Fire Ventilation

Ventilation can make or break the outcome of a fire. Ensuring its success requires a knowledge of how it works and what precautions must be taken. Coordinating Ventilation: Supporting Extinguishment and Survivability examines ventilation and its relationship to fire behavior to identify how it affects the fire, operations, and—most importantly—victim survivability. Ventilation can be universally applied, from the smallest rural community to the largest metropolitan city. FEATURES: --Guiding principles and practices to help streamline your decision-making process and improve our overall effectiveness and efficiency --Common pitfalls and the associated misconceptions to reduce potential errors and avoidable losses --A functional understanding of ventilation and the methods for its execution so that you can make the right call for your fireground WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING: “As you read Coordinating Ventilation, Nicholas Papa not only shares his knowledge and experience, but the credible experiences of fire service professionals who have practiced the successes and failures of ventilation as to what is appropriate to the how, when, where, and why.” —Gerald “Jerry” Tracy, Battalion Commander, FDNY (ret.) "Nick Papa left me with an immediate impression of a street-smart firefighter and an educator who gets fire behaviour in the most realist of terms. He imparts his messages through golden tactical nuggets learned, not only through intensive study, but also with practical, first-hand experience. Nick will undoubtedly be a great fire service educator for decades to come, so take every opportunity to listen to his message." —Paul Grimwood, Crew Commander, London Fire Brigade (ret.) “Nick Papa does a fantastic job of taking scientific concepts and language and making them understandable in execution on the fireground. This is not an easy task. I highly recommend this book as a practical application tool for the coordination of tactical objectives on the fireground.” —Chris Stewart, Deputy Chief, Phoenix Fire Department

In the past decades, lightweight building construction methods and the use of manmade materials in construction and furnishings have become more and more common. The time until structural failure can be expected in a fire has been reduced, and firefighters have seen hotter fires that generate high levels of deadly gasses. But the ventilation methods used by modern firefighters have not kept pace. Positive pressure was first used in the fire service to ventilate a structure after the fire was knocked down. Authors Kriss Garcia and Reinhard Kauffmann have taken positive pressure a step further to achieve effective ventilation in coordination with aggressive fire attack, called positive pressure attack (PPA). Properly used PPA allows firefighters great control over the interior environment of a fire building, and starts at the earliest stages of the operation when ventilation can provide the greatest benefit for victims, firefighters, and the structure. With a small investment in equipment and a commitment to training, any fire department can implement PPA at the company level. Subjects covered in this book include: * Basics of positive pressure and how to maximize its effectiveness for fireground ventilation. * PPA: how effective ventilation can be coordinated to support an aggressive fire attack. * Safety considerations and limitations of PPA and positive pressure. * Other ways positive pressure blowers can be used to help victims and firefighters in a variety of situations. * Implementing PPA on a department, and how to train each engine company to become its own firefighting force that can accomplish both ventilation and fire attack.