Firefighters run their hose through ‘illegally’ parked car

originally posted by: dogstar23

originally posted by: Sremmos80
a reply to: grainofsand

They probably could if they had to, but they don't.
It is known that you don't park in front of a hydrant or this happens.

Don't get how it makes sense to make the firefighters work around you like you describe in the UK...

Because in the UK, everyone's castles are made of stone. With fire breathing dragons around, you have to make homes basically fireproof.

Yep, my house is made of limestone and a slate roof.
Should be safe from the dragons, but I'll admit I haven't seen any in a while.

I am pleased that if my home ever does catch fire then our local fire service will still be able to put it out with no need to smash the windows of the car currently parked next to the nearest hydrant.

a reply to: grainofsand

I believe that it is down to self righteousness on the part of the fire-fighters in question. But we knew that already.

a reply to: grainofsand
I never said this was the practice outside of the US. This is however the practice in the US and I explained the reasoning behind the methods taught. You don't have to agree with the methods but they are what they are.

It also shows your immaturity trying to turn fire services into a pissing match. Larger cities here as well as coastal departments have foreigners stop in all the time for t shirts etc. This is because even though from over seas, it is still a large family.

originally posted by: LoverBoy
a reply to: grainofsand
I never said this was the practice outside of the US. This is however the practice in the US and I explained the reasoning behind the methods taught. You don't have to agree with the methods but they are what they are.

I'm not disagreeing, just chuckling and quite shocked to be honest, that the biggest economy in the world is the only nation which has a system of hoses/hydrants which requires smashing of car windows if they are parked too close.

It also shows your immaturity trying to turn fire services into a pissing match. Larger cities here as well as coastal departments have foreigners stop in all the time for t shirts etc. This is because even though from over seas, it is still a large family.

immaturity? Pissing match? That is your invention alone.
I'm just questioning why such practices are only in the US?
Do you know why that is the case?

a reply to: skalla

Yes I also struggle to imagine why only one single nation of the world appears to smash car windows in order to gain access to hydrants.
My personal belief is that such incidents are less about need and more about 'message'.
Perhaps some members who may be firefighters in the rest of the world could shed some light to explain why only in the US do firefighters struggle to access their hydrants?
...or is it just firefighters occasionally being dicks and the US population are so controlled that they cry "He deserved it coz he was parked illegally!! Oh Noes!"

Wow, brainwashed or what lol

Anyone got any examples of other countries smashing car windows to feed their hoses though?
I've done another half hour searching multiple terms and scrolling multiple pages...nothing so far, only in America eh?

OK for those int he UK commenting on the US fire dept methods, first you get about a foot of snow a year we got 3 feet in one day, with snow drifts at six seven feet, try and find your UK underground sprinkler system you have with 3 feet of snow

second the island of manhatten is bigger than all of england, lot different when you actually have to cover some ground, plus you dont have any building taller than like 20 stories.

third canadians also smash windows when cars are in front of hydrants so whoever said no other country does this you obviously didnt look to hard as i found it in five min.

fourth look at the picture from your own newspaper in the UK - does it look like there is alot of room to work when you have an air tank, the hose, the fireproof suit, boots, and the wrench to open hydrant.

www.dailymail.co.uk...

boston.cbslocal.com...

www.universalhub.com...


The other day, I ran a photo from Mt. Ida Road in Dorchester showing what can happen when you park in front of a hydrant. Turns out it was for a fire on the second floor of a three decker at 36 Mt. Ida that was declared out about a half hour after firefighters arrived around 1:36 a.m.

Steve MacDonald, spokesman for the Boston Fire Department, explains why firefighters might have run the hose right through the car. He emphasized he was not at the scene and had yet to talk to any firefighters who were, so he had no firsthand knowledge of the specific incident:

When we have a call for a fire, the minimum response will be two ladders, a rescue unit, a chief and three engines. It is the responsibility for each engine to get their own water source/hydrant. This will make sure that we get a supply quickly once the water in the engine tanks run out. They carry 500 or 750 gallons. It is preferable to use the short front suction hose pre-attached to the engine to hook up to the hydrant. This requires the engine to nose in to a hydrant. If no access is available that way, the following happens.

