Positive Pressure Attack

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Firefighters often use vertical ventilation during a structure fire, however, rooftops can be extremely dangerous. Positive Pressure Attack is an alternative used by firefighters at the attack entrance to improve conditions. "It's a tactic that we've been working with for about two decades, just perfecting, getting the theory down correct, and it's one that we have found very beneficial for our crews," stated Fire Chief and Instructor, Kriss Garcia, with the American Fork Fire Department.

Reinhard Kauffmann, Instructor and Retired Battalion Chief with the Salt Lake City Fire Department, explained that firefighters use gas powered blowers in the initial fire attack to clear the heat and the smoke out of the fire structure, resulting in lower temperatures and improved visibility. Chief Garcia explained, "NIST says if this is done correctly, the environment where a victim is, 24 inches and below on the ground, always improves. If I can take my firefighters out of this toxic IDLH atmosphere and take them out of 600 degrees, put them in 60 and put them in an environment that they can see, it's much, much safer."

Garcia claimed that with high pressure fans, firefighters can create a place for the fire to go, or an "exhaust." Garcia added, "Our problem is that there's so many fans out there on the market. There's so many people out there using them, but there's not a lot of education or training programs to do it correctly." Captain Jose Perez with the Orange County Fire Authority stated that Positive Pressure tactics take a lot of training and education. "It's not something that a brand new firefighter out of the academy can just go into a structure fire and utilize," he said.

Training for Positive Pressure Attack includes live fire, in which firefighters must first make sure that the wind is at their back. "And then we're pressurizing the building and putting our firefighters in a higher level of pressure than the outside and we're letting that environment go to the outside while we're going in," claimed Chief Garcia.

Garcia explained, "You've got to do it correct. Watch the top of the doorway that you put your fan in. Thick smoke that you can't see through or flames coming over the top of the blower, you don't have enough exhaust to use this tactic. Change your tactic. Very seldom have I ever seen this tactic go wrong if that space above the cone of air is lightening, clearing and improving the environment."

Positive Pressure Attack is a tactic that the fire service has been slow to embrace. According to Kauffmann, approximately 80% of firefighters are accepting of the positive pressure tactic. "But the battle is 200 years of tradition. The battle is trying to tell people that you might not have to necessarily have to be on the roof to ventilate the structure, and for some people that's a major step in faith," he added.

Garcia and Kauffmann wrote a book on the subject entitled "Positive Pressure Attack for Ventilation and Firefighting"and have also been teaching their tactics in other countries. Engineer Marcel Medina with the Anaheim Fire Department and class attendee said, "I think it's going to be a process. If people don't understand this, they shouldn't use it. They should investigate it just like us. We didn't use it right off the bat, we went out and trained on it."

For more information on the book or information on the various Positive Pressure Attack Training sessions being offered across the United States visit www.positivepressureattack.com.

Contributors to this Story
Barbara Brooks - Video Story
Joseph Cusick - Camera/Editing
Renee Marquart - Text



Author:Barbara Brooks - FDNNTV.com