May Fire Scenario

[Dalmation90]

"Well, this is another fine mess you've gotten yourself into!" Firefighter Smith thinks to himself...Chief sends me around to do a survey of the fire building...nothing unusual, single story ranch, walk out basement in the rear...I walk under the rear deck to look for extension...and crunch, next thing I know, I'm here with a 4x4 and a ton of debris from a collapsed deck holding down my leg...

Well, not much heat, smoke's not too bad, I am just sorta trapped between one mess of pressure treated remains of a deck, and the concrete wall of the basement...

As he keys the mic on his portable radio, Smith's thoughts alternate between Oh man, they're not going to let me forget this one, and mother of jesus, my leg hurts.

Ok guys,
1) In your department, what's Smith gonna say, do you have any standard mayday or distress call?
2) What is the Chief going to do when he gets word of this? What are his immediate actions?
3) Is there a standard procedure for notifying the rest of the fireground what's happening?
4) Do you have a formal RIT, a backup hose team, or whatever to assign to Smith?

Anything else to add?

Play hard, have fun, stay safe
Matt

[Ledbelly]

(hope he don't start cussing...)
1)Don't have mayday call; motorola radios have the emergency button, but that's hard to do with gloves on. The Smiths I know are either going to say help...come get me or oh **** yall....
2)BC (I hope) is going to contact/confirm Smitty's location and problem, call for headcount of everyone else and if it was me, push everyone else to another tac channel, call 2nd alarm (gets 2 more engines, ambulance and 10 hirebacks), leave 2-3 on attack and hop others out/over to Smitty w/at least one hoseline, send 2 guys back to Rsq to wait on orders for what saws, tools, etc. are needed...leaves one to sit on hose and cover Smitty and 1-2 to assess and start digging.
3) No SOP for trapped FF; we do have an evacuation signal, but depending on the fire, I may not want everybody to quit working it.
4)Here's our problem...no RIT, no formal backup, etc. We'd have to scale down the fire attack teams and redirect them to helping Smitty. Our first response to a structure fire (non-hi-rise) would only be 11 men...BC, 2 engineers and 8 FF's.(2 Capt's among 'em) I'm going to pretend the fire is not a holy roller and we can get away with leaving one hose on it and calling everyone else away...so we can save Smitty this time. If the fire was a major deal...big-threat-real-shortly to Smitty...heck, I don't know...put some monitors down and get everyone around back? I dread the day something like this happens to us (me!?) because we're liable to get caught with our pants down; we have begged and pleaded for more people (more response) for just-in-case to no avail. I'm going to watch this post closely for some ideas....

I do have a solution though...send the rookie 'round back; if he ends up like Smitty, tell him to make himself at home and we'll be there in a little bit. And don't play with the radio....
(Just kiddin...)

[Dalmation90]

Come on guys...can't let Ledbelly have the last word http://www.firehouse.com/interactive/boards/smile.gif
Let's get some more responses!!!!

[Gill]

I think Ledbelly covered it all. As my friend says...This is the reason why we should use mutual aide.

Stay safe, and on top of the rubble.

[Halligan84]

Mayday!.. standard county term.

Dispatcher transmits an alert tone, and says "Attention all personnel operating.. <address> MAYDAY transmitted, maintain radio silence"

Early in the incident the FAST is made up of extra personnel on the first arriving engine or truck.. but more likely it is the second engine or truck.

Working fire should go "All Hands" and an additional company (rescue company in our case) is dispatched as the F.A.S.T.