A long time friend sent in these pictures of a ladder compartment that is set up for failure. This particular ladder compartment is split into two sides and stores the ladders in a vertical fashion. However, that has nothing to do with the problem, take a close look in that compartment. Shovels, water keys, hooks, and a broom all have to be removed from the compartment before the ladders can be removed. …No wonder why the ladders aren’t getting thrown. It reflects the unfortunate trend that is plaguing the fire service (not throwing enough ladders.) While we totally understand the fact that there is never enough room on the rig, we need to keep our mission in mind. Today’s fireground presents us with enough challenges; we don’t need to bring our own. The ladders will do us no good if they are still in the compartment. It comes down to a matter of company pride. Take pride in your rig, and ensure that it is set-up for success, not failure. If we don’t who will?
HA HA HA, to bad you can’t donkey kick the brooms and shovels to get the ladders out. By the way, brooms and shovels can save a life at 2 am when people are hanging out the window. NOTTT
honestly what is so important about a broom? I know we use them so much
We have the same issue on one of our engines – the classic 10# of stuff in a 5# box. Our backcoards are stored with the ladders, and when we added NY hooks, guess where it went too…
I would discourage anyone from doing this practice. Our ladders conistently get hung up – bad if you need ’em. Look for solutions rather than a fast fix!
No pride. It’s not like the ladders we carry on the truck are important, right?
“We need brooms set up on all sides for effective means of egress”
It goes to show you too…. if this is how well they take care of such an important tool (ladders), how well are they taking care of power equipment- or ALL of their equipment in general? I understand that people want to get as many tools as possible on apparatus, just because boxes/people have been cut back, but like the article says; why do more damage to ourselves. I think the ladders are one of the most important survival tools on a fireground, and they get used the least. Especially in this case; when someone is calling because they need to evas out of the second or third floor…. “o, please wait while we remove the brooms-because we did not have them set up in the first place.” A great man wrote a story regarding Pride and ownership….. great example of department(s) who do not have it.
Hell, we use our broom more than we use our ladders. Im not even kidding.
It’s a accident waiting to happen . Remove the shovels and assorted stuff and put it on the ground in the dark. Remove the ladders and trip over the shovels brooms .There has to be a better way.Stay safe out there brothers.
The fire service is a “Reactive” entity. AFTER somebody dies ro winds up in the burn unit for 3 months only then will this posture be altered. Firemen are very inventive, this site is abject proof of that. Tossing the least used tools amist our most valuable ones and making portbale ladder removal even more difficult only tells me the one thing I need to know about this Ladder Company. L-A-Z-Y and Complacent. Hopefully they see this website and change their disposition.
ridiculous.
Dman72, while you may be right, are you training at least monthly with your broom? Inspecting same broom during your daily/weekly/monthly apparatus inspections? I’m not saying, I’m just saying…
I agree with the comments – move this stuff. Go to Home Depit or Lowes and you will find there are plenty of good looking but inexpensive pickup truck side boxes in polished treadplate that can hold this stuff and sit atop the side cabinets on most aerials and not interfer with the ability to swing the ladder to the side. Or if cash is not an issue have some custom boxes made. We carry the nice to have but don’t need it right now (such as salvage stuff) up top in coffin compartments.
One more thing. If you want guys to throw ladders you need to have them do it before they are needed. On smell and bell calls why not ask/order a ladder thrown? Maybe not at a house where we might do some minor damage (such as scratching the paint or siding) but at a commercial or industrial. Here’s a common scenario where this will work (I know it will because I occasionally use it):
-Command, E1 has an activated rooftop unit smoke alarm. We are going to the roof to evaluate.
-E1, command copies activated RTU and you will be investigating.
-T1 from command ladder Side C to support E1 who will be on the roof.
Many times wo assume these routine calls are nothing and we sit in the cab waiting for the signal to go home. Let’s get ahead of the curve, plan for the worse, and put our skills to practice on a real building, not the station or drill tower.
Ladders are one of the most important tools in the fire service. The storage and the ability to get those ladders off the rig quickly is almost as important as putting the fire out. I guess my question would be why do they have these things in this compartment. Is this an issue of another piece of apparatus being shut down and now they have to consolidate equipment to provide the same level of service? In today’s economy ,apparatus are being shut down and those departments are forced to do things that they aren’t used to. I think that this department could possibly find other places on the rig for this equipment or place these items on another apparatus. Just keep in mind that some departments have to take drastic measures to provide a service.
While I can understand that we’re always having to find room on the truck for “something that somebody needed that one time” (you should see the stuff bungee corded to our tailboard), we need to look for the proper solutions.
Most apparatus have a “boot” area on top of the truck…great for non-emergent tools like shovels and water keys. As a frequent broom user, I’ve also learned that the majority of push brooms have detachable heads, allowing them to be stored in other areas (like the boot).
Like everybody else has said, we need to keep access open to our emergency tools. Think about it, we tell business owners to keep their emergency exits clear. Their customers shouldn’t have delayed egress, just as our customers shouldn’t have delayed rescue.
