With this picture in mind, what does your second in unit do? Does it backup the first in crew with a hand line? Does it perform ventilation? Just where do you order this second in crew and what are the tactical priorities?

These questions came up in a recent conversation with several people on multiple occasions. I am really interested to know how the rest of the country is doing it and what trends are being followed.

By lifting the tiles and breaching the ceiling, we know how far the fire has advanced before committing people into these buildings. The concealed spaces are important for initial fire attack in these situations. It might indicate that the front door is as far as you go.

What if this was a vacant house and the you noted the same conditions and “red flags?” Would it change how you approach this fire?

These factors are all too familiar.  We see the same failures in these large loss of life fires in assembly occupancies.  We sometimes take our inspections and prevention activities lightly because it is not “fun” or interesting to some.  Remember these fires and the lives that have been lost because of poor prevention measures and a lack of life safety measures in these buildings.

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure to and honor to be a guest on Firefighter Netcast hosted by Rhett Fleitz of The Fire Critic and John Mitchell from Fire Daily. It truly was a great experience and I want to thank John and Rhett (the most interesting man in the world!) for the opportunity.

We have heard of and there are some teaching victim profiling; determining if there is someone in the building or not and if it is survivable. While I understand what is trying to be done in regards to keeping ourselves safe, why should it be any different from your size-up and basic training as a company officer? A building is tenable or it is not, no matter if it is occupied or not occupied.