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 Hatrack River Writers Workshop
 Open Discussions About Writing
 Reality Check: Fire- Fighters
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| Author | Topic: Reality Check: Fire- Fighters |
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JCarroll Member |
posted October 31, 2009 12:11 PM
  
I'm writing a story in which the main character is found in a burning building by a fire fighter with his clothes on fire. What would procedure be in this situation? Would the fire fighter attempt to smother the flames on site or would his first thought be to get the man out of the burning building? IP: Logged |
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Kitti Member |
posted October 31, 2009 03:52 PM
Not a firefighter, so this is all guesswork, but I think the decision would have to depend on several factors, including how deep into the fire they are, how much smoke there is, what are the chances of a wall or the ceiling collapsing soon. If the man is literally on fire (well, clothes, anyway) then I suspect there would have to be some serious dangers associated with a delay to make the firefighter just decide to overlook that. IP: Logged |
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Bent Tree Member |
posted October 31, 2009 04:14 PM
My take. The firefighter would immediately try to smother the fire using his own jacket if nothing else were readily available. IP: Logged |
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Owasm Member |
posted October 31, 2009 06:05 PM
Another guess: I think the firefighters are trained to get any victims out of harm's way first. The firefighter would hot foot (pun intended) the victim out of the building as quickly as possible. That is safest for the firefighter and the victim. Think of a victim in a car, with the gas tank about to explode. The first task is to get the victim out of there as well as the rescuers. Makes no sense to smother the fire, when you're in a fire. You could catch fire all over again. IP: Logged |
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JCarroll Member |
posted October 31, 2009 11:38 PM
See I thought that you would definitely want to get the victim out of danger asap but if the victim is already on fire moving them quickly without extinguishing them first is a sure way to spread the flames. I was wondering whether or not fire fighters carry a specific piece of kit to deal with these situations. Using the jacket as a blanket does make sense though. IP: Logged |
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Meredith Member |
posted November 01, 2009 12:14 AM
quote: Not a firefighter. But I'm not sure about this. Have you seen how those jackets fasten? Add to that the breathing equipment, it'd probably take five minutes to get the jacket off. And it'd put the firefighter in danger. I do think they would try to put the flames out if they could do it quickly. If it's the clothes on fire, they might even just pull the clothes off and worry about the proprieties later. But, like I said, I'm not a firefighter. IP: Logged |
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rstegman Member |
posted November 01, 2009 03:24 AM
My thought is that in the fire, they would have the hose and would hose him down so they could get to them and bring them out. That alone would knock down the fire on them. Outside, they have blankets, hoses and fire extinguishers. I am not a fire fighter, I do play one when I have my toy ladder truck......... IP: Logged |
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JCarroll Member |
posted November 01, 2009 09:16 AM
They definitely wouldn't use a hose. First of all I'm pretty sure that they only use the hoses outside the house. The fire fighters who go in are more interested in getting people out then stopping the fire. Second a fire hose is a lot of power. That's why they use them to knock down rioters! Using the hose on a person on fire could seriously injure them. IP: Logged |
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halogen Member |
posted November 01, 2009 11:23 AM
There's a moth podcast where a firefighter describes a similar situation. Not a very pleasant story, but worth the 15 minutes of research if you'd like to know more about how firefighters operate. It's got a lot of great details about who does what and the different people involved in a fire. Here's the podcast, it's the second story, the first story is about a wedding. You'll want to fast-forward to about 7 minutes in. [This message has been edited by halogen (edited November 01, 2009).] IP: Logged |
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Kitti Member |
posted November 01, 2009 12:46 PM
that's a great resource - thanks IP: Logged |
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Teraen Member |
posted November 01, 2009 07:38 PM
I'm not a firefighter, but I work with a few. They said that it really depends. If the person is on so much fire that they may die before they can get out of the house, they would have to try and douse/smother it somehow. If not (say a pant leg on fire), it depends on how easily they can get them out and treat the burn later. Basically, they said it depends on the fire, the building, the victim, smoke, ease of extinguishing said fire, etc... Lots of variables. That can be good, as you can tailor the situation for your story. It also lets you get in the head of the firefighter to show why he made those decisions: was he more worried about smoke inhalation and realized they needed to breath first? Was a blanket nearby to put it out? Is he right next to a window or on a tenth floor hallway of an apartment building? Is it a one alarm or five alarm fire? etc... In the end, its a crazy situation and guidelines don't always apply, and thus we rely on the judgment of the fireman in particular who was there. If you know what you would like to accomplish (fireman is a hero vs fireman is punished for making wrong choice) you can tailor the situation how you need. IP: Logged |
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JCarroll Member |
posted November 02, 2009 12:58 AM
Well the fireman is sort of incidental to the whole thing. The main character is actually the person who is on fire, who ran into the burning house to try and find if his wife and kid are in there and get's knocked down by burning debris that lights his suit on fire. The whole point of the scene is to set up the next one where we find out that the hero is not burned leading us to ask the question of whether he's invulnerable or just lucky. IP: Logged |
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Sunshine Member |
posted November 02, 2009 04:24 PM
I'm not a fire fighter, but as a child they always told us to "stop, drop, and roll" if we ever caught fire. It seems logical that if we shouldn't run while on fire, a firefighter would follow similar guidelines. Even though the threat of surrounding fire is pretty severe, the fire that's actually on you would be the more immediate danger. IP: Logged |
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Kitti Member |
posted November 03, 2009 06:27 PM
On a related note, I found this online - volunteer fire departments incident reports - and thought it might be of interest to people. http://www.bdvfd.org/index.cfm?fs=news.news&DisplayNewsType=1
[This message has been edited by Kitti (edited November 03, 2009).] IP: Logged |
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Dark Warrior Member |
posted November 03, 2009 07:59 PM
Biggest threat to himself and others is smoke inhalation followed by ambient heat. Unless the clothes are made of napalm some hand smothering would put it out pretty quick, then he would get them out asap before the they die of smoke inhalation. depending on the departments gear he may have portable oxygen for your protagonist... but if there is someone that does daily fire/rescue defer to their opinion. -former arson investigator/bomb squad [This message has been edited by Dark Warrior (edited November 03, 2009).] IP: Logged |
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aspirit Member |
posted November 08, 2009 12:19 AM
Why don't you go talk to your nearest fire fighters? Even if you have what you need for your story, most fire fighters love company and you could establish them as future sources of information. I suggest you bring cookies if you go. IP: Logged |
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Kitti Member |
posted November 08, 2009 10:14 AM
Never underestimate the power of cookies. Or fudge. Or any other goodies brought as a good-will offering... IP: Logged |
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