Each engine has an officer and three firefighters. On arrival the officer and one firefighter grab the hose with a nozzle attached (we call it a pipe) and head in. The driver, what we call the pump operator, will break the hose connection once the officer and pipe man are inside and call for water. He will hook it up to the side of the engine to one of several connections, open the valve and give them water. The third firefighter meanwhile has been taking the large 4" feeder hose with a very large valve on it to the hydrant and has been connecting that. In theory, he will get the engine the hydrant water before the firefighters inside go thru the tank. He will then join the other two inside.

When you have fire showing from an occupied home, you do what you have to-to save lives. I know is sounds cliché but keep in mind, the firefighters in those first couple of minutes do not know how many people are inside or what exactly the scale of the inside fire is. A three-decker at 1:30 am tells you people are most likely sleeping and in danger. I cannot speak to what happened on Mt. Ida Rd. as to the thought process involved with the placement of the feeder hose. Ultimately, it was the size up the firefighters made in a split second based on what they saw, what they were told and experience.

In fact, Boston firefighters say the only thing on their minds was getting water as quickly as possible to the burning homes which were at that point fully engulfed. Since it had gone to eight alarms, all the closer hydrants were taken. The one blocked by the BMW was a street away.

“You don’t want to lose the full force of the water you’re getting from the hydrant,” Steve MacDonald of Boston Fire said. “It’s important to be as straight as possible.”
Boston Firefighters ran a hose through this BMW that was parked in front of a hydrant on Lexington Street. (WBZ-TV)

Boston Firefighters ran a hose through this BMW that was parked in front of a hydrant on Lexington Street. (WBZ-TV)

The hose still had a kink even after they got it hooked up, so bystanders pitched in and helped firefighters lift and bounce the car away from the curb.

“You can move the car a short distance which is what they did to get the kink out,” MacDonald said. “Again this is all effort that should be concentrated on putting the fire out.”

and for those that dont know about alarm codes for US firefighters i will put it in next comment.


so for all who want to say they are just being dicks, shut the # up cause i dont see you running into burning buildings everyday all day and until you do their jobs dont comment on # you dont know how it is.

explination of fire alarm codes per wikipedia

One-alarm, two-alarm, three-alarm fires, are categories of fires indicating the level of response by local authorities, with an elevated number of alarms indicating increased commitment of resources. The term multiple-alarm is a quick way of indicating that a fire was severe and difficult to contain. This system of classification is common in the USA among both fire departments and news agencies.

Contents

1 Definition
2 History
3 Typical alarm levels
4 References
5 External links

Definition

A common misconception is that a "3rd-alarm fire," for example, means that three firehouses responded to the fire. This is not the rule behind the naming convention, although some cities may use the number of firehouses responding for multi-alarm designations because that is the simplest way to determine an alarm number.[1]

The most widely used formula for multi-alarm designation is based on the number of units (firetrucks for example) and firefighters responding to a fire; the more vehicles and firefighters responding, the higher the alarm designation. (Note: In most cities, a "unit" can be anything from a tanker or ladder truck to rescue vehicles to even cars driven by the chief and deputies.)

With this unit/firefighter alarm designation, the initial dispatch is referred to as a "first alarm" and is typically the largest. Subsequent alarms are calls for additional units, usually because the fire has grown and additional resources are needed to combat it, or that the incident is persisting long enough that firefighters on scene need to be replaced due to exhaustion.

Requests for units and firefighters from outside jurisdictions do not normally occur in multi-firehouse urban areas until elevated alarms are reached (alarm three and above), but will depending on the location of the incident and the condition of the authority having jurisdiction at the time of the incident.
History

The system of classification comes from the old tradition of using pull stations to alert the local departments to a fire in their area. The "box" would send a message to all local stations by telegraph that there was a fire, indicating the location as a number: (station area)-(box number), e.g., 11-2. Fires are still dispatched as "box alarms," following this tradition, with maps broken up into a grid of "box areas."
Typical alarm levels

