We are not trying to be overly redundant here. We know this video is all over the internet already, but we wanted to get a copy of it up here for the archive purposes. We also wanted to thank the numerous people who emailed us the heads up on this video. Apparently, Allen Bell from Dover Fire captured this video on his HelmetCam of a Randolph (NJ) firefighter having to perform a headfirst ladder bailout. Fortunately, the firefighter who bailed only suffered minor injuries.
[flv]http://www.vententersearch.com/videos/flv/randolphbail.flv[/flv]
Head first ladder bailouts have always been a somewhat controversial topic in the fire service. It’s one of those things that you hope to never have to rely on, but nice to have in your bag of tricks if the time comes. It appears that this firefighter was attempting to perform the rotation or spin maneuver on the ladder in order to some down the ladder feet first. There are pros and cons to that. Hopefully someone can get us more details on the situation in the near future. Like everything else we have on the site, please use this video as a training opportunity for you and your crew.
…On a side note, there are a number of other things happening on the fireground that could also serve as learning opportunities also…
We hope the injured firefighter has a speedy recovery!
The department must only own one ladder…had to keep relocating it as needed. Where was the truck company?
hope he recovers quickly
A Mayday is the ultimate test of ICS. They got the Brother out and that is the name of the game. This video does show that you need to cut holes! Now that you have a firefighter in trouble on the top floor is not the time to start cutting a hole.
When someone is doing a ladder bailout and they do not imeadiately spin around that’s a CLUE. They are exhausted, possibly struggling with a face piece sucking to their face, or missed that training session. Go get them! The helmet cam was footing the ladder so I won’t fault him for not going himself. Had he went up they could have two fall instead of one.
This is a “truck forum” so we won’t mention over crowding at the door or spagetti on the porch.
Learn from what you see in the video and don’t through rocks if you live in a glass house. I have been to plenty of fires where we have over crowded the door, too much slack also.
it looks like he was trying a combination of head first slide/rotate and got confused.Agree that several people were telling him what to do. Go get him. **** this appeared early on so a ladder company may not have been there yet and they may not have a ladder company close. There are areas where there is no ladder truck available at all.
HOpe our brother recovers quickly.
They did have extra man power to get more ladders. My dept is at fault for not throwing ladders all the time. I have to ask if this is a volunteer company with a lot of pov’s on scene and one engine.
and also there seem to have been a defensive attack and an offensive attack going on at the same time. I am not sure if this contributed at all, and hope it didn’t.
It will be interesting to see the final report.
be safe
This really illustrates the importance of good ladder company operations at every job. Maybe they didn’t have a truck co. on scene. But, they did have about 10 firemen in the front yard. Couldn’t someone put up some more ground ladders? How about roof vent? 2nd means of egress? Again its easy to arm chair quarterback but we eventually have to hold people accountable. I hope this fireman makes a quick and full recovery and this department can learn from its mistakes.
While I am glad that everyone escaped without serious injury THIS TIME, it seems like companies that respond like this are only biding their time before something truly tragic happens. I admit I don’t know anything about this company or their SOPS, etc. but from what I quickly saw in the video…what happened isn’t surprising.
-In the first 10 SECONDS you hear a PASS alarm that nobody else seems to hear (did we miss the initial MAYDAY?).
-No real crew continuity with people getting pulled left and right for different tasks (“I need help with a search back here..” and “who’s got air? Somebody get up there!”)
-Command that chooses to run around screaming orders instead of using a radio and command board.
No one is really sure how many people are operating inside or even who it was that bailed out! Possible opposing hoselines, people operating with no helmets/facepieces/regulators/etc. In a word, Chaos.
No department is perfect, I know. But you can only hope that this close-call will serve as a wakeup call to a lot of departments to get it together!
All good points, fellers, so I wont repeat. Another direct contributing factor was the ladder angle. This is an excellent example of where “the book” needs shoved directly up someone’s a$$. When you throw ladder as a means of emergency egress, EXAGGERATE the angle, so when people do bail with an SCBA they don’t fall. And, ok, I will repeat, I agree completely, go up and help the dude. Lastly, good job maintaining to everyone that commented so far. It’s nice to see we CAN constructively criticize without being dicks. Keep it up!
One point no one has addresses was after he fell 6 to 10 feet (hard to tell exactly) and was laying on the ground, not one fire fighter evaluated him for injuries. He was dragged it looks like 20+ feet. It was a bad situation to start with, but could have been made much worst if he had been injured further from being moved. Once he was on the ground there was no need to move him till he was long boarded. Alot went wrong in this video, it is a miracle he was not more seriously injured.
According to fire rescue 1 (http://www.firerescue1.com/fire-news/761721-head-first-bailout-in-nj-captured-on-helmet-cam/) The guy with the helmet cam was part of the RIC. My question for you guys is, do you feel the RIC did it’s job to it’s full potential? I know that if I were assigned to the RIC I’d want to find out where the fire is being attacked, any searches going on, etc… My goal, even though I may not be with a truck co., is to get a ladder everywhere a FF could possibly be (on the second floor, ie. near the fire, or in the area the search crew is) and to have the man power pull staged out front where the IC can see them
Another thing…y were there like 5 guys standing in the back yard on air? …it takes 5seconds to throw your mask on before you get into the fire…y make your life harder.
Just watched the video again…and realized something…at this fire even if I had my RIC man pull out front IC would probably never see them cause he was too busy running and yelling and after the FF fell he decided to climb the ladder without any PPE and have a look at the room the guy came from…I mean cmon, there’s a REASON a FF in full PPE bailout of there..why the hell would you go up there without anything on? If your concealed there’s another FF there, send a FF in PPE up to check…just my 2cents…
Wow. This is an impressive video EVERYONE should be watching and learning from. I used to work at one time for a deparment like this….and yes, it is as scary as this looks.
1. ICS, learn it, and do it now.
2. Get water on the fire, a 2-1/2″ at the front door. Get it in, and start putting it out instead of looking at it and yelling.
