CFR/ARFF
- Thread starter MikeD
- Start date
ZeroPapaGolf
Well-Known Member
What are the painted circles around the "plane"?
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
Distance markers to train what a certain distance to attack from from looks like.
That, and they're also safety zone markers too. So they're dual use in that way. Red zone is hot zone, full PPE/SCBA required when inside and dismounted from truck (for handline/rescue) and truck cannot cross into (too close to make a forward turning escape, not good practice to place truck in position where backing up is only option to escape). Yellow zone is warm zone, PPE but no air required. White zone is cold zone.
Depends if the truck is so-equipped. If it is, they will be. Not all trucks have them. Also, depending on what kind of cargo area you have, underfloor such as pax plane, or all-pax config; that could be an issue too.
Biggest indicator will be smoke with no fire seen, indicating a hidden fire of some kind; never good.
The worst to fight are the all-cargo aircraft fires, with something deep seated burning. The plane will be toast, if only from the number of piercing nozzles (if so equipped) being used to penetrate the cargo area. More often than not, it's also undeclared HAZMAT of some kind, so there's that to contend with.
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Sadly, in an aircraft fire where the cabin is involved, survival rates are very low for those who cannot self extricate down a slide or aren't near an exit. Cabin is a Class A fire environment in and of itself, even without Class B accelerants, and once even a small fire starts, the heat build is so rapid that items begin burning quick. Interior temps rapidly go from 1500+ degrees near the ceiling, to about 100+ at the floor, and the toxic gases build and descend to the floor so rapidly, that survival time just due to these gases is very short. Granted, a fire of this intensity, it will crown very quickly, around 90 seconds, through the roof of the aircraft and self ventilate, but that doesn't help those onboard.
Rescue of persons trapped in this environment is very tough, if not nearly impossible. We were running 4 person interior teams, 2 on handline followed by 2 rescue. Inside the aircraft, after making entry through the left overwing exit, visibility was about 6 inches, even with the beam of the flashlight, until reaching the fire area. Still, we were only able to make rescue of 4 persons on the exit row and about one or two rows each way, before being about 40% air remaining and bushed from the effort of laddering the wing, hauling the line up there, etc. The hose team had more air and could continue further inside, but they are fighting fire, not rescuing necessarily. This doesn't take into account the real-world of aisles blocked with persons and bodies, jam-ups near exits, maneuvering of hoselines in the interior area, etc. So realistically, in a cabin fire scenario with a fire starting and not controlled, unless you get out yourself; chances of being rescued from anywhere other than about a few rows from an exit are slim. And remember, with the majority of ARFF departments, manning is fairly low with some trucks only having 1 crewmember onboard, depending on the airport.
Pax have to conted with the toxic gases far before the thermal nature of the fire ever gets to them. So you'll choke to death long before you ever burn to death. It's just not an environment conducive to survival. With water use in the cabin only (no foam is used if possible), there's always the steam component which we try to avoid, but can't always be avoided.
All this is even after the hazards of making entry to the aircraft. If it's an older airliner, and I'm entering through one of the main doors that is not yet opened, I have to pop the door about 6 inches, reach in and feel for the girt bar, press the tab (Boeing) or push the horizontal release (McD) and disarm the slide so I don't get it in the face when on a ladder [if the slide is deemed to not be necessary], and go from there. At least the new auto doors on the 767/A330, etc, when the external handle is manipulated to open the door, the slide automatically disarms.
Rescue of persons trapped in this environment is very tough, if not nearly impossible. We were running 4 person interior teams, 2 on handline followed by 2 rescue. Inside the aircraft, after making entry through the left overwing exit, visibility was about 6 inches, even with the beam of the flashlight, until reaching the fire area. Still, we were only able to make rescue of 4 persons on the exit row and about one or two rows each way, before being about 40% air remaining and bushed from the effort of laddering the wing, hauling the line up there, etc. The hose team had more air and could continue further inside, but they are fighting fire, not rescuing necessarily. This doesn't take into account the real-world of aisles blocked with persons and bodies, jam-ups near exits, maneuvering of hoselines in the interior area, etc. So realistically, in a cabin fire scenario with a fire starting and not controlled, unless you get out yourself; chances of being rescued from anywhere other than about a few rows from an exit are slim. And remember, with the majority of ARFF departments, manning is fairly low with some trucks only having 1 crewmember onboard, depending on the airport.
