Let’s Get Focused

“You go left, and I will go right”. This is not an uncommon phrase to leave the mouths of many firefighters. This of course is the direction given to a search team by its officer or team leader. Now in some circumstances this may be totally appropriate based off the occupancy, location of victims etc.

In this article I’d like to spend some time on the quick down and dirty search of a residential structure.

In this and the next photo, you can see all of the stuff on the front porch. Chairs to relax on, bikes to play with,
etc. There may be other porches packed with many other items. This can be a clue to where they enter the house, and also a clue that you may want to enter the front. consider a few things before we make entry.

Simply choosing a left or right hand search at the flip of a coin will not be a beneficial tactic for the occupants or your crew. I will hone in on what will drive our decisions as a search crew and where to focus our efforts.

It is not uncommon for search and rescue to start right at the front door. Often times this is an easy target and we tend to instinctually go for that entry point. Some may choose to pick right or left not because their size-up told them to do so, but because the search has to start somewhere and the right side seems as good a choice as any.

This train of thought could eat up valuable time for those occupants if we don’t consider a few things before we make entry.

You can see the car parked at the very end of this driveway. In this house there was a side and rear entrance in the home. There was also another vehicle back there as well with the back porch having the mail all over it, bikes, chairs and more. This could lead you to start your search in the rear.

First, consider the location of bedrooms in relation to the fire. Now I realize that not every house is built the same, but we should be intimately familiar with the homes in our first due.

My district is filled with two and a half story balloon frame structures. Once you make your way to the second floor the bedrooms face the A side and the C side of the structure.

Normally there will be a hall bathroom that splits the hallway as well as an access to the upper floor if finished. We know that a large majority of cape cods have the front door open up and cover the access to the stairs.

Use med runs, activated fire alarms, and public service calls as an opportunity to size up the buildings in your jurisdiction.

So now that we have sized up the location of fire in relation to the bedrooms, we are getting ready to make our entry.

As we walk up some things may tip us off on the best place to start our search. If you walk up to a house and it has a long driveway that goes all the way toward the back of the house, you may see the car or cars are parked all the way at the end.

This could be a good indicator that these occupants come on go from the back of the house. It could also indicate the structure is split up into several apartments with separate entrances for the first and second floors.

The second floor may be accessed by a wooden fire escape that was added to the exterior after the occupancy was changed.

Other indicators will be the porches on the house. If we arrive to see a front porch with shoes, toys, chairs, and more that could be a telling sign that is where these people come and go every day. It can clue you in to where the heaviest foot traffic is taking place.

It is clues like this that could tip you off
on where to focus the start of your search. Once we have identified our entry point we begin the search process.

We all know that most victims are found in the paths that they would travel to escape, or really just come and go every day.

In this and the previous image, you can see the access to the rear of these houses where stairs have been added. The house with the green stairs has steps all the way up to a finished attic. It is very common to have houses like these broken up into several apartments.

Based off what we saw outside and the location of the fire we go immediately for the areas we think will be the most affected.

We have to be conducting realistic search and rescue training. It is not uncommon to breed robotic search motions as we conduct search training in the same structures over and over.

The use of acquired structures is definitely an opportunity we need to jump on. This is hands down the best place to train and incorporate realistic layouts.

It could be possible that the only search and rescue training being done is in the burn building or your firehouse bunkroom. You may simply be limited in options that will force you to always start left or right.

I completely understand that not all fire departments have the same resources.

If all you are left with is the firehouse or your burn building it is critical you make sure in your training, you explain other search options and the importance of a focused search.

Do what you can do change the look, layout, or direction of what you have. There is no one size fits all method, find what works for you.

I realize not every residence is created equal and there are many other factors that will play into your decision making as a search crew.

The information provided here is meant to be good general knowledge to help you better size- up your search and rescue before you go in to make the grab!

Another picture here where a fire extended up these stairs and into the first and second floors cutting off normal ingress/egress routes. The danger to the occupant here is their normal route of travel is now blocked off and with remodeling into many “apartments”, access to the front of the house is blocked off. Expect these occupants to be making escapes out of the windows.