Another green line fire in Whitehall, Pennsylvania. This time an assistant chief is on the pipe.

Two days in a row someone has put out a house fire for firefighters in Whitehall, Pennsylvania before the first engine arrived. Yesterday it was a neighbor (click here). Today, newsworking.org's Bill Rohrer tells us is it's an assistant chief who arrived on the scene first and knocked down the garage fire with a green line in one hand and a radio in the other.

The never ending debate on STATter911.com (and elsewhere) seems to be where the first line should go on a fire in an attached garage. Should the garden hose have gone through the front door to the doorway to the garage or hit the fire from the outside garage door?

Clearly, these two fires show someone needs to write an SOP for green line use so the public and firefighters arriving without apparatus know what is expected of them. While you are at it, make sure that we have guidelines for using coolers (click here) and snow blowers (click here) to put out fires. In addition, someone needs to come up with standards to make sure the green lines (here's another one), coolers and snow blowers meet minimum standards for firefighting.