Fireground Support Operations (1st Edition)
Chapter 1 - Size-up
Test Review
NOTES BELOW ALSO INCLUDE THE INTRODUCTION PORTION
NOTICE:  STORY-BASED ENTRIES/DISCUSSIONS IN THIS CHAPTER ARE NOT INCLUDED IN NOTES

• Given adequate oxygen, fire will burn until extinguished by some external intervention or until fuel has been consumed.
• Fireground support operations are equally as important as fire suppression operations.
• NFPA website - http://www.nfpa.org
• NIOSH website - http://www.cdc.gov/niosh
• USFA website - http://www.usfa.fema.gov
• Size-up is the continual and ongoing process of making careful observations and drawing reasonable conclusions from those observations.
• Size-up questions include:  What happened?, What is happening?, What is likely to happen?, and What safety considerations are involved?.
• Factors that answer "What has happened?" include:  injuries, length of burning, result of earthquake or natural occurrence, explosion, and hazmat present.
• Factors that answer "What is happening?" include:  situation getting better or worse, trapped victims, fire threatening victims/exposures, fire getting bigger, backdraft conditions, and structural integrity.
• Factors that answer "What is likely to happen?" include:  fire getting bigger without additional resources, secondary explosion/backdraft, collapse, and firefighter risk from toxic residue or other hazards.
• Factors involved in Safety Considerations include:  immediate intervention to save lives, risk to rescuers, electrical wires down, vehicular traffic, gaseous/liquid fuels leaking, and resources needed.
• Command/supervisory positions must consider resources and risks/benefits of each possible deployment mode.
• The initial "report on conditions" and the IAP are based on initial size-up.
• Initial size-up often sets the tone for the entire incident.
• A NIOSH recommended initial size-up includes:  fire size/location, length of time burning, arrival conditions, building size/age, presence of combustibles, occupancy, renovations/modifications, previous fires, dead loads (structural integrity), adjacent exposures, and resources.
• The need for mobile water supplies must be factored into the IAP.
• Additional factors that affect initial size-up include:  time of day, day of week, and weather.
• Time of day may mean building is occupied/unoccupied, occupants are awake/sleeping, and on roads, volume of traffic may be great.
• Day of week may mean buildings is occupied/unoccupied (schools) or area is busy (commercial).
• Weather affects firefighters (high temp/humidity), response time (bad weather), roof operations (slippery when wet/icy).
• "Routine" fire are those which appear easy to control.
• An accurate viewing of all sides of a fire building should be made by the IC.
• The practice used in wildland fires, "Look Up, Look Down, and Look Around", can help structural firefighters to constantly monitor their surroundings.
• If heat and smoke forces firefighters to crawl in a structure fire, flashover may be imminent.
• If firefighters cannot stand up inside a structure fire due to tremendous heat, combustibles in the room may be nearing their (non-piloted) autoignition temperature.
• Rollover (AKA flameover), is the ignition of superheated gases at or near the ceiling.
• Rollovers can be mistaken for FLASHovers due to the dramatic flame.
• Rollover rarely last more than a few seconds once it passes over attack crews.
• Rollovers can usually be prevented with timely/adequate ventilation.
• The potential for backdraft is easier to recognize than a flashover.
• Indications of backdraft include:  pressurized smoke exiting small openings, black smoke becoming dense gray yellow, confinement/excessive heat, little/no visible flame, smoke leaving building in puffs/intervals, and smoke-stained windows.
• Indications of backdraft may not be as evident in newer energy-efficient buildings.
• Collapses can include roofs, walls, and floors.
• Fire sprinklers can reduce the effectiveness of ventilation openings cut above the sprinkler.
• Very old wood frame buildings may be of balloon-frame construction (allows fire travel from basement to attic).
• Old wood frame buildings often have substandard wiring and "tinder dry" adjacent combustibles.
• Older brick (unreinforced masonry - URM) buildings often trap heat and smoke inside and are prone to wall collapse.
• Some older buildings have unsupported truss roofs (i.e.-bowstring truss), and covered with many layers of roofing material.
• Use of false ceilings in older buildings is a common practice.
• Newer wood frame construction is likely to have lightweight construction (fails quickly in fires).
• Masonry buildings may resist effects of fire, but may present a collapse hazard.
• Arched and lightweight roofs may be prone to sudden, unexpected collapse with fires.
• Unprotected steel members are likely to distort and fail earlier in a fire than wooden beams.
• Reinforced concrete buildings are designed to be both fire and collapse resistant.
• Unreinforced masonry buildings have a high collapse potential.
• Identifying how and to what extent buildings have been remodeled is most effectively done during pre-incident inspections.
• Many Victorian-type residences have false ceilings.
• Division of a room, that is fully sprinklered, into separate spaces may result in one room being non-sprinklered.
• Common modifications to buildings are the addition of deadbolts, padlocks, metal security doors/windows, or other security devices.
• Accurate size-up of interior structure fires includes an understanding of fire behavior, building construction, and how fire behaves when confined in different types of spaces.
• In most attics, there are no openings between the attic and the occupied space except covered access openings.
• Attic vents allow air into an attic, which feeds the fire.
• When smoke and/or fire is issuing from attic vents or under roof shingles in a single-story residence, with little or no evidence of fire or smoke in the space below, it is reasonable to conclude the fire is in the attic (for initial size-up purposes).
• Basement fires usually reveal themselves by smoke and/or fire issuing from ground level windows, dead lights, cellar doors, vents, cracks in exterior walls, and from interior wall/floor junction.
• With basement fires, the ground floor structure may be hot with no evidence of fire.
• If smoke is issuing from roof vent pipes with no evidence of fire in attic or occupied space, check basement for fire.
• Some townhouses have common attics.
• Townhouses often have bubble skylights on roof which melt out and create a vertical opening.
• Many larger Victorian houses are converted to apartments.
• Victorian houses are typically of balloon frame construction.
• Warehouses have the potential to produce large/dangerous fires (large open space = unlimited oxygen).
• Roof assemblies in warehouses often span large distances, making them prone to collapse with a fire within.
• Most fires in office buildings are relatively small during business house (discovered early).
• Well contained fires in office buildings can produce backdraft conditions (check doors for heat).