Below is a list of the alarm levels used in the response policy of the New York City Fire Department. This is a basic example of how alarm levels are categorized in a fire department, how many fire apparatuses respond to each alarm level, etc. In New York, however, additional special alarm levels are utilized, aside from the conventional 1st Alarm, 2nd Alarm, 3rd Alarm, etc. Examples of such alarm levels are the Signal 10-75 Assignment, the Signals 10-76 and 10-77 Assignments, and the Signal 10-60 Assignment. A 10-75 is a Working Fire (i.e., there is fire visible from a building), the 10-76/10-77 Assignments are the alarm levels separate from the 1st, 2nd, 3rd Alarms, etc. that are the standard fire department responses to fires in high-rise buildings. The Signal 10-60 is a separate response to major disasters. Below is how the alarm levels are categorized in order per protocol and each apparatus count in an addition per alarm.

Box Alarm/1st Alarm Assignment:
3 Engine Companies
2 Ladder Companies
1 Battalion Chief
10-75 (Working Fire) Assignment (Additional Units):
1 Engine Company
1 Ladder Company (operating as Firefighter Assist and Search Team)
1 Squad Company
1 Rescue Company
1 Battalion Chief
1 Division Chief
2nd Alarm Assignment:
5 Engine Companies
2 Ladder Companies
2 Battalion Chiefs (1 operating as the Incident Safety Officer Chief and 1 operating as the Resource Unit Leader Chief)
1 Satellite Unit (Special Unit)
1 Recuperation and Care (R.A.C.) Unit (Special Unit)
1 Tactical Support Unit (T.S.U.) (Special Unit)
1 Field Communications Unit(Incident Command Vehicle)
3rd Alarm Assignment:
4 Engine Companies
2 Ladder Companies
3 Battalion Chiefs (1 operating as the Staging Chief and 1 operating as the Air Recon. Chief)
2 Deputy Chiefs
1 Mask Service Unit (M.S.U.) (Special Unit)
4th Alarm Assignment:
4 Engine Companies
2 Ladder Companies
1 Battalion Chief (operating as the Incident Planning Chief)
5th Alarm Assignment:
4 Engine Companies
2 Ladder Companies
1 Assistant Chief (Usually the Borough [district] Commander)
Chief of Operations

If the incident commander decides that the incident does not require a higher alarm level to be requested, they can specially request an additional unit to the scene without requesting a full alarm level assignment. For example, at a Working Fire, there are 4 Engine Companies, 3 Ladder Companies, 1 Squad Company, 1 Rescue Company, 2 Battalion Chiefs, and 1 Division Chief operating at the scene. If the fire is not large enough to require a 2nd Alarm, but a need for more equipment and manpower is needed, the commanding Chief can request additional units to respond "Specially Called" to the scene.

Thus, at the scene of a 5th Alarm Fire in New York, there are a total of 21 Engine Companies, 11 Ladder Companies, 1 Squad Company, 1 Rescue Company, 9 Battalion Chiefs, 1 Division Chief, 1 Deputy Chief, 1 Assistant Chief, and the Chief of Operations, as well as multiple specialized units and or specially called units operating on the scene.

All of these companies come from many firehouses to the scene. Some companies, however, are quartered together at the same firehouses. So, it is not a matter of how many firehouses respond to a fire, as popularly believed, but rather, how many companies/units and how many firefighters are operating on scene.

a reply to: someoneinnewengland

So all your links are US stories?
Got a link to stories of firefighters smashing car windows to feed hoses through anywhere else in the world?
...no need for the emotion though

a reply to: someoneinnewengland

ROFLMAO :



this is how freaking retarded - this " argument " is :

It appears to be an act of retaliation at first, but firefighters say the fire hose must be as straight as possible to maintain water pressure.

see pic above

now in the sane world - fire fighters would use the right hand tee branch and feen the uptake hose around the back of the car to the appliance

simples

faster [ no windows to smash - and you still have to go around the car - however you feed the hose ]

kink free .

no debris .

larger bend radii

but hey - only in america

oh and just for clarity - in case some people dont get it .

i do not advocate parking infront of hydrants and the idiots that do deserve everything they get