3. Ventilation anyone?
4. Ladders, you have 300 guys standing around, do something.
5. Why was the bailout necessary? Air management? disoriented? Fire conditions?
6. CLEAN OUT THE WINDOW! Take it out, take it out, take it all the way out.
i agree with what everyone has said, no need to reiterate, but this shows the importance of throwing ladders to every window.
ok great video to watch and learn from . the main thing i noticed was just the utter chaos going on . lets try to calm down when were working i know its stressful situation but we need to take in the wole picture i pretty much agree with everyone about throwing ladders . also in our protocol if you are part of the ric company you do a 360 of the entire scene , throw ladders as appropriate find out what operations are going on and where then position yourself in the front yard “at a state of readiness ” with all of your tools sitting on a tarp and no one touchs those tool s except for the ric company. all ric members should stay by that tarp until they are needed. i hope that the firefighter in this video is ok . i would also be interested to see anyone elses protocol on ric ops.
With RIC I think one of the most overlooked concepts is they can be throwing ladders and doing other fire ground tasks as long as they are packed up and ready to go in after someone. I have seen that with a lot of departments. Seems like people get pissed off when assigned RIC and just want to sit or walk around and watch.
yard breathers
So happy that our brother is going to be fine, and I’m happy that this video is available to be used as a training resource! Most of all, I hope that Randolph uses it!
Agree with all the points mentioned, but what about:
1) was there staging set up? how can an officer in the rear just yell for “more people with tanks” and not get anyone? clearly no staging usage…I can’t believe that an officer shows up on scene asks someone “who’s inside” and no one knows!
2) what kind of mayday was that called? how about what floor we believe the firefighter to be on? what side of the building? even better – who the ff is (obviously there was a serious lack of accountability going on there) where was his teammate (maybe the guy bailing out)
3) why would you move the ladder when there are ffs on the porch roof? you just stranded them! (are there budget cuts and you have only one ladder? more ladders were only called for after the
4) where is the stokes basket for FAST team retrieval of a ff? what about FAST techniques for rescuing downed FF (using the pack as a harness) rather than dragging the FF by all his extremities like a rag doll
5) where are the interior team’s radios? they should be the one’s calling for a mayday when things turned to sh*t
6) agree with Ryan on all his points, especially #2 – it seemed there was no urgency on the attack?
I agree with all of the points that have been brought up here. One that I will add to it is on the topic of accountability.
Ideally, after the bail out, the evac tones/ horns/ signals etc… should be sounded and the building evacuated and a PAR check done to help ensure tha all the other members are accounted for. This would help identify members (if any) that are missing or injured.
I say ideally, because I know every situation is different and I don’t want to come across as trying to “armchair quarterback” it, just puting this out there as a reminder.
Watched it again, I count 8 guys at the front door, and it liiks like an 1-3/4, not a 2-1/2 like I thought. There are at least 3 pieces of apparatus there. So, where are all the ladders off those trucks? Now, the other thing I can’t understand is that the ladder is moved from one side to the other…it seems B to D side, you just put guys up on the B side roof on the porch to enter the second floor. How did this monkey get all the way across the house and then realize that conditions were bad enough to warrant a bailout. It was about a minute from the time they went to the porch roof to the time he was trying to bail out. And lastly, there is barely any smoke coming trom the egress point, assuming this is a 2-1/2 balloon construction house, that’s probably a bedroom. If you have no line and are cutoff from retreating, CONTROL THE DOOR! Anyone know where his helmet is either?
Lots of comments guys, but I will jump on the band wagon of a few. The ladder angle was far too steep, even looked too steep for the 75 book angle. Secondly being the victim of a very near miss the care after is most important. I’m not an EMS guy, but this certainly looks like a stop and take a breath moment. Lets think before we spaz and snatch the brother around. Numerous firemen including 2 I work with have had serious neck and back injuries when falling on their airpacks. Anyway MOST important is that all members are alive and will return to work. Speedy recovery Brother.
First of all cut holes in the roof!
Second, the primary mistake in the ladder bailout was not hooking his arm through the rungs. Instead he had all of his body to the outside of the ladder causing him to pitch forward.
Does anyone else feel that ENGINE CO. operations could have contributed to this brother being jammed up?, I see more then one instance of handline being operated into windows from outside the fire building,which could very easily create adverse conditons within ( this is a very unsafe procedure in depts with aggressive interior operations, unless the line is directly protecting a brother at a window)
Has anyone here heard first hand what the conditions were in the room that the brother bailed out from? just curious as you only see a moderate smoke condition from that window( i did see a good fire conditon in the front and rear perhaps the brother shut the door behind him?) just trying to get a full understanding
we should all take something away from this job….
Very good points all the way up.
All I will say is that this brother got out and onto the PAR list and not the LODD list. And hopefully he will return to duty soon.
I dont know if it was posted above but i would recomend the window hang in this situation to keep your head torso and 2 lmbs out of the heat. This way, the ladder at its height and angle would have worked a little better.
We can always sit back, analize, and say “what if”… but thats always better that wishing to ourselves “only if”
Lot of good points, interesting comments and unfortunately it takes situations like this for everyone to learn something. Hoping a Speedy recovery to all. I also work for a FD that could do to throw more ladders, and just recently had the argument about exaggerating the angle of the ladder. Lot of people say do it the book way, but when and if you have to de-A$$, and exaggerated angle can make or literally break you. Nice to see the helmet cams doing a good job, wish my dept would allow them, but then again, i ride a short bus….
I got this from our training officer and thought it was a good bit of drill video. There could be soooo many things that could be talked about here but the bottom line is the fireman is alive and has a good story.
The Dept. will be drilling on bailouts I bet and maybe even investing in bailout bags and ropes now. Hopefully this makes everyone who watches it want to have a means of egress in their pocket and the skill set to use it in their head.
Love the helmet cams, my agency does not allow them either, bummer (my helmet cam would be boring as shit though).
Things go bad – we make mistakes – we learn. Situations like this remind me why I carry a pre-rigged escape system with hook on my side at all times. I basically bring a ladder to every window with me when I am inside the building with that escape system. When the fire is at my back side, I may only be able to rely on myself to get out.
Decisions have to be based on conditions, get away from that and you start creating conditions. And there were plenty of decisions here from IC right down to the bailing FF.
Breakdown the actions into decisions made here. We don’t know the basis of any of them, but you’ve already seen the questioning in a couple other posts.
I question the exterior lines. No explanation necessary in my opinion.
I question moving the FF after the fall in that manner. Look at the condition of where he was. Moving him was the first thought in a 15 ft fall scenario outside the burning house? Sometimes you have to ask yourself, what would an untrained person do? Are we doing things that an untrained person would do?
