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This is a fire from April 30 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Here’s more from OakRidger.com:
On Friday, a house at 412 East Drive caught fire about 5 p.m. (Oak Ridge Fire Department Chief Darryl) Kerley said the resident tried to put out the fire with a garden hose, which prompted a neighbor to call 911. He said the fire was caused by an electrical problem.
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Also on STATter911 …
- Must see: Neighbors capture video of explosion during Pittsburgh apartment fire. – March 30, 2013
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- Arrival video: Camas, Washington house fire. – May 12, 2013
- Raw video: Firehouse in Slidell, Louisiana burns. – September 9, 2012
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Two minutes in and I can’t stand to watch anymore. Damn it! Why can’t people hustle and put water on the fire? Is it that freakin’ hard? Nice job watering the trees, I’m sure the forestry department is happy. Anyone who has trained with a deck gun for 5 minutes knows it will not work well below grade. I’m sick of this lazy, untrained, and embarrassing display of firefighting we’ve seen on here lately.
Oh man here we go again
it looked like this involved the attached garage to the house and why nobody made entry into the unburned side and kill it or at the absolute least hold it to the garage escapes me.
my chief and I were just discussing this type of fire a couple of days ago and why nobody likes to pull duce and a half for these types of fire.
hitting it with a deck gun is only gonna push it in my KIC view
Well said CapNRich. Perhaps we all need to step back and take a look at the big picture…which we hardly get when you have a one person camera view on most of the vids on here. Let’s focus more on the brotherhood…not the brotherberatings.
OK, we got the required “no one got hurt, everyone went home” mantra out of the way.
Now, is that the only requirement?
Should we blindly just chant “Brotherhood, brotherhood, brotherhood” and attempt to play “The Emperor Has No Clothes” and draw attention away from obvious failings and room for improvement? How should painful shortcomings and safety issues be handled? “Move along, nothing to see here!!”
I always liked that “Nice job, troops!” as we were saddling up to head home; especially when it was well-earned.
Can anyone turn a blind eye to dangerous and counter-productive behavior and just let it continue unaddressed??
If I were an Oak Ridge Boy I would be embarrassed!! This is a perfect display of how to burn a house down and spend all afternoon doing it.
no. please god. no.
deck gun…cool.
dumping a couple thousands of gallons on the smoke…not cool.
stretching handline…cool.
not charging it for a couple of minutes…not cool.
who are the role models these departments are following?
i bet they have no problem driving like crazy to get to the scene with every light flasher and siren activated.
then…minutes of nothingness. half baked attempts at doing something would be better than doing nothing.
the fire service is doomed. Friday beer time.
I guess its time to put up or shut up Mr Magoo. Since your department sounds like they never do anything wrong under you direction; tell us the name of who this model of excellence is. If its not to much trouble please post some video’s so I too can have new role models.
Thank you in advance.
oops. guess somebody doesn’t like me.
Riddle me this:
does the food critic have to be a chef?
does the movie reviewer have to be a director?
does the mechanic have to know how to design a car?
if there are 2 extremes of firefighter, the huge major city and the tiny rural department, let’s say that I have 20 in closer to one and now a little closer to the other. been on both sides of the street.
but i digress.
what did i write that you don’t agree with?
“riddle me this” that’s cute, answer the question. What is the name(s) of the departments you are with? You through a lot of stones, let’s see what you bring to the table, show us some video of your department in action. What are you afraid of? No one challenged you credentials or asked about your experience- you offered that, besides you posted before that you had 25 years’ experience.
You watch a one dimensional video and tell everyone how it should really be done. Enough talk, let us “see” what you have to offer.
I could be wrong but this site was probably intended to be educational? Not a free for all to bash and tarnish other people and departments reputations. There’s a way and a method to bring to light mistakes in order to have a meaningful dialog so that everyone comes away from the table a better firefighter.
I am my brother’s keeper.
Political correctness at its finest.
Heaven forbid we discuss and critique anyone’s mistakes lest we hurt their feelings.
Heaven forbid we learn from one another.
No one has ever claimed to be perfect (except maybe Hookman) and said that every single fire they responded to went perfectly. I just don’t understand why some folks can’t grow a pair and accept criticism when they screw the proverbial pooch, as is the case this time…..again.
Couldn’t bare to watch more than 2 1/2 minutes of these guys. Did it get any better?
All I can say is WOW!! Dave, the more I read your blog, the more I realize that this is a systemic problem in many areas of the country. A couple of observations…Why did they not charge that first line? Does that rig not have a water tank? What’s the problem with the deck gun? First they don’t put the stream on the fire and it either has no tips or no stream straightener. The deck gun was useless except for knocking down a few flying embers. I will say again, that I hate to second guess tactics, but it’s hard not to second guess after looking at this.
My favorite part was the rainbow. My least favorite part was where the guy on the deck gun doesnt realize – pull the pin to allow the deck gun to spray at a lower angle. It was a pretty rainbow though, and at the end of the rainbow was a big pot full of fire. Or maybe there was an exposure in the rear not sure. Glad these videos get posted so I have something to make my head move side to side, it stretches out the neck muscles.
Knowing these trucks the deck gun can’t go any lower to that side because of a generator with a cover that is there. It also has tips on it.
Apparent location for demonstration reference: 16S GE 4997 9315
Viewable here: http://dhost.info/usngweb/?usng=16SGE4997893151&disp=h&zoom=19
FYI
I have to be missing something! ! ! ! !
What a pathetic display of operations!!!!!!
Another one that starts out good, and then …
Quickly pull a handline, and then forget about charging it for 3 1/2 minutes.
First time we see the driver, he’s hooking up the LDH they laid in, good stuff, and then … shame about that deck gun ops. No tip? No stream straightener? No idea how to lower it?