Pax have to conted with the toxic gases far before the thermal nature of the fire ever gets to them. So you'll choke to death long before you ever burn to death. It's just not an environment conducive to survival. With water use in the cabin only (no foam is used if possible), there's always the steam component which we try to avoid, but can't always be avoided.
All this is even after the hazards of making entry to the aircraft. If it's an older airliner, and I'm entering through one of the main doors that is not yet opened, I have to pop the door about 6 inches, reach in and feel for the girt bar, press the tab (Boeing) or push the horizontal release (McD) and disarm the slide so I don't get it in the face when on a ladder [if the slide is deemed to not be necessary], and go from there. At least the new auto doors on the 767/A330, etc, when the external handle is manipulated to open the door, the slide automatically disarms.
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A Life Aloft
Well-Known Member
Gah! I keep losing track of this thread. Terrific photos! Man, you must be losing a ton of fluids under all that gear and with the heat from the fire. How difficult is it to see through the oxygen mask and then through the visor shield? I still don't understand how firefighters even get used to the weight, the feel, of the equipment and various protective suits/gear, the confining feeling and the restrictive moments of it all.
BravoHotel
Well-Known Member
Ol' Hawks back in his CFR days.
You're pretty wiped and sweating like a pig inside the gear. The mask tends to fog up, but there are vents inside in which you can vent air onto the facepiece between your face and the mask to help keep it clear. Gotta be sparing on that, as that's also your breathing air going too. Some people never get used to the claustrophobic fit of the mask, combined with being inside an area where you can't see more than a few inches in front of you sometimes. Along with the silver prox gear used by airport firefighters, our visor for that gear is gold plated for further heat reflectivity. Once you go in to the fire, by the time you've made one or two rescues or been interior for the time of your tank, as I mentioned in the previous post above, you've got to rotate out and go to rehabilitation and take a minute to cool down and hydrate, versus just swapping SCBA tanks out and going right back into the fire.
BravoHotel
Well-Known Member
That's the funny A-model 19 with the roof hatch that the USN/USMC likes.
Yup. Also the structural panel.
The USAF B's followed onto that with adding the structural panel of the A's, that the regular -19s didn't originally have. Great, simple and tough truck series.
BravoHotel
Well-Known Member
Striker 1500 at PMDY. That is a NICE truck.
The two P-19s and TAU before the Striker arrived.
The two P-19s and TAU before the Striker arrived.
A Life Aloft
Well-Known Member
I always wondered about the claustrophobic reaction from the gear, especially as you pointed out with the very narrow and limited view that you have. It must take a tremendous amount of focus, concentration and nerve. Interesting about the plating. I didn't realize/think about the masks fogging up that badly either. The various types of protective gloves alone just seem so damn cumbersome. Man, a short time in that gear and heat, my lungs would be laboring like an asthmatic, I'd be puking and sweating like the pig who knows it's dinner.
It's a very small/tight environment and as you say may be littered with all sort of debris, luggage that has fallen down, parts of the interior which have become dislodged, bodies, sharp pieces of plastic and metal....a mess. Plus, parts of the airframe at various areas might be exploding, wires sparking and shorting, more small fires breaking out,creaking, falling/collapsing and shifting. Not a happy environment. Did they have dummies placed in the interior that you had to drag out? It must be hell trying to drag hoses through all of that tangled mess. What roughly is the weight of those types of hoses?
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Yeah, there's dummies here and there; very tough to find as doing search in that environment is extremely slow going with active interior fire. The hoses are heavy when full of water, weight depends how much of the line you're pulling and how far when charged. The part that is the problem is maneuvering charged hoseline into an interior; worse if its indeed a tangled mess. If the fire hasn't already crowned the fuselage roof and self ventilated, you have to start getting unopened exits opened up (slides too, if not deployed) and allow for horizontal ventilation, plus to provide a rapid escape for yourself if needed or for people who haven't escaped yet, if they're alive.
One Stryker replaced two -19s and the TAU?
I like the TAUs, good useful trucks and the kind I use nowdays for the Index A or possibly B contract level jobs we might get. The big Stryker was fun to drive and qualify on, as well as the other large ARFF rigs I used to crew back in the day, but I most likely won't be using those ever again on any kind of regular basis.