I question the ladder being taken from the crew on the roof. Why was putting 4 more guys in jeopardy their only option?
I do not question this FF needing to get out, and I won’t no matter what anyone except him says about it. Everyone has there own internal gage, can’t change that.
But I do question the method based on the visible condition at the window he was bailing from. There’s a big difference between doing something and doing what needs to be done. Again, this is a condition based decision. I don’t know his reasoning, but if you have an air emergency this probably isn’t your first choice of escape tactic. You’re moving on your own, you have a window and a radio. And even if you do go head first when you might not need to, you can’t know just half the technique.
Heat and fire, different altogether, the body is gonna do what the body is gonna do.
Though I know the intent, I just don’t agree that the bottom line is “no one got killed”, ever. That’s the goal. The bottom line is training and competency and a healthy respect for what you’re up against.
Last, there is no reason that any firefighter should not be fully trained in this and other techniques of escape….and when to use them. And about armchair quarterbacking…..BS…..there’s some problems in that video like we’ve all seen at our own fires. How do we change it if we don’t spell it out? We change make changes without taking a good look at what we’re doing.
A captain wearing an airpack outside while not in a hazardous condition. Thats a waste of air. Thats beyond a rookie mistake. They was needing someone with airpack that had air in it, to go up on roof. At the start of video had line at front door, why wasn’t they inside knocking down the fire. Seemed to be alot of talking and not enough working. Think we need to realize that there can only be one chief and rest of us have to be indians doing the work. The video was a great training tool, and can be used to show everyone in fire service what we all do and need to do better. Hope the firefighter that fell has or will recovery soon. Hope that everyone statys safe.
Some audio, another video, and photos that show more of the scene, house, and apparatus positioning are available here:
http://www.onthescenephotoz.com/Other/RandolphCarrellRd/11073212_Bmkzz#778781963_icJfg
http://www.firesceneaudio.com/2010/01/firefighter-mayday-randolph-nj.html
Interesting call, lots to learn from.
listen people, i was there when all this went down. first off yes it is a volunteer department and it was a daytime call. we were using resources as we had them available. this was called in as a house fire with entrapment. i was on the rescue (third apparatus on scene). there were 2 engines, no ladder, and a FAST team on approach.
multiple things went wrong on our initial attack starting with the fact that the house was on fire for a good 20 minutes before anyone even called the police and on top of that our dispatch was slow on calling us in too.
these men risked their lives to try and save someone that was already dead. they did what they were supposed to do. the room flashed because of the multiple different additions and poor construction of the house. this house was also something out of the tv show hoarders. there was stuff piled up everywhere which also contributed to the high heat heavy smoke conditions.
please before you start making rude comments and telling us what we should have and should not have done, at least find out what happened and why these decisions and actions were made.
the firefighters have made full recoveries and are back with their normal lives.
Kyle,
I am glad that someone that was actually there is commenting, but I have a very serious concern with one of your comments and it really has nothing to do with this fire in particular. It has to do with an overall strategy and risk philosophy.
You stated “these men risked their lives to try and save someone that was already dead. they did what they were supposed to do”
Did you really mean to say this? I hope not. If so reread this statement a couple of times and think about it. Our job is not to risk our lives to save non-saveable people or buildings for that matter. This is what gets people injured or killed for no reason. In my opinion, you should only risk your life and your firefighters lives when you have a life that is still savable. It makes no sense to do otherwise.
I am thankful that your brothers are ok and back on the job.
I agree with many of the above posts. There are many things to be learned about this fire. From scene control to basic fire tactics.
I think that it is obvious that the FF fell because of exhaustion. His body language on the way out the window says it all. He was spent.
However, the major thing I noticed is that all of these guys are wearing class II seat harnesses. That raises the question of do these guys carry bail out systems? If so, why didn’t the FF utilize his? If not then why wear the harnesses all the time? Especially since as Kyle says above there was no truck company on scene.
Glad to hear he is going to be fine. Glad to see a department post a video to be learned from even if it means they will be embarassed by it.
as a LT in a volunteer department i can completely understand where kyle is coming from, daytime calls, dispatching problems that happen on simple calls never mind when its a working fire, men in the Dept. that just dont give a rats a$$ about stuff because we are just “volunteer”, unfortunatly someone forgot to tell the fire that we are just “volunteer”.. back to topic of course there is things that went wrong and should have could have would have thats every fire thats every call members are always saying hey maybe we shoulda? but the facts, not criticizing the IC but know when to late is to late to make a save, we to once had this situation had a fire started on the 1st floor and dispatching problems only one company was sent at 2am, 2 elderly people on the 2nd floor couldnt get out but the fire got out of hand quickly and with no water supply things went sour fast.. members got trapped on the 2nd floor as fire was starting to involve the 2nd floor and one guy did the same thing bailed head first and fell about 10ft luckly he was ok but it was already to late for those people and it had been probably since the dispatch, there was ALOT of things that we needed to learn from that and it worked for a month or two now things are back to the way they were, guys dont want to train, people think that “nothing happens here” fire officals run into calls like a chief… sorry i got off topic a bit but main thing is learn learn learn from things not just from working fires from each and every call and TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN, it will help you stay foucused and some what calm in bad situations.
Like others, I carry a bailout set up in my coat pocket, but it’s not the end all be all of self rescue. Remember you can also hang and drop from the window.
At least no one ran around the house and broke out all the windows. Ventilation is an essential tool but it must be done effectivly with fire attack. In the video we don’t see interior crews operating. Had someone vented the windows on the B/C corner this fire might have seriously injured the crews trying to make the second floor rescue.
