Smoke Is Fuel, Wind Is Bad

FossilMedic reports back from Indianapolis:

Two tactical take-homes and a Fossil moment from the Fire Department Instructor’s Conference.

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SMOKE IS FUEL

According to Diane Feldman, they retire a FDIC presentation after three years. This was the third year retired battalion chief David Dodson did a big room presentation on “Reading Smoke.” While this presentation may be rotated off in 2009, his message left a lasting impression on me.

Consider a primary search in a smoke-filled structure. The hallway is filled with thick turbulent smoke so thick you can barely see your helmet or boxlight. Products of combustion are coating your facepiece and the velocity of the smoke is accelerating.

You are seconds away from burning to death. You are surrounded with the vaporizing contents of the room that is about to be heated to flashover. You are getting coated in a combustible glaze that will flash-fry as soon as one of the half dozen combustible gases reaches ignition. Once the first gas starts to burn, the rest of the gases will ignite.

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Pennwell sells a great DVD of Dodson’s presentation: http://www.pennwellbooks.com/artofresm.html

Dodson has a training company: http://www.readingsmoke.com/index.html

This is not your father’s products of combustion. United Kingdom firefighter and author Paul Grimwood participated in an international textbook on 3D Firefighting. IFSTA published the book in 2005. http://imis-ext.osufpp.org/imispublic/Product_Search/core/orders/product.aspx?catid=5&prodid=1678

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Dodson shows that the black boiling smoke seems to lighten up moments before flashover. Grimwood speculates that we are seeing the sublimation of vaporized carbon into ash. Ash is the dense and hot product of carbon combustion.

Maybe that positive pressure ventilation, where you walk into a clear area to seek the source of the fire, may not be such a bad idea after all.

WIND DRIVEN FIRE

NIST started working with FDNY in February on tactics involving wind-driven fires. Some details discussed at FDIC, more at the annual NFPA conference in June. http://www.fire.gov/WDF/index.htm

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FDNY photo

Hopefully, the results of this work, and the Reading Smoke concepts, will guide future fire suppression practices. We must remain aggressive without becoming deceased.

FEELING LIKE A FOSSIL, REDUX

Last week I mentioned Sean Flynn’s July 2000 edition of Esquire article about the Worcester Cold Storage tragedy. http://www.esquire.com/features/perfect-fire-0700

In another class a FDIC presenter asked how many attendees knew about the Worcester tragedy. Very few raised their hands. Part of this reflects the age of the FDIC attendees and part of this reminds me of the tyranny of time. We must never forget the sacrifices of those that went before as we learn to deal with today’s firefighting challenges.