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