By Carl Nix

Flashovers are extremely dangerous and have claimed the lives of too many firefighters over the years.

Many articles and training programs have been produced to help firefighters understand a flashover situation and how to escape safely. In a flashover situation, fire conditions progress rapidly from what was a hot fire to what becomes an inescapable fire.

As an instructor, I have heard firefighters say that a thermal imaging camera (TIC) can help you during a flashover. This is not true. A TIC is a tool to help detect a flashover, but it can’t help you if you’re caught in a flashover. Think about the amount of time, or lack of time, you have in a flashover-two, maybe three, seconds to get out of the situation. You have to move quickly. In this scenario, you don’t have time to look at your TIC.

A preflashover situation is where your TIC can help. Your TIC can give you a visual indication of warning signs that you would otherwise not see. Without your use of a TIC, the thick smoke acts as a visual barrier to what is actually going on above you. Convective velocity, thermal layering, and even rollovers are often hidden inside the smoke and are difficult or impossible to detect. The TIC can help you visualize these events. Your TIC can help you identify how rapidly the fire gases are moving across the ceiling, indicating that they actually have some place to go other than the room you are in. Thermal layering is also visible to the TIC. When one or both of these two visuals change, convective velocity slows or thermal layers descend, it can serve as an early indicator of potential flashover conditions.

1 2 These images taken with a thermal imaging camera show a flashover in progress. (Photos courtesy of Bullard.)

I’ve mentioned this in my previous articles and probably will continue to do so because it’s key to staying safe when entering a burning building: Always have your TIC with you so you can scan a room prior to entry. This is so important when avoiding a flashover. Scanning with your TIC lets you look for signs of excessive heat buildup, particularly near the ceiling, or levels of high heat closer to the floor where you might not otherwise expect them. Your TIC will also help you locate potential vertical or horizontal vent points in case you need them and where the secondary means of egress are. In a flashover situation, these tactics are lifesaving.

Your TIC is there to help you recognize the dangers that you may encounter and how to avoid those dangers so you and your fellow firefighters can go home safely. Simply put, if you have no other means of control such as ventilation or a hose stream, you must get out quickly. If you wait until the flashover is taking place, it’s too late for the TIC to help you escape this extremely dangerous occurrence. A TIC cannot help you in a flashover but it can help alert you to a pending flashover.

1 2 These images taken with a thermal imaging camera show a flashover in progress. (Photos courtesy of Bullard.)

It’s also important to note that the temperature-sensing featu

By Carl Nix

Flashovers are extremely dangerous and have claimed the lives of too many firefighters over the years.

Many articles and training programs have been produced to help firefighters understand a flashover situation and how to escape safely. In a flashover situation, fire conditions progress rapidly from what was a hot fire to what becomes an inescapable fire.

As an instructor, I have heard firefighters say that a thermal imaging camera (TIC) can help you during a flashover. This is not true. A TIC is a tool to help detect a flashover, but it can’t help you if you’re caught in a flashover. Think about the amount of time, or lack of time, you have in a flashover-two, maybe three, seconds to get out of the situation. You have to move quickly. In this scenario, you don’t have time to look at your TIC.

A preflashover situation is where your TIC can help. Your TIC can give you a visual indication of warning signs that you would otherwise not see. Without your use of a TIC, the thick smoke acts as a visual barrier to what is actually going on above you. Convective velocity, thermal layering, and even rollovers are often hidden inside the smoke and are difficult or impossible to detect. The TIC can help you visualize these events. Your TIC can help you identify how rapidly the fire gases are moving across the ceiling, indicating that they actually have some place to go other than the room you are in. Thermal layering is also visible to the TIC. When one or both of these two visuals change, convective velocity slows or thermal layers descend, it can serve as an early indicator of potential flashover conditions.

1 2 These images taken with a thermal imaging camera show a flashover in progress. (Photos courtesy of Bullard.)

I’ve mentioned this in my previous articles and probably will continue to do so because it’s key to staying safe when entering a burning building: Always have your TIC with you so you can scan a room prior to entry. This is so important when avoiding a flashover. Scanning with your TIC lets you look for signs of excessive heat buildup, particularly near the ceiling, or levels of high heat closer to the floor where you might not otherwise expect them. Your TIC will also help you locate potential vertical or horizontal vent points in case you need them and where the secondary means of egress are. In a flashover situation, these tactics are lifesaving.

Your TIC is there to help you recognize the dangers that you may encounter and how to avoid those dangers so you and your fellow firefighters can go home safely. Simply put, if you have no other means of control such as ventilation or a hose stream, you must get out quickly. If you wait until the flashover is taking place, it’s too late for the TIC to help you escape this extremely dangerous occurrence. A TIC cannot help you in a flashover but it can help alert you to a pending flashover.

1 2 These images taken with a thermal imaging camera show a flashover in progress. (Photos courtesy of Bullard.)

It’s also important to note that the temperature-sensing featu

By Carl Nix

Flashovers are extremely dangerous and have claimed the lives of too many firefighters over the years.

Many articles and training programs have been produced to help firefighters understand a flashover situation and how to escape safely. In a flashover situation, fire conditions progress rapidly from what was a hot fire to what becomes an inescapable fire.

