The Rivalry

In every high-school across the country, for every sport, there is a rival school somewhere. And its that rivalry that acts as a foundation for for the teams training & willingness to be the very best. Altho they train and prepare the same way for any given game on any given day against any given team, its the rivalry that squeezes ever ounce of commitment out of the teams members, and pushes them to be 110% at their very best. After all, we can't loose to the other team, especially our rivals, right?
Well, the fire service happens to be cut from the same fabric. Competition is in everything we do....being able to go from street cloths to full gear and SCBA breathing air in less than 2 minuets, first to get water on the fire, fastest at cutting a roof....or what ever. And, for every firehouse across the country, there is, just down the road a bit, or in the next town over,a rival fire house. They are the ones who, in the general opinion of your company, couldn't put out a burning bag of dog shit. When in all actuality they think the very same about you and your fire company. On the fire scene, it's (usually) not an issue. Your all there for the same reason, and you do your job, period end of story. That's not to say that some friendly ball bustin doesn't occur, but all in all, you work well with one another....except maybe when you beat them to a fire in their district AND put the fire out.....then it can get a little tense. (that ranks right below sleeping with their wives)
Then there is a more "traditional" rivalry. A rivalry thats as old as the fire bell, if not older. It's the rivalry between the (ladder) truck company and the engine company, or the "Truckies" and the "Hose Jockeys" as their commonly referred. It's a rivalry unlike any other...its lead some fire stations that house both an engine and a truck to "segregate" the firehouse with seperate bathrooms and sleeping quarters. (the kitchen is traditionally never divided, that's sacred turff, I'll get into that some other time) On top of that, the inside of the apparatus bays and sometimes even the entire firehouse, are decorated in different colors, evenly split right down the center.
For example, if you were to walk into one of these firehouses you would immediately notice that one half of the apparatus bay where the engine sits, is blue, and the side where the truck sits is red and its the same with the living quarters. From carpet to curtains, if it can be color coded and or split in half, it is.
Now, It's up to each individual to decide what side of the fence they'll stake claim. As for me, my fire service career got its start in an engine company. Not because I wanted to, but like the vast majority of those in the volunteer fire service, that's all my home town fire company had, an engine, 2 of them actually. (altho I would later come to my senses and hop the proverbial fence)
Engines are the most widely seen apparatus on the street and a vast majority of firehouses in America have at least one. In face, with a few exceptions, in any given city,engine company's out number truck companies. For example, the City of Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire has 28 engine company's and only 11 truck companies.
Both are usually staffed with 4 to 6 firefighters, but their responsibilities on the fire ground differ greatly and it's those differences in responsibility that are the foundation for the rivalry.
An engine company are those that respond on and operate/work from a fire engine, thats the fire truck that has the hose, the pump, hooks up to the fire hydrant & squirts the water. As defined, they have only 2 responsibilities at a fire, and those are to establish a water supply (the hydrant connection) and fire attack (the actual act of putting the fire out)
The basic routine of any engine company is the same, first, they need to establish a water supply, that's when they put the hose in the street with one end hooked to a hydrant and the other to their wagon (fire service slang for an engine). Next they pull a handling off and flake it out in the front yard. Now depending on they do things, they'll either charge the hose line at the front door, then make entry to find the fire, or (if they have a set) they take the line in dry to just outside the fire room, then call over the radio for water. Taking the line in wet can be difficult. When the line is charged, it becomes rigid, making it hard to bend without kinking it. The guys on the line have to really work to get the nozzle into position by forcefully moving the hose line around inside. It's a pain in the ass, especially when the fire is on the second floor in the back corner bedroom. But once they get into position, they put the fire out. Only thing after that is packing or rolling all that hose....other than that, the engine company's job is done.
Then there's the better half, um.......I mean, the other half of the rivalry. The Truck Company, or "Truckies". These are the big, built, well equipped, exceptionally trained, seasoned veteran bad asses that can put the fire out just by looking at it AND there ain't a damn we can't handle!!! Ok, maybe that's stretching the truth a little, sometimes we have to stomp the fire out with our boot.
Anyway, as the truck company,we arrive and work off of the apparatus that has the huge ladder on top. These rigs are usually packed full if tools, kind of like a rolling tool box. Some of them have a platform or "bucket" at the end if the ladder. In the fire service these are called "Towers" Then there are the ones that are just a big ladder or "straight stick" or more traditionally called a "truck". This too is a rivalry, only it just between truck companies. The argument being which is the better truck, a bucket or a straight stick? Both perform the job well but in my opinion, posers right in a bucket, real truckies climb the ladder.
