Summary
Ed Hartin, a battalion chief in charge of training firefighters near Portland, claims that U.S. firefighting techniques are outdated. Three dimensional firefighting, 3-D because it accounts for the gasses that fill up a room, uses thermal-imaging equipment in which firefighters gauge the thermodynamics of a blaze and then treat unseen gases with short bursts of fog. The technique was developed by two Swedish fire engineers. The technique contradicts a hard-and-fast rule in firefighting: don't put water on smoke because the water will turn to steam and burn firefighters. The new rule is that water, broken into tiny droplets and applied in short bursts, can cool dangerous gases without turning to steam. These techniques, introduced in Sweden, the UK, and France, proved to decrease firefighter fatalities by almost half in extreme fire situations. The United States, Hartin complains, is slow to adopt such changes. In 2003, a U.S. journal released a study that dismissed 3-D's validity. The study, Hartin says, did not follow the precautions outlined by Swedish system and was doomed to fail. He argues that the U.S. must begin adopting new methods for fighting fires because today's houses are much more likely to create dangerous conditions for firefighters. Many new kinds of home insulation create much hotter fires and the ubiquity of synthetic materials emit dangerous gases when they burn.
Original source:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.06/firefight.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
Details
"The fire service in the United States is a 200-year-old institution unimpeded by progress," Hartin tells a group of firefighters at a training center in Gresham, Oregon.
What's been overlooked is the fact that the invisible gases produced in a fire can be much more dangerous than any flame.
Using thermal-imaging equipment, firefighters gauge the thermodynamics of a blaze and then attack both the seen and unseen elements using split-second pulses of fog.
In Sweden and Britain, where it is now part of the official firefighting method, 3-D has led to a more than 50 percent drop in fatalities caused by extreme fire behavior.
American firefighters have been trained to unspool massive hoses, kick down doors, and spray the hell out of anything that looks like a flame.
"You've been using your fire hose like a chain saw," Hartin says quietly to the trainees, like a supremely confident kung fu master.
Mike Traeger, a 16-year veteran of the Gresham department, says he used to laugh at Hartin and his Zen-like pronouncements.
Traeger was responding to a residential garage fire, and he and his partner, Steve Sager, approached from inside the house.
Sager hit the fire with a traditional stream of water, which shot right through the room to the back wall, doing nothing to cool the gases swirling near the ceiling.
Traeger slammed the door shut and could sense the gases pressing against the structure's skin.
The same goes for the stuff inside the building, like foam rubber seat cushions, plastic computer cases, and nylon carpet fibers.
As a result, today's blazes produce two to three times as much energy as a typical fire did in 1980, and most of that energy emerges as flammable gases.
Their solution contradicted one of the oldest rules in the business: Don't put water on smoke, particularly when there are
firefighters nearby.
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Wednesday, June 08, 2005
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