is going to get my Marine Corps Parade Ground voice in his ear!
As mentioned by Ckemtp, the very narrow fog, or near straight stream, seems to work well. Our methodology here at the mill is to get two guys on the pipe and an officer there with them with the TIC and go find the seat and put the dang thing out.
Going down ramps into conveyor tunnels and down 3 residential stories into an oil cellar with thick smoke pumping out of the hole is not the time to pussyfoot around and spray the smoke.
Of course the color and temp of the smoke could cause an adjustment. Oh, and as for penciling the ceiling. I like ot, it works to reduce the heat without broiling you like a lobster.