I was not at the fire but had many friends there. I believe this was the 2nd or 3rd structure fire this town had the entire year, not in a bad sense…please don’t mis-interpret. Training is always key and instumental, especially when you dont have a heavy call volume for real-time experience. Allen Bell is a personal friend of mine and I wish to express a lot of gratitude for him offering this video for its TRAINING purposes. We can all critique, but soo many factors are too unknown to make judgements of this departments tactics. As I understand it, the 84 year old occupant was at the C side of the structure upon arrival of the first police officer and civilian responder. The fire had already been rapidly progressed and she was overcome. I have been told that the fire was started in the first floor on a piece of furniture and dragged out of the house by the two sons of the victim, setting several other small fires in the “hoards” of debris. The two sons remained outside the structure and a neighbor noticed something burning on the porch, not noticing an inferno brewing within the residence. The victim was on the phone with 911 for several minutes before they lost contact. A vent-enter-search was conducted immediately to try and save her life. Unfortunately, the charley side room flashed and required the three members in the structure to find alternate means of egress. two were pulled onto the rear roof as the third was dangling to the ladder on the alpha side. The members that went to the roof were from the RIC team and were trying to locate the three members and try to get a vantage of the second floor. Ladder angle was definately a factor in the fire fighters fall and apparently exhaustion on his behalf. There is plenty to learn, plenty to critique, but we only have a piece of a clip to decipher. Kyle, please don’t take a defensive position to the critiquing from these boards. We all have our 2 cents and want to know more, but can only base our assumptions on what is provided. If I have mis-interpreted anything or misrepresented any of the facts, please correct me and give us a better understanding of the situations. It is a great thing to hear that out of this tragedy, the men are ok, but it is still a tragedy and an incredible experience to learn a lot from. Be safe guys.
I got two things, number one, from what I saw there wasnt a heavy smoke contition, no sign of a flashover, no nothing, so why the big rush to get out? Second thing, by the looks of it this is a department that runs medical call. So why are we moving a patient by his arms and legs who just fell 15 feet?
Kyle
I do not see anyone being rude or making ill advised comments. You say fire fighters, were there more than one who were injured. Nobody is really arm chair quarterbacking, we are simply given a photo or video and asked to comment. Please feel free to enlighten us to why certain decisions were made, and some of your sog’s.
Also if 2 engines are on scene then that would put, in most cases 2 24′ ladders and 2 14′ roof ladders. Just a thought. There appeared to be plenty of people to throw those ladders. Like everyone else says, learn from this site, and even when learning from your peers take the good, and leave bad habits to them.
also there was fire for 20min pta, 4 guys on a roof with another ff that had to be rescued. Thank god that roof did not give way under the weight.
Outstanding that a department has permitted this to be shared. As a career Battalion Chief, and having to manage a few ‘real life’ MAYDAY incidents I can confirm the on scene chaos which occurs. I can only pray this department conducts a “Near Miss” investigation and then shares it’s findings so we all can learn.
Operationally we all can find fault in this job…but after 32 years as a career fireman…I’ve yet to be the ‘perfect job’!
I was there as one of the later departments coming in. I may not have the insight of Kyle or Rich, but I’ll give it a go. From my understanding, there were quite a few cocklofts and void spaces, giving the fire free range over the upper floors. It was a stubborn fire where the ff’s that ended up bailing entered division 2 on the charlie side via the ladder seen earlier on in the video. they went in, started an initial search when the room started to flash, one ff bailed out on the ladder (which had been moved from the charlie to the delta side) while the others went back out the charlie side onto the porch roof.
As far as truck company operations, like Kyle said, the truck was one of the later apparatus coming in. By the time I got there, there were 2 engines in front of the building. A couple hours after the initial attack began, it was decided to try and shoehorn an aerial ladder in. I believe they put it in the driveway.
I believe there was a question made of staging. I can’t speak for Randolph, but I can say with my department, many times there are problems with staging. People come and go in their personal vehicles, leaving their first accountability tags on the nearest apparatus. Secondly, with a few exceptions, many ff’s will gear up, pack up, grab a tool, and wait to be assigned. The problem arises when there’s no particular staging area, and no staging officer. At which point, ff’s will start to follow the IC around waiting to be assigned. With no staging officer assigned, the chief has to turn around and pick and choose his crew for a particular assignment. Ideally, the ff’s outside would group themselves up into crews. That way, the IC could turn to the staging officer and say, “I need a 3 man crew to man an attack line etc.” and the staging officer would have a crew ready to go.
Overall, it was a very stubborn fire. From what I’ve heard, there were several points where the fire was thought to be under control, but it would flare back up. Eventually a CAFS system was brought in.
I hate CAFS. no offense to ayone using it, but in my opinion, foam is for fuel. Aggressive interior firefighting puts out fires. standing inside a doorway does not put a fire out. Got to get in. 1 3/4″ does a lot more than many people give credit, but 2 1/2 is also a good option when you have the manpower. Unfortunatly, the conditions in that house may have been too far advanced and unknown to risk an agressive attack, but everything must be coordianted accordingly. You can’t have guys vent-enter-search if you are not going to make an agressive attack on the fire below or around them to give them time to conduct those searches efficiently. A line in the front door is seen not advancing, and a line in the back is flowing into the windows. It is diffficult to understand a lot of what is seen in this video, so hearing from anyone that was more involved with the fire attack and searches would be great. Let us know what we don’t see happening.
Can’t tell 100% but from the video it appears that the exterior handline on the roof may have pushed the fire on the member that bailed. The light smoke coming from the window that he bailed from leade me to believe that he got into that room and closed the door. If that is the case he made a very heads up move. Having never been in that situation I can only imagine that finding the room, closing the door, and shitting yourself all at the same time takes a lot out of you and he was exhausted. I don’t really fault the guy that bailed, he appeared to be doing a search for the reported trapped occupants and got jammed up by uncoordinated fire attacks.
The ladder angle was an obvious issue. I don’t know if it was a factor or not here but this reason is why I do not like to tie the bed and fly sections together with the halyard. I perfer to tie the halyard to the bed section only so I can raise the ladder easily by myself without untieing anything.
The biggest thing that pissed me off about this fire is the chief being quoted in the paper as saying:
Wagner said firefighters had to use flame-retardant foam from the Brookside Fire Department in Mendham to put out the blaze.
We could not get the water to stick long enough to the wood, the fire chief said late this evening. If it werent for Brookside, wed still be battling the fire.
Are you kidding me Chief? If the Chief really said this, which I hope he did not, he should turn in his bunker gear and become a CAFS salesman. I am not aregueing that CAFS doesn’t work but water puts out fires very well also when used by properly trained agressive firemen.
Thank God the firefighter in question is ok.