As an instructor, I have heard firefighters say that a thermal imaging camera (TIC) can help you during a flashover. This is not true. A TIC is a tool to help detect a flashover, but it can’t help you if you’re caught in a flashover. Think about the amount of time, or lack of time, you have in a flashover-two, maybe three, seconds to get out of the situation. You have to move quickly. In this scenario, you don’t have time to look at your TIC.

A preflashover situation is where your TIC can help. Your TIC can give you a visual indication of warning signs that you would otherwise not see. Without your use of a TIC, the thick smoke acts as a visual barrier to what is actually going on above you. Convective velocity, thermal layering, and even rollovers are often hidden inside the smoke and are difficult or impossible to detect. The TIC can help you visualize these events. Your TIC can help you identify how rapidly the fire gases are moving across the ceiling, indicating that they actually have some place to go other than the room you are in. Thermal layering is also visible to the TIC. When one or both of these two visuals change, convective velocity slows or thermal layers descend, it can serve as an early indicator of potential flashover conditions.

1 2 These images taken with a thermal imaging camera show a flashover in progress. (Photos courtesy of Bullard.)

I’ve mentioned this in my previous articles and probably will continue to do so because it’s key to staying safe when entering a burning building: Always have your TIC with you so you can scan a room prior to entry. This is so important when avoiding a flashover. Scanning with your TIC lets you look for signs of excessive heat buildup, particularly near the ceiling, or levels of high heat closer to the floor where you might not otherwise expect them. Your TIC will also help you locate potential vertical or horizontal vent points in case you need them and where the secondary means of egress are. In a flashover situation, these tactics are lifesaving.

Your TIC is there to help you recognize the dangers that you may encounter and how to avoid those dangers so you and your fellow firefighters can go home safely. Simply put, if you have no other means of control such as ventilation or a hose stream, you must get out quickly. If you wait until the flashover is taking place, it’s too late for the TIC to help you escape this extremely dangerous occurrence. A TIC cannot help you in a flashover but it can help alert you to a pending flashover.

1 2 These images taken with a thermal imaging camera show a flashover in progress. (Photos courtesy of Bullard.)

It’s also important to note that the temperature-sensing featu

By Alan M. Petrillo

There are various styles and types of rehab vehicles being put in service with fire departments around the country, both dedicated rehabs and multiuse vehicles with rehab elements or equipment.

Single-Purpose Trucks

Joe Messmer, president of Summit Fire Apparatus, says his company has built both single-purpose rehab vehicles as well as rehab elements into other trucks, such as air/light, command, and rescue trucks. “I believe using a regional approach to a rehab vehicle is the better choice,” Messmer says, “because various agencies pooling their resources into a single vehicle means they can justify spending more money on the vehicle because they will be serving so many more people.”

Summit also has built rehab units on trailers, usually standard-hitch models so they can be towed by a wider variety of trucks and that are typically about 24 feet long. “We put a toilet on them that’s accessible from the outside, often an LP-fired furnace and a couple of large roof air-conditioning units so it can handle extreme conditions, access doors on each side, room for as many as 30 firefighters, a full-size refrigerator that gets connected to a shore line, folding tripod lights, and a propane-fired generator,” Messmer notes.

1 Summit Fire Apparatus has built rehab units on trailers, such as this unit that features bench seating in the back to get firefighters out of the weather, as well as plenty of storage room for rehab equipment. (Photo courtesy of Summit Fire Apparatus.)

Shane Braun, rescue products manager for Pierce Manufacturing Inc., says departments aren’t having a lot of dedicated rehab units built, but those that do are filling specific geographic needs. “We built a dedicated rehab for the Fairfax (VA) Fire Department on a two-door commercial chassis with a 24-foot box in back holding bench seating and cabinets,” Braun says. “The vehicle has a generator that runs off the truck’s engine, and it’s designed as a place to get the firefighters off the fireground.”

Braun notes that Pierce recently built a dedicated rehab unit on a Velocity tandem-rear-axle chassis with a TAK-4 independent front suspension and Neway rear air ride suspension for the Community (TX) Fire Department. Braun says the rehab truck has a 19-inch front bumper extension with a wash sink and faucets in it and three slide-out modules in the aluminum rescue body that include a lavatory. The Community rehab truck also has a 120-volt refrigerator, a 120-volt freezer, a coffeemaker, a computer network and satellite system, digital video recorders, a Will-Burt light tower, an electric awning, 50 gallons of potable water, a 60-gallon wastewater tank, a Kohler 30-kW diesel generator, and an automatic leveling and stabilizing system.

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Elliot Courage
North Whatcom Fire & Rescue

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Pierce County Fire District #5

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South Snohomish County Fire & Rescue

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Doug Jones
South Kitsap Fire & Rescue

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Paul Spencer 
Fire Fleet Maintenance LLC

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Mountain View Fire Department

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Arnie Kuchta

Clark County Fire District 6

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Kitsap County Fire District 18

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Camano Island Fire & Rescue

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Graham Fire & Rescue

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2 Awnings are features that are included on many rehab trucks, as shown here on the vehicle SVI Trucks built for the Northwest (TX) Fire Department. (Photo courtesy of the Northwest Fire Department.)