Fuel Tanker Fire

[LtBlondie]

Ok you receive a call for a fully loaded taker rollover on a street close to a residential area a motel 1 block away and a gas station 1 block away. Upon exiting the firehall you witness a HUGE amount of black smoke, when you arrive on scene what are your first tactical responsibilites. You are in a 55ft aerial truck with 2250 ls of water in your booster tank and you have 4 guys on your truck. GO

[Leafs Fan]

Stop well back, up wind
CAll for assistance ( rule of eight)
assume command, giving description and identity of unit
Try to determine contents of tanker by use of binocs or driver if possible.
Look for victims that can be easily rescued without endangering your firefighters.
If safe use your firefighters to start evacuation of most affected area. Have gas station shut down all power. call for city transit for buses for motel guests.
As more units arrive and after consultation with Canutec determine if you should extinguish or freeburn tanker.
or By this time hopefully the platoon chief is there , do a face to face and transfer command as quickly as possible.:)

[LtBlondie]

The tanker if full of gasoline, we ahd this exact call about 2 months ago so just looking for thoughts, I was not there but like to think about what my strtegy would have been if I was. There was a DRUNk driver of the tanker and it was 3pm on a tuesday.

[kriand]

Actually it was 17:09 on Thanksgiving Suunday. The tanker had 46,000 L of gas . Very lttle spillage , the tank was on its side ,so, the side of the tank was the actually the "top" of the icident . 5 of the 6 interior tanks had aready had their "tops " melted and burned through. once the initial spillage had burned off there was still approximently 75% of the product still burning in the tank .
Oh ya, this is at a major 4 lane,high traffic intersection, adjacent to high voltage lines ( which burned out a few and knocked out power to a large chunk of the community.)

Sorry Blondie , had to add the other details in.

Been there , Done that.

[LtBlondie]

SO WHAT DID YOU DO!!!!

[kriand]

Come on now Blondie.......the point of this thread is too find out what OTHER people would do , not what was done.

And I followed the orders given to me by Command,like a good Firefighter does.

Oh I forgot, The first in apparatus was a pumper not one of those baby aerials. (Baby aerials is next weeks thread).
2nd in was a 105' aerial
3rd in was a 55' baby aerial
(1st 3 in arrived within seconds of each other)
4th in was the Rescue
5th in was the Platoon Chief
6th in was a 55'baby aerial
7th in was the Hazmat
Last in were Toronto's Foam Pumpers

Lets hear what the other's have to say first.

BTW ....it was an unbelievable sight driving up Dufferin St.

[WFD999]

I'll Bite. Short senario but here goes

First and FOREMOST Stop access. First duties arent Tactical

A- What product, Gas, Diesil, Jet B

I- How involved
II- Flame spread

aa-Above ground
bb-Into sewer system
B- Proximity of civilian Ie: Motel how close, Fuel station

I- Safe distance Y or N
II- Yes-Secure
III- No- Evac

C- Do I envolk a diaster or pre plan. Y or N

I-No Starts another tree
II- Yes, Your plan now dictates next steps

aa- Security
bb- Additional assests, Fire, Med, Police etc
cc- Comand structer

D- Communicate Findings, Recomdemdations and Demands of system

E- CP Placement

F- Water supply

G- Primary Duties First Unit In IS

I- Defensive, Ofensive attack

aa- Asset placement

II- Evacuation

aa- Muster piont

III- Security

H- Being OPS.

I'm sure I missed something. One of you guys will catch it. Is this what your looking for. Ok A couple of us has cards out now how would you do this Lt.

[Scuba]

Kriand - any pictures or video floating around?

[LtBlondie]

The point of my thread was to learn from what was done, they did a great job, i thought, tough situation to ride up on so my point is that I wish they "up there" would take what happens out there, good or bad, and use it as a learning tool for all...not just a post incident for all that were there.
The example of our house fire that trapped 3 was another perfect example. We need to learn from that so we don't lose anyone for real!!

[kriand]

Scuba....I know the media had lots of footage, but I'm not sure if any of our guys have any.

Blondie....I hear what your saying, I get the feeling that after any major call the finger pointing starts before the pat on the backs.
Especially by those who weren't there.

Last time I checked ,fires don't read text books. Therfore you have to use the training and EXPERIENCE that you have aquired to handle all the incidents you respond to. When your first in you don't have time to "check the book" to see what has to be done . Every one has the same end result to achieve, but will take slightly different paths to get there. Safety is priority, however the risk /benefit comes in to play as well. A good Officer will be able to confidently come up with a game plan and stick with it as long as things are working in their favour. However , they must also be quick to change that plan when the shit hits the fan and things aren't going well.

The bottom line is that : Whatever your course of action is, make sure you have a good reason for doing what you did when you did it.

That's not free lancing, but adapting to the changes in the incident.

Just my thoughts.

BTW ....I don't think I would have done much different at that call either.......except get rehab there earlier . We cleared the scene just before shift change the next morning.

[LtBlondie]

Well said and soooo true about the pat on the back stuff...

[bucketboy]

I was on the 2nd truck in (the 105ft aerial) and I sat on the blitzfire for 45 minutes...that's after I risked life and limb connecting to the hydrant...I was literally hiding behind the hydrant when pieces of the truck were flying off...can you say....make like a hydrant:)
Sorry no footage just some pics from a distance.

[kriand]

That's nothing....we had 8 lanes of traffic ( with all the turn lanes) to stretch hi-vol to our hydrant. That was the easy part...it's the morons that are are still trying to drive up over the hose that only know one direction to drive.

We left our 2 blitz fire's unmanned.

[bucketboy]

I hear ya big guy.
I just got a call from York Police...I have to be in court tomorrow morning in Newmarket for the house explosion on Pilkington...do you remember that one because I don't. Oh wait...it's all coming back to me now...the cop said he has a copy of our statements...pheew!

[kriand]

Of course not...I was on holidays for that one......I always miss some of the good ones.

Lucky tho....all this week is the Hockey Tournament. Don't have time for court.

[yyz_arff]

Calling mutual aid from Airport fire departments is always an option. At PAFD we would send one of our crash trucks with 2-3 firefighters. Our crash truck carry which carries 3000 gallons of water, 420 gallons of AFFF and 500 lbs of dry chemical (purple K).Depending on the size/type of the fire it could knock down within a few minutes.

[irsqyu]

Calling mutual aid from Airport fire departments is always an option. At PAFD we would send one of our crash trucks with 2-3 firefighters. Our crash truck carry which carries 3000 gallons of water, 420 gallons of AFFF and 500 lbs of dry chemical (purple K).Depending on the size/type of the fire it could knock down within a few minutes.

We had you guys out a couple of years ago for a Hanger fire at our local private airstrip. The truck that showed up was affectionately Known as "Big Red", although it wasn't. Very impressive, once they started delivering foam through that snozzle device.:)