This entire video should be shown in FFI and all FIRE OFFICER courses as a “What not to due”. The command structure was none existent. He looked more conserned with his vest and radio then the fire or his men. Hell, I heard someone say that no one was in the building. I saw guys on a section of roof that had no vertical connection to the fire room, and they were without tools. Every window on the first floor appeared to me punched out except those connected to the fire room. And by the way, if you wanna be a hero and punch a window, TAKE IT ALL! I can go on Monday MOrning Quarterbacking all day…Im off duty. The fact is none of us know the entire situation except what we see.
If I were in this video wearing a white helmet, Ild give it back. Its fires like this that make us look like stupid and ignorant. “Let no fireman’s ghost say his training let him down”, well here it would have been his officers. Embarrassing!
God Bless and Keep Us All Safe!
I’m glad all the Brothers are ok and my sympathy to the family of the civilian that was lost.
I used this video with my crew, with positive results by the end of my training. We are a small career department and this fire could have easily been in my town. I have to agree with Vulcan, critiques are great, but critisism that goes out of the house does the Fire Service an injustice. We don’t need to hurt ourselves, plenty of folks want to do that for us. In 28 years, I’ve had my share of jobs that went south! We must continue to train and learn to keep our members safe!
I think there’s a lot of good comments above.
I’d like to address this one which is more an issue for volunteer departments:
>The problem arises when there’s no particular staging
>area, and no staging officer…ff’s will start to
>follow the IC around waiting to be assigned.
That’s not staging.
That’s a manpower pool.
We still do a lot of POV response to the scene in my region; my company on a evening structure fire regularly turns out twice as many members as we have seats in apparatus.
As first taught to me over twenty years ago:
Any member of my department without an assignment is to report to:
1) The back of our Engine-Tank (primary attack piece);
2) If the ET is not on scene, then our Rescue;
3) If neither are on scene (rare), then whatever piece is closest to the fire unless another has been designated by the OIC.
Crews are assigned from the manpower pool with members and either an officer or senior firefighter put in charge of them.
I personally like to keep a crew together for the rest of the incident instead of constantly assembling new ones.
The typical rotation will go this way:
Arrive on scene POV, gear up.
Put on an airpack.
Report to manpower pool.
A command officer (OIC, Operations, another Chief working under Ops) makes up a crew assigning a line officer or senior firefighter to be in charge of them and assigns an assignment.
Crew gets the appropriate tools and goes to work.
Complete assignment, officer or senior firefighter reports that to officer who made the assignment.
Change bottle (as needed).
Go through manpower pool and complete another assignment.
After second bottle take off airpack, go through rehab.
Retrieve airpack, get a fresh bottle, report back to manpower pool and repeat.
There are going to be incidents that just turn into monkeys loving a football, but that shouldn’t be the norm. You can have POV response and not have FFs following around the Chief like lost puppies.
it looks like the ladder, eithier and 24 or 28 was brought around from the back to aid in this firefighter bail out. why was the extension ladder not extended? that was what made for the steep angle. when i went to rookie school a 24 was a one man throw…seems like if it had been extended, then pulled backwards to over exaggerate the climbing angle he may have had more of a slide to the bottom. since it wasnt extended, it was simply pushed closer to the building increasing the climbing angle and by the time his feet followed the momentum was too much. i am glad that he is back to health and that no one was put out of work for a fire with no savable victims…b safe.
No doubt that the FD here showed up and went to work. They did as good a job as their training allowed. I think that what needs to be emphasized more than bailout training and having Gemtor harnesses on everybody is the need to recognize a loser when you pull up. one of the FF on scene stated earlier that they had several things go wrong early on- delayed alarm, short manned (no truck), collier mansion and bldg. const issues, etc. First due officers owe it to their men to make an assessment for victim viability and offensive/defensive strategy. They need to continue that assesment throughout the incident. I work for a super aggresive dept, and love to go inside and handle the business, but sometimes it just wont work. A civilian has less than 6 minutes of viability on todays hypertoxic firegrounds. Risk vs. Benefit. Good to see all the brothers made it back to duty. lessons learned!
Maybe if the firefighter at around 1:33 into the video was not attacking the fire from the outside and pushing it thru the second floor where that firefighter was then maybe his life would have not been in jeopardy.
I agree with all the points and man VENT, VENT, VENT and a coordinated INTERIOR attack when crews are conducting interior operations.. Men missing or maydays ongoing get those lines in the building and start pushing, get the house open, and ladders to every window rapidly! Fog nozzle in the rear window and no ventilation didn’t help the interior operations!
Oh one last thing once a ladder is placed and members begin to operate off that ladder the ladder stays!!!
nice trauma shears…
WOW, Derek! I was gonna make fun of the exact same thing! Oddly enough, that is my name, too. And It’s even spelled the same!
Above, Andrew has a link to some on scene pic,s. I belive there from this incident. I would really strongly consider taking down the pics of the fire chief smiling and mugging for a picture, really didn’t see anything I would be proud of in this incident. Come on man…….
HTR-SQ1, you are *ABSOLUTELY* right…how anyone can smile during a call like this is beyond me.
As many ppl pointed out, it was not a smooth operation and command decisions (or lack thereof) were directly responsible for almost losing a brother.
Just an FYI, That is not the Randolph fire chief in the pic smiling. He is the chief of the county fire academy and part of the state task force. Not too sure of the whole title or actual role, but still not a scene to be smiling for pics.
i heard alot of mayday calls and them sayin 1 firefighter missing where the RIT team. , wish the firefighter a speedy recovery.
Lots of great points and plenty to learn from this video. As an up and coming officer i have but one to add. Regardless of what kind of call it is, Dumpster fire or working fire with entrapment, the IC MUST set the stage and take control of the scene as soon as possible after arrival. If the IC is running back and forth between B and D sides, what do you think his men/women are going to do?? The IC is the band leader of sorts, he sets the tempo that everybody else follows. Now I am not trying to single out the chief and i am aware that it was a daytime call will limited resources. We all want to step up when a neighbor is down. This is the perfect opportunity for freelancing and “I wanna be a Hero” syndrome to kick in, which is why the IC needs to keep that control and harness that extra energy to work towards a positive outcome. Hats off to all involved for allowing the rest of us an opportunity to learn from your close call. I will be showing this to the rest of my guys so they too can learn. Finally best wishes for a quick recovery brother. Be safe Brothers.
OK, first off I am glad the FF’s are all OK. Second, for the most part no one is being rude just critiquing what they see. Here is what I saw from watching the video.
