In the photo to the right, a fire occurs in a bedroom and looks like it is extending to the attic. Irrespective of your staffing and intitial response, absent of any other information than what you see, your initial priority is to locate and darken the fire. Tommy Brennan always said that "all things being equil - equal fire problem, search problem, ventilation problem etc., put the fire out!"
I couldn't agree more. If staffing permits only one tactic at this fire, pu the fire out. In my opinion, my next priority is to vent the second floor so we can "look" for victims as opposed to blindly feeling for them.
After help arrives, we can check the attic for extension and salvage the second and first floor and finally overhaul. What do you think?

Skip Coleman, Technical Editor
Fire Engineering

About the name - Skips Scats. When I first came on the job in 1975, we had several two piece engine companies in the city. One unit was the full sized engine. This was staffed with three men. The other unit was called a Scat. It was a two person unit that had a small pump and EMS equipment. As a rookie, I always wanted to be on the Scat. Scat is also a musical term where by the singer substitutes improvised nonsense syllables for the words of a song, and tries to sound and phrase like a musical instrument. For some reason, I thought that fit my Blog.Anyway!The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was in Toledo last week. There were here to conduct Positive Pressure Ventilation tests in a vacant High School. I have been working with them (Dan Madrzykowski, Steve Kerber and friends) for a year or so. They came to Toledo in the spring of 2006 to test PPV on High Rise Structures. Can these fans create enough pressure to pressurize the stairway of a high rise building? Can they hold smoke and fire in the room of origin and can they negate the effects of a wind driven fire in high rise structures? Members of the FDNY and Chicago fire departments were here to observe the tests.In the fall of 2006, we went to Chicago and conducted live burns in a vacant 16 story apartment building looking to answer the same problems only with live fire.Last week, they came back to Toledo. My hypotheses was that "large area searches" are not practical. It takes too long to search (effectively) a restaurant, department store or a school gym in zero visibility. As firefighters, we were always taught to enter the Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health (IDLH) atmosphere and remove the victims. Wouldn't it be better if we could remove the IDLH from the Victim using PPV?Well, They did the tests and the verdict will be out in a few months. What do you think?Be safe, fight-em Smart and Be HappySkip

Skips Scats - Welcome

Welcome,

I am Skip Coleman, Asst. Chief of the Toledo Fire Department and Technical Editor for Fire Engineering. Hope your summer has begun well and uneventful. I want to thank Peter Prochilo and the other heads of Fire Engineering for giving me this opportunity to occasionally discuss "stuff" with you.

I hope to present you with some nuggets and thought provoking questions that hopefully will make us all better at our professions. I plan to throw out some questions on current events and also to delve into tactics and strategy for the first responders.

I have to cut this first "welcome to my world" blog short. The boys from NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) are in Toledo to conduct more positive pressure tests. Chiefs from FDNY and Chicago are observing as well as photographers from the Discovery Channel. I will discuss what exactly they are doing and what they found over the next few weeks.

Talk to you soon,
Skip