Vertical Ventilation Is Not A Crime
Have you ever heard the statement “Vertical Vent is the most dangerous thing on the fireground.” Have you ever uttered that same statement because someone else told you it somewhere along the way? Unfortunately this statement is being passed around a lot in the last few years and is not based on any scientific fact. There are departments across the country who have banned all roof operations because of this simple misunderstanding of a fantastic and extremely relevant tactic!
Of course there a multitude of factors that lead to successful vertical ventilation operations. The first being, does your department have enough resources on a working structure fire to complete this task in a calculated manner that can lead to success? If your department has one or two engines showing up on scene and this is all you’re going to get then vertical vent is not a great option for you! It just doesn’t make sense to use the resources on scene for this task vs using them for fire attack, and search. Horizontal and hydraulic vent is going to be your sweet spot and can be used extremely effectively with minimal resources.
A second and equally important consideration is basic firefighter skills training. Are you and your fellow firefighters adequately and appropriately trained on things that go into vertical ventilation? How about building construction, reading smoke, roof operations, laddering buildings, saw use, and most importantly sounding? Do you have the tools required to be effective? How consistently do you and your crews train on roof and vertical ventilation specifically? Was the last time your department trained on this tactic way back in the fire academy?! Another variable is who is riding on the truck for that shift vs who is typically assigned to the apparatus. If you have a crew riding the rig that day that isn’t consistently training and thinking of fireground operations from the truck firefighters perspective than vertical vent operations might be a bad choice for that specific call.
There are a ton of things to consider and consistently assess but to be honest most of these skills are basic and build from there. For these reasons vertical vent isn’t for everyone but to simply utter a ridiculous statement about any fireground tactic without doing the true work and research to see how said tactic applies or doesn’t apply to your specific department is asinine. There are plenty of tremendous resources available to assess the risk and applicability of vertical ventilation operations for your specific situations. UL Firefighter Safety Research Institute has done a mountain of research over the last 10+ years and states “As soon as the water has the upper hand and more energy is being absorbed by the water than is being created by the fire, ventilation will begin to work as intended. With vertical ventilation, this will happen faster than with horizontal ventilation, assuming similar vent sizes.” ULFSRI. (2011) Effectiveness of Fire Service Vertical Ventilation and Suppression Tactics Fire Service Report Pg 20 Section 4.3
Vertical Ventilation Is Not A Crime! Rep your craft as an educated Firefighter. Featuring the truth about coordinated Vert Vent and pure comfort.
Featuring the “Vertical Vent Is Not A Crime” on the chest and the simple Anvil and Irons logo on the back. Train, workout or wear this thing out in the wild and you won’t be disappointed in how it performs!
The key element here is timing with the hoseline and water having the upper hand on the fire itself. Engine company operations including the hose stretch, water mapping and application, and a whole host of other firefighter basic skills lead to success on the fireground including with the applicability and implementation of vertical vent operations. We cannot stress the importance of proper coordination with the engine company on the hoseline enough. As the research shows if we open up any ventilation hole too early there is a reaction with the fire and an increase in heat. Sometimes, based on a whole host of factors, this increase is exponential and can lead to even shorter flashover times. Needless to say this is bad for the customer and it can be bad for us as we fight fires on the interior of the burning structure.
So, what about the danger factor of vertical ventilation ops themselves? Lt Brian Lynch from Colorado Springs and founding member of the great training group Irons and Ladders took it upon himself to do a whole host of research to see the impact of vertical vent and roof ops on LODD numbers. What he found was that fire attack and search are actually the highest risk operations on the fireground. You can access his full research report from 2014 Here but here is a brief synopsis:
- 2,142 LODD’s 1994-2013 (Excluding 9-11-01)
- Average 103 LODD’s/ Year
- 112 FF’s Killed by Building Collapse
- 5 FF’s Killed performing Vertical Vent
- 70 Killed because of Fire Behavior Event
- 67 Due to Flashover
- 3 Due to Smoke Explosion
- Most of these 70 killed during Fire Attack & Search
Ok, so what about “danger” of vertical ventilation in relation to fireground maydays? Don Abbott and Project Mayday have done some research assessing the reason for maydays and have even broken it out career vs volunteer. For the sake of this article we are assessing career department maydays using their research which can be found here.
If you work through the report you will see that it is claimed that there were a reported 5,491 maydays between 2015 and 2019 and that 17.1% (941) were classified as Falls through/off Roof. This was the third highest classified category of mayday activations behind Lost/Separated from Hoseline 23.9% (1,131) and Falls into Basements 20.1% (1,104).
If we unpack this data even further we can easily see that the most common issue and steps leading up to a mayday during roof operations is because of a lack of sounding with a whopping 81% of these happening while either traveling across the roof or falling from the roof or ladder itself. Abbott, D. (2019) Project Mayday 2019 Career V2 ProjectMayday.net AKA basic skills….
If we do a better job sounding, training on sounding, and educating our fellow firefighters on basic skills training related to sounding roofs then we can dramatically decrease these numbers even further. Simply having the tactical discipline on the fireground to implement the basic skills that hopefully were taught to you decreases your risk even further when on the roof.
As we like to say here at Firefighter Craftsmanship “Don’t Believe the Hype”. If a senior firefighter or an instructor tells you something it doesn’t mean that it is based in fact. It’s just one part of the puzzle for you to consider along your career. Challenge the norms and the statements like “It’s the most dangerous thing we do on the fireground” or “We’ve always done it that way”.
Challenge these norms by utilizing the resources available to us to make calculated and conscious decisions for ourselves, our crews and the customer we have sworn to protect. Just remember Vertical Ventilation is Not a Crime. It must be highly calculated, coordinated, and can be a very effective tactic if our resources are properly equipped, trained, and implement solid basic firefighter skills during the fireground operation.