BUT

the " special american " solution is clearly even more retarded - as - by example above - it even fails to accomplish its own stated goal

OK you didnt read my post as it says canada also practices this method and last time i check canada wasnt the US, and isnt the daily mail a UK newspaper.

and for the second reply in the article did you read the fire was a block away as it was an 8 alarm fire not to mention the article even says that people helped bounce the car away from the curb. so even though 3 multi story houses were on fire and the guy had to run up a block with the hose and equipment, and when he gets to hydrant - oh # now he needs to run back down the block grab the t-connector and run back up the block to the hydrant and proceed to fit the hose and get water flowing - and by that time we will have 5 houses on fire.

why is it people C.ant U.nderstand N.ormal T.hinking

a reply to: someoneinnewengland


Nope, just wondering why only the US smashes car windows. Chill out, link me a story or two outside of the US and I shall happily concede in this discussion.
No need for tears, just share a link and show everyone that this is not just a curiously unique US thing, that should be easy if what you say is correct.

also i see you didnt mention the fact about my snow issue so that seems to have stopped the "your system sucks" theory, so lets through 7-8 foot snowbanks and guess what the t-connector dont work. also nice job on using the worst picture from the article, why not put the one up where the firefighter is standing with his can almost to the car as it is parked so close to the hydrant

and this is where the law comes from

“The law requiring 15 feet of free space on each side of a fire hydrant was adopted to allow fire trucks to park directly in front of hydrants,”

now lets say they had to use the the rigid hoses on the side of the truck for water instead of the other hoses that are flexable, those ones are about ten feet long and cant bend so that is why their is a law. try hooking that 8 inch diameter rigid hose that cant bend to that hydrant ohhh wait cant the cars in the way.

really is this still an argument?

a reply to: someoneinnewengland

That's all very interesting but it still doesn't explain why it appears the US is the only nation in the world to smash the windows of cars when they are parked too close. Got a link to a story from anywhere else in the world?

Other countries have snow you know, there are around 50 different nations on the European continent including Russia but I can't find a single story where their firefighters smash car windows to feed hoses through.
Face it, either the US alone has a bizarre and unique system of hoses and hydrants requiring car windows to be smashed, or some of your firefighters just do it to teach a lesson to people illegally parked. It's one of the two, unless you have another suggestion?

www.calgarysun.com...

ca.news.yahoo.com...

www.mississauga.ca...

there are 3 in canada that have the laws.

www.fluther.com...

about 3/4 of the way down

It is legal in Canada. I know because my family is good friends with a now retired Fire Chief. I’ve heard many stories of him having to bust through car windows to get to a hydrant. On top of the not being able to claim the damage the owner of the vehicle gets a hefty fine.

and the reason you dont see stories like this from other countries is that the have respect for common sense, unlike here in america where people are in a perminate state of grandjure and idocracy that boggles the mind. and the guy with the BMW he was mad at first and then realised it was his own stupid ass fault and the article states that.

a reply to: someoneinnewengland

I'd try again if I were you.
Not one of your links shows a story or indicates in any way that car windows get smashed to feed hoses through them.
Again, I am saying that this appears to be a bizarre and curiously unique practice by US firefighters alone.
Now, got any links showing this ever happens in the 195 other countries of the world outside of the US?

a reply to: someoneinnewengland

I am in Canada, and it is true they will smash and bash your car, but stop telling us it to save time and whatnot, that is ludicrous, it is simply the actions of guys on roids rushing to a fire who are taught to smash the crap out of cars that are in front of the hydrants.

They do it NOT to save time, but to feel better, and show the car owners they should obey the laws, and what is more, reduce the amount of parking spaces in the cities by a large factor.

They can park wherever they want, but dammit it if they have to go 10 feet around a car, better to waste time and just get the smashing crap started.

I saw a Ferrari parked in front of a hydrant by a burning furniture store, they drove the truck THROUGH the car, totally destroying it, and then proceeded to bash it in on the rest of it periodically as they passed by, like beating a dead horse.

Very amusing, and really actually quite stupid.

so the you dont think the canadian firefighters dont smash windows parked in front of a hydrant come on now?