Yeah, sweet rainbow!
OK Dave please tell me this was a commerical for a roofing company to show how their roof keeps water out! WOW… What a joke of a performance! Basics basics and Strike Da Box! K
For the love of Pete…………………
Boy Oh Boy here we go again I wish that I was there . Poor OPS.
This was definitely hard to watch…..
There’s more trucks on the way, right?
Right?
The deck gun was protecting a exposure…..The tree house….
What about the guys with those tank things on their backs who were ocassionally spraying water around? What are those things for?????
I have seen driver/operators like this before, they are usually new to driving and don’t understand the order in what needs to happen. They normally get so transfixed on getting the supply line hooked up, that they totally forget the primary purpose for showing up. My thought among other obvious things is that the driver freaked out because when they showed up there was a lot of fire showing. So at the very least the driver needs to train on the basic order to set up for pumping operations at a fire.
Let’s give them some credit. They do get the concept of big water on big fire. They did pull what appears to be a 2.5″ handline. They did lay a line in. They did use they deck gun. Now if they had a little better aim with the gun and the handline, maybe they would have had better outcome. Engineer seemed to be doing a lot of work by himself. Maybe the teamwork needs to be a bit better. You can always lead the blind, but you will never make them see.
(FACEPALM)
After a little research, I found that Oak Ridge FD operates Sutphen engines with 750 gallon booster tanks.
What kind of driver operator program does Oak Ridge FD have? Anyone who drives an engine MUST be able to lay out, flow a deck gun equipped with an 1-3/8″ tip (approximately 500 gpm for those who don’t know), connect supply line to the intake, have the hydrant charged, and transition from tank water to supply line before running out of water.
With that said, how hard is it for an engine company to stretch a 2-1/2″ line equipped with either an 1-1/8″ or 1-1/4″ tip and put it into service off of tank water, making the transition from booster tank to water from a hydrant? This takes even less effort on the driver’s part than the first mentioned task!
Just another messed up Volly job. Ooops this is a career dept
Embarrassing, but as an educational tool this video makes for a spectacular example of how NOT to apply water.
The citizens of Oak Ridge are not getting there money’s worth from this department.
Well, ignoring the obvious lack of “combat readiness” on the part of Oak Ridge FD for a minute, you just have to love the comments. “It took them too long to get here”, well, maybe it wouldn’t have if the homeowner called 911 before trying to put out the fire with his garden hose. “Why isn’t there another fire truck, why isn’t there another ambulance”, I can’t tell from the Oak Ridge website what their staffing is, but I’ll venture a guess that it probably is nominal and that the same people who complain about a lack of equipment would be the same people who would complain about paying more for enhanced fire protection. I have to agree with most of the other posters though, these videos are really painful to watch. I don’t understand the lack of aggressiveness that seems so prevalent in some parts of the fire service.
I guess its corteous to water the back yard as they burn your house down.
Being a member of this Dept. for more than 10 years and can assure you this is not how it normally works. This Dept. has gone from a old man Dept. to a young one. This was a very young crew who learned a very good lesson from this fire. We are an outstanding Fire Dept. with a great reputation in the area.
08, thanks for coming here. sorry if the comments seem strong.
questions for you:
was there and Incident Commander for this fire?
if so, where was he/she located?
i see only 1 pumper on the scene. were there any other units assigned?
how many total staffing on-duty?
what things did your department critique about the fire that you would do differently?
There was two engines, tower, rescue, there was about 15 people on the scene. Most arrived after it had gotten out of hand. Ist crew was 4 men 3 ffs 1 capt. Capt was IC until BC arrived. This was just an example of promoting people with education and not much experence. The biggest thing learned was to do your 360 guicker and depend on your FF,s and hand lines to slow the fire down until the second company arrives so they can make entry and put the demon out. We have used this as a training aid to help the unexperenced officers in our Dept. to make better decisions. The other trucks were behind the 1st engine.
thank you for coming on here and discussing this. in my opinion the biggest issue is having the IC make decisions based upon fire conditions, building construction, manpower, apparatus and water capacity. once the IC is able to plug all of those factors into an extinguishment plan. When the plan is lacking or non-existent, then the firefighters do what they can, but it obviously is not as effective as a well coordinated attack.
stay safe and keep learning everyday.
Hey Fireman08! I guess there in lies the problem…..there weren’t enough old men on the fire scene to show you youngun’s how to do it CORRECTLY. You have a lot of nerve putting down the older members of your department. Somebody needs to to take your butt out back to the wood shed son!!
FDcap I am a 34 year old vet. I am not putting anyone down.If you got that from my post you need to read it again.
roofs do a fine job of shedding water — almost like they were designed to do it.
The Tree House they were spraying water on was my home. I live next door and have damage on my home, if it was not the agressive protection of my house there would have been two homes lost. I am a 25 year retired fireman and our priority is to protect exposures that are in danger of being lost. I come from a large metro paid F.D. and respect the job the Oak Ridge F.D. did. And a owner putting water on a fire and getting the kids and animals out is important.
My name is Vanessa Todd and this is MY HOUSE! I would like to clarify a few things since I now know that this video and this site are out and about!! 1. There is no need to bash anyone or anything….2.(and most important) I DID NOT fight the fire for 8 to 10 minutes before calling 911. I had the neighbor call immediately after we saw the flames! I went back into the house to fight the fire to get my animals out and to hold back the damage until the fire dept could get there. 3. We did not have ANY electrical problems before this issue…that was a FALSE statement made by ???
You guys cant just sit back and tell them what they did wrong based on just one view that this video was shot from. Just like what CapNRich Said, they had 2 duce and a half’s off the rear of the truck (obviously not seen from this viewpoint)