– You don’t need a ladder truck to do truck work! We do our best to throw ladders and our FAST fills in in this roll as needed too.
– VENT, enough said
– Pick a tactic and stick to it. There were crews inside and water being dumped in a window. Not good, FF1 stuff here.
– I don’t buy the whole volunteer, daytime, POV BS. If you have daytime staffing issues beef up your first alarm assignment. On structure fire boxes in my town we have 2E’s, 1T, and FAST in addition to our department on the first alarm. We are a small volunteer company and not too proud to have help coming. It has worked very well on several occassions. We also don’t allow POV’s as this creates an accountability issue.
– Not trying to be rude but if the FF wearing the camera is assigned to the RIC why did he breath a whole bottle of air while working outside the building. If hed had to go to work to save someone he would be of no use.
– Finally, since this was a fatal fire I’m not sure I would want videos being posted all over the internet at this point even if everything is 110% correct. The victim may not have been able to be saved but lawyers don’t care that we are all doing our best and trying to save lives. That being said I think it is a good tool for training just like critiques of our own calls are.
Just my 2 cents, thanks for letting me share. I enjoy reading everyones input on this site.
–
Ok first off let me say this all happened in my town. Now to Scott the post above me I appreciate your two cents and I understand where your coming from, too everyone else on here that ARE being rude with the comments, you all need to understand one thing, its one point of view. You cant get the whole story from one camera angle so the fact that most of you are picking apart this entire incident from one camera view is completely ridiculous. Im all for looking at a situation such as this and critiquing it in order to learn from mistakes that where made, but looking at one camera angle and ridiculing things you dont see because they arent in the view is not right. There is a post somewhere on here I read where someone stated something like, why did they move the ladder when there where guys on the roof, why?! Because the second floor interior crew got flashed on and there was a brother in danger hanging out a window and that was the closest ladder, and there where other ladders that the roof guys could use. Bottom line, a brother was in danger and needed to be helped. and another thing, he fell from the ladder because he was already disoriented from what happened. Listen everyone, Im not trying to say anyone on here is right or wrong, but what I AM trying to say is dont pick apart an entire incident from just a small view of it. Look at whats going on with what you can see, absorb it and then decide whats right and wrong with what you CAN see.
General considerations I like to emplore to my students;
A) If we stay calm, everyone else stays calm. Stop Yelling. Especially through your facepiece.
B) Put water on the fire and a lot of problems diminish.
C) Portable ladders on all sides.
D) FAST / RIT must be called early, make an efficient size-up and insure they are ready to save US.
E) Don’t get “sucked in” by the fire. Remember your assignment and do your job regardless of the lack of glory in it.
F)Protect means of egress (handline) .
G) 2nd line backs up the first line.
H) Ventilate for “fire” OR “life” and know what comes with that decision.
I) Be aware of “opposing” hand lines.
NEVER be quick to bash the operational process of another department because we all need to take these gifts and LEARN from them. If we critique and learn so as to be better for next time, that’s all we can ask for. Haven’t met a fireman in 25 years that hasn’t
f%*#$% up at least once. I know I have.
Would love to know the resume’ of some of those hiding behind their computer screens with all the answers.
RS FDNY
As happy as I am that the video was made public, the Chief of this department should be under the microscope. ICS in this country has saved more lives then any RIT company. Accountablity disipline. Has the term “Free lancing” come up yet? This video reinforces the fact that every crew member should have a portable radio. ICS ICS ICS…Co-ordinated fire attack with ventilation. This is the Basics of firefighting. Ground ladders are more then truck orniments. The guy with the helmet cam, what was his assignment?
I am happy that the firefighter is safe, this department will learn and mature from this incident. perhaps someone from there will hit the seminar circut.
I would like to put it out there one more time…is there anyone from the fire, at the scene, involved with the incident that can give us a complete story? Is there a web site that can show more than just this helmet camera angle other than the 22 pictures of people and smoke? Is there anyone who can tell us the nitty-gritty details of the initial attack lines, back up lines…perhaps the IC or subbordinate that saw a good portion of the ops to give us more insight to go on. We are all involved in a general critique of this video and what IT shows. There are many points to argue, but this is all we get to go on. Don’t be offended if you can’t give us more to go on. Sean, you said the ladder was needed and I couldn’t agree more, it was close and utilized. But you also stated there were other ladders for those roof guys to use. I have slow-moed the video a dozen times and in the slight glimpse’s to the rear of the structure, no other ladder is seen. You can’t just expect those guys under those smoke and fire conditions to be wandering around that roof looking for a ladder to get down, especially if the conditions were to deteriorate even further. You also had two other firefighters in the flashover bail out of that very rear window where the Dover guys were. We don’t get to see if a ladder was thrown right back in its place, and we don’t get to see any of the 1000 different jobs going on in the scene. Please gives us more insight. What was your assignment at the fire, and what can you tell us that we are not seeing? Again, I agree with the brother in need dangling out a window needing the nearest ladder and I myself would expect my guys to do the same for me. But like it has been stated here many times, this is all we have to go on and I am sure everyone following this thread is thriving for more information. Please correct me if I have not got facts correct or out of order.
Rich Mackey, Newark, NJ FD.
Whats to learn?
-Dont let your partner fall down the ladder!!!
The guy to the right is just watching him, he should of gone up and at least pinned the guy to the ladder untill more help arrived to bring him down.
-where was the bailout mans partner? was he inside alone or did he get seperated?
-most of all- dont try some new technique from your “bag of tricks or tools” that you saw a video of on the internet or have only trained on once 5 yrs ago.
Hope everyone is ok.
I’m not going to comment on the video, Enough has already been said so that we could all learn. But I will comment on RS FDNY’s comment.
“B) Put water on the fire and a lot of problems diminish”. “E) Don’t get “sucked in†by the fire. Remember your assignment and do your job regardless of the lack of glory in it.”
AMEN Brother, you said it perfect
Glad to see everyone is OK
Very well said RS FDNY!!! Hope you don’t mind but I’m going to cut/paste that post! Great reminders for everyone, all ranks, and all years on the job.
