You are a firefighter assigned to a ladder truck company. Your regular apparatus, a state-of-the-art tower ladder, is in the maintenance shop. You and your company are operating with an old relief apparatus, a truck that has the basic 100-foot sectional metal aerial ladder and no prepiped waterway.
Your company is dispatched on a full assignment to a reported structure fire. En route, the dispatcher at the communications center notifies all the responding units that many phone calls are coming in. Your adrenaline starts to pump. You arrive at the scene of a large structure that is fully engulfed in flames. The incident commander determines that there is no life safety involved and the strategy for attacking the fire will turn defensive. Multiple alarms will be struck to bring more companies and personnel to the scene. Aerial ladder trucks are positioned around the structure to deliver elevated master streams to snuff out the flames. You and your company will have to set up a detachable ladder pipe. Do you remember how to do it?
Ladder pipes have been around since the 1930s, when the first metal aerial ladders were introduced to the fire service. Today, manufacturers offer fire departments various ways to safely deliver the elevated master stream, including a platform attached to the end of the aerial or the traditional aerial ladder with the prepiped waterway and remote-controlled nozzle. Modern technology has made transitioning from an interior offensive attack to an exterior defensive attack into a smooth efficient process.
If you are a current subscriber,login hereto access this content.
If you would like to become a subscriber, please visit ushere.