Now, altho out rigs are a bit different, our responsibilities are the same. Those are forcible entry, search & rescue, ventilation, utility control (gas & electric), salvage, over haul and of course, ladders.
Forceable entry is just that, forcing entry into a building. This can be done a number of ways and how its done is usually determined by the situation at hand. It could be as simple as prying a door open, or removing security bars and taking out a window. What ever you need to get into, chances are, we have a tool for the job.
Search & rescue. This too is self explanatory. We go in (with no hose line) and search the building. The search is as methodical as it is chaotic and done in 2 stages. A primary and secondary search. The primary search is quick & dirty, sometimes crawling in pitch black feeling around with your hands, calling out in the event anyone trapped can hear you & respond. The secondary search is a more thorough search and is usually performed once the wagon fags...... sorry......once the engine company gets a knock on the fire. (knocked down but not completely out)
Now if you find a victim, you let command know to have the Bandaid Warriors (medics) ready, and now you and your partner remove the victim from the house via the fastest way. Sometimes your lucky and its the front door, other times, its a second or third story window.
The next one is one of my personal favorites, Ventilation. This is the process of removing smoke and heat from the structure to provided a safer environment for the interior firefighters and any possible victims. This too can be accomplished many different ways depending on the situation. It can be breaking windows, busting out sky lights and the always popular, cutting a hole in the roof. You can be a truckie, but your not "really" a truckie until you catch a job and put in some work on the roof...it's kind of a right of passage. Then there's the fans, ones that suck & ones that blow. The smoke ejectors "suck" the smoke out of the house, usually a window. The other type, Positive Pressure Ventilation, or PPV fans are positioned in front of an exterior door and "blow" fresh cool air into the house at a high pressure, forcing out smoke & heat.
Now the tricks to ventilation are type of ventilation, timing, and reading (understanding) the smoke & fire conditions. If you screw either one up, and the conditions are right, the result can be devastating. Increasing the rate of fire growth exponentially, or causing a flashover or even a back draft, all of them potentially lethal. So, as you can tell, ventilation is a lot more involved than just breaking stuff.
Utility control is isolating the Gas & electric to the structure that's burning. A mix of natural gas and fire doesn't exactly help the cause, and with guys inside pulling down walls & ceilings, you don't want them to find a live wire and get zapped while standing in the puddle of water. (that shit hurts)
And niw, since you've turned off the electricity, Utility control also includes supplying lights & power to the home via small generators, long heavy duty extension cords and portable lighting inside & out.
Salvage is the process in which we try to save as many personal belongings as we safely can. It's generally not a favorite job, but, we understand that someone standing in the front yard is watching their life go up in smoke,literally, and the more we can save makes it that much easier for them to deal with. Basically it's Stacking the furniture in the rooms below the fire and covering them with huge sheets of plastic, carefully moving pictures and stuff lime that. Its amazing how handing something like a charged jewelry box to the home owner while its still warm, seems to make it all seem not quite as bad, if only a by a little.
Over haul is done generally in the fire room and is when we tear the walls open to the framing to check for hot spots and any hidden fire or extension. And removal of debris to a point as to not disturb any potential arson evidence.
And finally, there's the Ladders, more notably the big power ladder on top of the fire truck. But along with reaching high up in the air, it also provides an elevated master stream. It's a big nozzle attached to the top of the ladder capable of flowing upwards of 2000 gallons per minuet. (that's enough to fill your average above ground pool in about 4 1/2 minuets) Then there are the ground ladders, truck companies usually at least 6 or 8. These are used to gain access to the roof if the power ladder can't be used because if power lines (very common in SW PA) they're also placed at ever possible window for means if access and egress from the building. (you always try to have more than one way out of a room if the shit goes bad) the ladders can also be used as a platform to vent windows in upper floors or tear at the eves of the house to expose any fire. Basically, for a Truckie, working from a ladder must be second nature.
So in general, you now have an understand of what takes place and how every single task is important. However, to Truckies and Hose Jockeys the job can be done just as easily without their counterpart there. A million in one arguments have ensued over who is more important and I suspect it will continue that way well after I'm long gone.
Truth of it is, one cannot function efficiently without the other and all jobs are important to putting out the fire. And although putting water on a fire is kind of important, at least now we all know that the engine company cant do their job without the truck company, because after all.....Truckies are better.