…just another example of how the Fire Service (in many areas) has lost it’s focus. The leaders/firefighters/union reps that have allowed this type of thing to happen on the rig should be ashamed and embarrassed of the message it sends, not only to the troops but to the citizens- “We aren’t ready just yet for your emergency, could you please call us back in a little bit. Thank you. Have a super day!” “We don’t do fires anymore…” “Sorry, we were so busy helping someone with a runny nose, we forgot what we came here for in the first place”
I agree with the loss of focus, however the blame lies with EVERYONE who gets complacent like this (I’ll be the first one in line). And yes, leaders/senior men/union bosses/etc. should set the example, but we all owe it to ourselves to have a little bit of pride and act like the professionals we’re claiming to be.
This is where we used to keep our leaf blower, but it has since been removed from service…. Truth be told, the only item we store in this compartment other than the ladders is 1 (ONE) 18″ traffic cone teathered with a rope to pull out from the rear of the truck to to mark for the incoming engine how far they must park away from the rear of the truck so we still have access to ALL of the ladders. (a little trick I learned from this website!)
Your cone is not in my area.
Ladder butts/spurs,bottoms,heels- in or out. We place them but in because that is how we carry them. Just curious to see what others think on this topic or if it even matters… If it does matter; then why, for in or out?
We keep ours butt out…no reason, just that’s how they came. It does tend to work out pretty good, though. Just slide it out to the balance point, stick your arm in and walk away from the rig.
Nate: I am sure if you look really hard, you could locate a cone that is at least similar to the one that is carried on our truck.
take a look at the new ocfr engines. you have to move the mercury nozzle out of the way just to get into the ladder compartment.
I agree that it is one of the most improtant tools on the rig however, sometimes you dont get a choice from the top, we nicknamed our truck, squegee for a while now the problem has been corrected however sometimes it has to be that way until you can convince the admin what needs to be done. good luck with whos ever rig this is i dont think its a matter of pride or not.
Chris;
We use markers or paint to write the portable length on the feet bottom so they are easily identifiable as opposed to having to look at the nice little aluminum numeral plates on the bottom of the cabinet as shown.
And if some dope decides to grab the portable by the fly section it may extend while in the cabinet if put in the reverse way as you ask.
Complacency is a LEARNED trait. Build smart firemen from day one. Pride and initiative go a long way. NO rusty hooks, NO Halligans caked with drywall. Take ownership of your Company. Make that Company great. It won’t just happen on it’s own.
Guys you keep mentioning we have to do more with less (trucks & staff) and provide people the same service. Understandable, But lets keep in mind RECEO. RESCUE is a number one priority, sweeping up absorbent is not a huge issue. So by only having ONE broom or putting a broom in a different place is not providing a bad service by any means to the public. If this trucks was to show up to a family members house that was on fire looking like this, and a family member needed to be rescued……. Or they have to tell this story at a LODD of a brother who needed a ladder but this truck couldn’t get it out in time. JUSTTTTT SAYIN
Well guys I’ve been watching this website since inception. Anyways I’ve learned alot and continue to learn everytime I come on here, but you guys should know better if you show a little pride or proactivity they say you’re “ate up with it”. The great thing now is as a Lt. I make the decisions on what and how we do business and I like doing business the right way . Our profession is losing it’s tradition due to low morale and bitterness due to paycuts and layoffs . The way I look at it is we dour job to the best of our ability and give 115% and ” do the right thing”. Sorry for the rant and our ladder compartment is clean and free of obstructions.
what a bunch of dopes…who is this department so that we can all laugh at them…bone heads
No need to laugh or ridicule, we don’t know if the shovels and brooms were placed there because someone was lazy or if somone actually thought that was a good place for them. Either way there has to be a better place for them. Under the stick or maybe in a section of 8 inch PVC secured on top beside the stick?
Chris,
The only ladder that we really stress over being forward or backward is the attic ladder. We had a rookie, put it in feet first and we had to ride back to the station with it hanging about 3 feet out of the compartment, because it was hung where it couldn’t go in or out. It then took about 30 minutes of muscle and some nifty pike pole work to finally get it unstuck.
Keith102. I’ve seen that before, with a 24ft. I had to grab an 18ft straight instead. It’s not a good feeling knowing that you have to grab a ladder that will only reach the sill of a 2nd floor window..just because someone didn’t take the time to pay attention to how it was going in. Thankfully, I only needed the ladder for ventilation and not for rescue.
While it’s clear that this company is going to have some serious difficulties if they need to use their ladders, I think that the photo probably has more of a story behind it. It could very well be that a well-meaning new guy or girl was told to put some stuff ‘in the back of the rig’ and was given no other direction. I know a few officers that even would have put stuff where we see it, only for a minute, in the presence of a higher-up that had told them ‘you need to add this to your inventory’. It would have come out after the chief saw it to make the point – but it would have been there for a (supervised) minute.