There’s all kinds of problems here and it doesn’t matter whether you’re paid or volunteer. No one is imune from getting jammed up sometimes, but you’re supposed to fall back on your basic training in these times. You take a line in with you and get water on that fire. Push it out of the structure, not in. That’s a start. Ladder the structure! Don’t rely on precious ladder trucks, also known as “crowd pleasers”. Your engines carry ground ladders for a reason. Use them. Make use of your manpower. I don’t care what you say, you had a lot there. There are paid departments doing it with fewer people. Command needs to delegate responsibility, but it doesn’t soley lie on his shoulders. You can take intiative without freelancing. You need to be pro-active. Fundamentals!
R.S FDNY said it all!!! We all watched and gained something from this video I HOPE, thats what this is all about rite?? Please to the members that were involved with this fire Take these comments and RUN with them, good and bad, run with them. I thank you for the lesson learned!!! stay safe!! M.Doney (PTB-EGH)
ok first off, glad the Brother is OK. Second WHY THE HELL WASN’T THE GUY WITH THE “HELMET CAM”AKA YARD BREATHER GOING UP THE LADDER TO GET THE VERY FATIGUED FIREFIGHTER!!!!! Screw the head first thing, thats last resort!! This was in no shape a last resort. Whats with the angle of the ladder? GET UP THAT LADDER AND GET YOUR “BROTHER”!!! If that happened in our city I wouldn’t be able to face the guys knowing I could have got up the ladder and did a simple carry and get him down! LACK OF TRAINING…AND WHAT THE HELL IS A R.I.C. AND A COMMAND BOARD. WHY DONT YOU JUST THROW THE IFSTA MANUAL AT THE FIRE AND HOPE IT GOES OUT. Brotherhood mens BROTHERHOOD! WHERE HAS IT GONE!
Kyle you stated above….”the room flashed because of the multiple different additions and poor construction of the house.”…..my guess would be that the room flashed because no water was put on the fire and there was no ventilation performed….I agree with everything being said. Specifically,PUT WATER ON FIRE!. Most of your other problems go away.
I think this a very educational video if you know what you are looking for but I cant get over the fact that the man filming/hollering/sucking up a bottle is telling everyone what to do and he aint doin nothing his self if he was that worried about his brother looks to me that he would be doin a little more than hollering at everyone and sucking a bottle down for no reason but it was a good video one thing this dept could work on is coordination I saw a lot of free lancing and then when things went bad everyone was in a cluster crowding up the fire grounds thats why you prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
Blane
Doyouknowwhatperiodsandcommasarefor?
well you could learn a thing or two about word spacing!!!
I love hearing all the comments having a RIC on the scene but the key thing that everyone forgot is SAFETY and Basic Firefighting knowledge. I hear several things on ladders position and how many were on the scene at that time. We need to get back to basics people. Proper position and proper height placement for ladders. I’ve seen ladder not extended to the proper height or length to the size of the building they were working on. Firefighter had to get down to reach for the ladder in getting off the roof or crawl on the roof from not extending the ladder 3 to 5 rungs beyond the roof line. With heavy smoke I’m surprise more of your firefighters did fall off the hosue. We need alot of ladder training and CALM yourself down while you on a working fire scene. I hope you learn from the mistakes. I hope that firefighter is recover and back on duty. HelmetCam you need to stay still or get it off your helmet.
I read down through most of the comments. I’m going to add my 2 cents worth of imput as well. Just because a truck compnay isnt there yet or not on the call doesnt mean that “truck work shouldnt be done.” There were no windows broke out, no hole in roof and no 2 ways out with ladders on the 2nd floor. Also rewatch the video the camera man and roughly 5 other people walked the whole way around the structure with out tools in hand, and didnt brother to open the structur UP for the crew inside.Also had the smoke that was written horriablly been read, this problem would proablly not have happen.
Remember boys and girls, action is sometimes shown not by words and glory but by how one motivates there self and siezes the oppuritiny when one is presented to them.
Sorry, I’d hate to say it. But that seen was a cluster f&ck. Even before the mayday. Fire scenes are always chaotic but people shooting water in a window when people are inside is the first thing the academy tought me NOT to do. I work on a fire department just outside of Boston. When we do have fires, all the conditions one of the guys on scene described are pretty much common. We never have fires in perfectly built clean houses. Its always the hoarder who has crap up to the ceiling and has done “modifications” to the actual layout of the structure. The next time a guy is hanging out of a window six feet from you. Instead of screaming, grow a pair and help the poor guy.
Excellent Video and glad to hear the brothers are ok.
That being said, those of you who were on the scene or familiar with the area, please understand that the “rude” comments just happen to point out things that need to be fixed/improved on.
From the start of the video, I see five FFs in front, a line at the front door, and no one advancing it. As the first line goes, so goes the fire. This adage proves very true in this instance.
How many FFs are breathing air outside? I understand the concept of the RIT being masked up ready to go, but if you are not in the structure, then you are just wasting air.
I would call it opposing hose lines, but since the line in the front wasn’t going in the door, the line in the rear isn’t really opposing. However, I agree with many, squirting water from the outside when FFs are on the inside can lead to nothing good.
Why would you be breathing air and not have your gloves, hood, or helmet on? Especially in the “urgency” of flowing water from the outside into the area where FFs may be trapped.
The roaming IC has been talked about for years. I get that an IC may want to have a 360 view, but that is what an aide, or other command officer is for.
Like someone pointed out, the FF hanging out the window is obviously exhausted. Remember the Brett Tarver incident? We must get our hands on the FF in distress and take him to safety ourselves. If the Helmet Cam FF went up and even just held onto him so another ladder could be thrown to assist in getting him down, that would have sufficed.
As for the comments about daytime fire, delayed alarm, staffing issues. These are things that need to be addressed before the alarm is struck. Like someone said, have automatic mutual aid added if that is what is needed. There is not much you can do about a delayed alarm unfortunately. But from the outside, the conditions don’t look completely untenable (but not being there, they could have been worse). We routinely go to house fires like this with staffing of 2 on each piece (combination department-the volunteers are almost non-existent in my battalion). Even if there was no truck on the scene the 4 ground ladders on the engines should have been thrown in the less than the first 5 minutes of the fire. Perhaps the two FFs who were standing in the front yard pointing at the hoseline crew could have been throwing them.
Lastly, when will people learn that screaming is the last thing needed on the fireground. Acting excited only breeds more of this. If people are calm, then everyone else will be calm. There is a difference with urgency and excitement. It may be a fine line sometimes, but one we must not cross.