Any ‘out of the box’ scenarios aside, if somebody stores additional equipment like we see it here – in my mind, it’s clearly a gap in training, supervision, or practical experience. All of those things can be fixed – hopefully before there’s a problem. We see the problem in the photo – now it’s time to figure out the ‘why’ so we can figure out the ‘how’ of fixing it.
Stay safe.
We need to stop putting equipment and “stuff,” on the rigs just for the sake of putting stuff on.
Ali Jahanfard
For those of you that have multiple ladders of the same length on the truck, think about storing one of them butt in and the other butt out. That way if you need to get em up in a hurry and you are working on a tight street, you wont have to worry about turning the ladder around to do it. If the fire is behind the ladder bed, pull the one stored butt out. If it is in front of the ladder bed and you need to bring it past the truck, grab the one stored butt in. I know in a perfect world we can get right in front of the building every time, but with cars on both sides of a residential street, sometimes its just not gonna happen.
I gotta agree with all they guys that preach being proactive. Thank God there are still guys that are proud to put some thought and energy into finding the best possible way to do things. And the courage to be open to a new idea. The ladders on my truck are free of extra crap, stored clean and butt out so one firefighter can grab-and-go with the butt of the ladder facing direction of travel. Our problem is the NFPA crap that hasn’t everyone has to carry. I just gotta ask, has ANYONE deployed a hose clamp in the last fifty years? Might just be me, but I have yet to find anyone still on the job that can remember using ’em. The retiree’s got lots of good stories but nobdy else.
Josh… Surprisingly we have found a great technique which incorporates the use of a hose clamp. We typically run with a three man engine company and we use the hose clamp to free up the “hydrant man” as quickly as possible so he can assist the officer with the stretch. When we forward lay and drop the hydrant man off at the hydrant the engine will pull up the fire building. The chauffeur will get out and immediately grab the hose clamp and slap it on the hose on the hydrant side of the last coupling on the ground. The hydrant man will then immediately charge the hydrant and be able to run up to the scene. In the meantime the chauffeur assists the officer with the stretch and then finish hooking up to the supply line and then will remove the clamp.
I know this is not the ideal use for the hose clamp, nor is this N.F.P.A. approved but when you are short on man power this little technique can free up a guy to assist in the stretch quicker then the traditional method.
We use the hose clamp frequently, as standard lay for us is dual 3″ lines. I understand the point, though.
Anyway, sorry for all the nozzlehead talk on the truck site…I hope to get rotated back to the truck in Jan.
Lots of good remarks…..I just think that when these guys arrive at a fire, they don’t throw any ladders. The piece may not even get there in the initial stages of the fire either.
Very true Zeke. In my old department, we didn’t throw ladders……..ever. Unless we needed to get somwhere to do overhaul. Otherwise, ladders came off the engine. The only other times they came off were when we did training, or re-tested them. So glad I left that joint.
Realy?
There is a driver at my stn but on a different shift who would be completely in support of cluttering up essential equipment with riff raff. Every shift I hafta re-arrange the back compartment so the high-rise gear can be accessed without hesitation or obstruction. For some reason “said” driver feels the traffic cones, chimney kit and asorbent pails must be front and centre. I am sure that if by chance we didn’t have the wheel chocks in their own brackets that he’d have them thrown in there too!
fireguy, I think this happens in alot of dept.’s and this used to upset me. But now, I just start my check-out even earlier and arrange things how I believe will work the best. My Dr. told to me to relax more also. As far as the crap in front of the ladders we had to move some stuff from the top to in front of the ladders. This is because of equipment flying off the top and damaging a car. Never say never, like Da hook said. I may even place it on the ground next to the intake to anticipate a problem. Stay safe !!!
Apparatus is not a democratic process. Have the Company Commander get off his ass and establish Company Policy as to where items are found on the rig. Senior Members (by experience not on their backs)coordinate best FUNCTIONAL layout. There should NEVER be a guessing gaem based upon who is working as to where shyt is on the rig. Ridiculous, unsafe, unprofessional,childish.
Straighten that shop out.
RSFDNY u forgot DUMBASS
Da hook, we run the same situation on our dept. we only have three man engines and most of the time a one man truck. I know, don’t yell at me, that is extremely stupid. To make matters worse it is staffed by firefighters. no rank or officer. I have been on there when we were full up on staff and was given two rookies to introduce into the world of trucks. Amazingly they have both taken off and become, um compitent enough to assist me or other FF’s in doing our tasks. But in a small dept like mine I have found in frustrating at times to help other stations/ crews familiarize themselves with the truck and it’s capabilities. Most seem pretty accepting and even encouraging, then you get the “others” who already lived and experienced the world before there was fire. Can’t help it with them but they are tasked with training some of our new guys to. Any words of encouragement or training tips?
Sadly, we have this same issue on our backup/rescue engine. A certain captain on another shift takes it upon himself to reconfigure the rig as he sees fit, without getting approval from the other captains (one of whom is ten years his senior). We managed to get the axes moved to another compartment, yet we still have a flap and a forestry rake shoved in there. This isn’t even the engine that runs initial response to wildland calls!