Everyone can learn from this video, take the good and take the bad, decipher through the crap, and improve yourself.
Hope our brother recovers quickly.
Just a few things I noticed, when cam guy proceeds to bravo/charlie corner where firefighter has no helmet fighting fire in the fall zone. after ff bails out window, chief climbs ladder with no airpack, guess he needed to see something he couldn’t from the ground. back to the b/c corner, several ff’s standing around, charged hoseline on the ground, with fire venting out first floor window. why isn’t anyone attacking that fire?
Like I said, just a few things I noticed.
Chin straps, what a concept! Geez They look real nice fastened to the back of helmets, Look I’m cool I don’t need my helmet when I fall from the second floor. On going problem, pic after pic and video after video helmet that haven fallen off. What if your coat or pants fell off every time you bent over? A mind is a terrible thing to waste, us the straps!!
I wanna see the video of how he got lost, seprated and disoriented. He doesn’t have a handline, tool or another firefighter. The best advice here is don’t get lost, trapped or leave your handline.
That’s good advice, but how exactly do you do that when it happens hundreds of times a year?
Ok first ill start by saying this…If you are not in an IDLH save your air. There is no reason to be on air when you are operating outside. God forbid a brother goes down and you have to go in to get him, now you are out of air. Second it is not hard to get lost or seperated while conducting a search, it happens all the time to even the most senior men. There was no reason for this guy to come diving out that window like that. The fire has not yet extended into the room that this guy is in. You can clearly see this by observing the very moderate smoke condition that is pushing out the window or lack of. This is lack of experience and training. If this does happen to you close the door and you will have plenty of time to make a safe exit. If you have to hang out a window try using a leg lock. The leg lock will get you out of the room and out of the way of most of the fire and smoke that will be venting above you. This will buy you a little more time.
First off looking at this video later in the year I wish had seen it earlier to start using it as a training video sooner. Now I agree with everyone’s comments thus far and there are a few I would like to add to. As I agree that we cannot fully understand what happened at this scene since we are only able to see what is on the video and read what was posted by those there I will only comment on what I fully understand. coming from a volunteer dept having thought out and already existing mutual plan when you know you may have daytime manpower issues is a must, that is owed to the civilians in the town or district you protect. That being said if I hope there have been changes made to the departments plan after this event since it appears that was a major issue. For those who live by CAFS or an other type of foam please remember water will always put out fires, don’t delay on an attack on an already rapidly progressing fire to ready a foam or CAFS, now I don’t think that was done here I just want to add my input on this subject as it is becoming more and more popular. I will not comment on the actions made by the firefighter who needed to bailout, the conditions inside are only known to him and other firefighters there, therefore if he felt a bail out was necessary then so be it. However I found it hard to watch his brother fireman standing there watching him struggle trying to get on the ladder and get safe. GO GET HIM! please do not take that as me being rude but if there is one job on that fire ground at that time that is IT. As for the IC in this video you however are in the position to be criticized… yelling, pointing, barking orders will only add to the chaos and stress in an already stressful situation. Remember whether you were promoted to the position or elected by your membership it is your job to take responsibility for you firefighters safety. There is much more to be said, but nothing that has not already been said above. Again my comments are not based on my opinion just solely on what I saw in the video, The most important thing to remember is that this could have been worse for the department, please learn and train from this valuable feedback from firefighter all over the country and with various years of expirenece
what kind a department is this? Ive never seen so many firefighters standing around outside doing absolutely nothing. That was a sorry bunch of guys, are they more worried about cutting a hole in the roof or actually fighting fire?
I had got a dream to make my company, however I did not earn enough amount of money to do it. Thank heaven my close dude told to take the personal loans. Thence I received the credit loan and realized my dream.
The reason this is controversial is because people are doing it when they don’t need to.These are LAST CHANCE OPTIONS! From my experience looking at conditions behind this guy there was no need to go as he did. Obliviously he is excited and wants out I understand that but that also make him more likely to fall as he did, To let this guy come out head first at that angle is just plain ignorant. The whole reason for the head first bail out is speed due to “The end is near” you need to get out fast as you can and get off the ladder because someone is coming out right behind you! If no one is behind you and you are not burning there is no reason to come out head first.
Someone should have gone up the ladder and helped him out plain and simple.No reason to go about it the way they did. If this was a civilian You know for sure someone would have been right up that ladder. Besides everything that went wrong for these guys in the end the conditions didn’t warrant the bail out. Its incidents like this that will hamper the teaching of LAST CHANCE bailouts. Hope all turns out well for these guys
I witnessed a FF bail out in training and he injured his back doing it the proper way. So, you never know. Certainly, there are many issues in this video.
Water puts out fires and the only water I seen was from the outside pausing it across the house. You have a decent fire condition in a fairly small occupency and more than enough help, get a line inside and get it. Have two of the thousand people you have standing around grab a ground ladder and get a vent. And why the hell do you have your mask on outside? No wonder the ladder angle was off your mask was probably fogged to the point You couldn’t see.
There is a training course for this it was designed by
Deputy Chief Salka FDNY. myself and firefighters
from my department and others took this training
back in 2000. If you contact Chief salka im sure he will
send you imformation on this course its called Saving
Our Own.I would like to see all departments paid and
volunteer alike make this part of their training
programs.
GO GET HIM!!!! Don’t ask questions…he needs help, that’s why he’s bailing out of a second floor window. GO…GET…HIM!!!
I know i am way late on this video, but it is the first time that i have seen it. As far as the guy bailing out, im not so sure that he didnt just fall. I noticed that he didnt seem like he was in a big hurry to get out when they started throwing the ladder up to him and i dont think that was his fault. He looked completely spent and exhausted and im assuming, but i would assume that it was because of increase in heat and other fire conditions. When they finally do get the ladder up to him it looks like he uses his last little bit of effort to start down the ladder and then he just gives up and falls. Now he could have also been trying to do the spin but judging by how he was acting, i lean more towards he just lost strenghth and fell. Now i could be completely wrong but just my opinion from what i saw. other wise it is still a good learning video and as always. Stay safe brothers and stay hungry.
also i forgot to add, that with my opinion that the firefighter was spent and just fell. i feel like somebody should have climbed up that ladder and got him and brought him done to avoid any chance of a fall