burn over drill

[rescue5271]

Well its that time of the year when brigade's will be doing their burn over drill but would it be nice if the people at the top changed the same drill that we get each year??? Time that we looked at what to do if in a strike team and your crew gets caught out in a forest fire or if your on a dozer trail... People do get sick of the same drill each year. Time for a new drill next year??

[mack]

Time that we looked at what to do if in a strike team and your crew gets caught out in a forest fire or if your on a dozer trail...

just curious... would that vary the response to the burnover at all? Youd still be working with an appliance....? surely the same procedure is relevant.

personally i think its good to just keep trying to drum the same procedure into us... i dont see a need to vary it really.

[6739264]

Thats like saying: "Im bored with gas cooling, can we do something different?"

[bittenyakka]

I think 5217 was referring to a burnover drill for if you are on 5 layflats and can't actauly get to a truck or using, wait for it, a Rakehoe (shudder)
. What do you do?

[rescue5271]

the issue is that each year uts the same your 30 meters into scrub abd so on,my point is what about when crews are on the back of appliance(crew deck) and for some reason...Wind change they are caught of guard....Sure we have showen members what to do if your 30 meters from the appliance and how you have to get back and take action...My point is what do we do if part of a stike team going along a forest/scrub line and we become involved in a burn over while on the rear of the appliance?


Now I hear you all say but it should be the same as the year burn over drill but its a little hard to do when you have hose laying on the crew deck or you have crews members who have only ever done burnover drill where your on the end of the hose.....

[6739264]

the issue is that each year uts the same your 30 meters into scrub abd so on,my point is what about when crews are on the back of appliance(crew deck) and for some reason...Wind change they are caught of guard....Sure we have showen members what to do if your 30 meters from the appliance and how you have to get back and take action...My point is what do we do if part of a stike team going along a forest/scrub line and we become involved in a burn over while on the rear of the appliance?


Now I hear you all say but it should be the same as the year burn over drill but its a little hard to do when you have hose laying on the crew deck or you have crews members who have only ever done burnover drill where your on the end of the hose.....

If you're on the back of the truck and are caught... gee its pretty hard, sit down, turn on protection lines and roll down the crew protection curtain. Its easier than having the branch off in the scrub and if someone has trouble adapting to already being on the back of a truck when burnt over, then my god they have no place on the back of a fire truck.

[wombat34]

The Burnover drill in its black and white form should be for new members so they learn the procedure and where things are. Once you are dealing with members who have been around a while it should be incorporated into other training. The best is to do it without prior notice. You still can tick all the boxes if the crews do the right thing. If you are only doing it once a year, is that really enough? Do you only practice hose lays, pumps or draughting once a year? Sounds like a few BTO's don' have much imagination.

As for, what do you do if you are too far from an appliance, you might want to revisit Prevent Injury from BFF1. It's all fairly clear.

[bittenyakka]

well isn't the idea for you to be close enough to th fire that is shouldn't be able to get to beg by the time it reaches you?  Nice of you to join us wombat

[Pipster]

I have found incorporating the drill in other training can work quite well....make sure everyone knows the drill (at least in theory) and then test them out during some other training - give the signal & see what they do.....hopefully, they all recognise the siren straight away, and take the appropriate action......

Besides, for some the drill has changed - now incorporating appliances with the in-cab air systems...that is different to the standard drill...

The basics of the drill stay the same from year to year, but how the training officer arranges the burnover drill, and in what context can change each time!! 

Pip

[SA Firey]

Well fire season is almost here and I remember last year where there were a lot of brigades who hadnt done it halfway into fire season...practice makes perfect...but do it early...your life may depend on it

[David]

Alot of our brigade members got caught out last year with this exercise, we included a command car into it to get the group officers through the training as well. 
All of the exercise went well, however after doing the check over the truck no one bothered to check the command vehicle, including GO's, BTO declared it lost. 

[rescue5271]

I hope you put in for a new comand car...lolololo....  At our group field day we had 30 cfs members and around 25 CFA members also did it,nice to see cross border team work at its best. CFA do it a little different to CFS but all agree its worth while to do.

[CFS_Firey]

I hope you put in for a new comand car...lolololo....  At our group field day we had 30 cfs members and around 25 CFA members also did it,nice to see cross border team work at its best. CFA do it a little different to CFS but all agree its worth while to do.

How do the CFA do it?

[Alan J]

Alot of our brigade members got caught out last year with this exercise, we included a command car into it to get the group officers through the training as well. 
All of the exercise went well, however after doing the check over the truck no one bothered to check the command vehicle, including GO's, BTO declared it lost. 

Fair enough. A command car got caught on Cut Hill Rd (Mt.Bold fire) in January. Got hot enough to sustain superficial damage. As did most appliances nearby.

[Alan J]

I think 5217 was referring to a burnover drill for if you are on 5 layflats and can't actauly get to a truck or using, wait for it, a Rakehoe (shudder)
. What do you do?

BFF1 - "Avoid Injury" has one paragraph of answers. Which are not carried forward into COSO-12. We are a long-lining Adelaide Hills brigade. This year, I intend/insist that our burn-over drill will also include a 15-lengths-away-from-the-appliance scenario.

Watched a good PPT from the US fire safety mob last training night.  Key common denominator for the vast majority of fire-fighter fatalities is a quiet fire in low fuel loads which suddenly went bunta. Can't find that particular URL.  But this one is good.
http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/nifc/training/pdfs/refresher.Par.99870.File.dat/SWB_04_Refresher_print.pdf

[rescue5271]

CFA,do it this way,,,crew will take cover behind heatsheild or side of water tank cover crew with woolen blankets and then use a fog spray to provide protection to the crew and appliance.there are some photos of this on the CFS PROMO site taken last weekend.After our field day i spoke to a number of CFA members and they would like to have the fire blanket and curtains fitted to their fleet like we have..CFA are going to crew cab appliances with full crew protection sprays and so on..it will take them time and money to do this....

[Darius]

Fair enough. A command car got caught on Cut Hill Rd (Mt.Bold fire) in January. Got hot enough to sustain superficial damage. As did most appliances nearby.

really, is that the rumour? if you're referring to the occasion I think you are then your info is incorrect, neither the car nor appliances were "caught" but made a considered decision to enter the road. Yes things got hot but the car was never in danger of burnover and the strike team saved possibly up to 6 houses.

however all that aside, I do agree it is odd that command cars do not have the protection curtains and often not even blankets accessible in a hurry.

[Alan J]

really, is that the rumour? if you're referring to the occasion I think you are
then your info is incorrect, neither the car nor appliances were "caught" but
made a considered decision to enter the road. Yes things got hot but the car
was never in danger of burnover and the strike team saved possibly up to 6 houses.

however all that aside, I do agree it is odd that command cars do not have the protection curtains and often not even blankets accessible in a hurry.

We may have different perceptions of what constitutes "caught".
I don't for a moment dispute the "considered decision" to be there.
I was there.
We picked our spot to park at the property we "defended" & apart from
stray ember damage, were never at risk. (The home was well prepared
& protected us perhaps more than we protected it.)
As I understand it (we were a bit busy!), the command car was still
out on the road where the heaviest fuel loads were, & it copped more
direct heat than most of the appliances.

That is the sense in which I use the word "caught". I'd have been a
happier if the car had been off the road in a sheltered spot as our
appliance was.
"Burn-over" - too strong a word perhaps (I didn't actually use it). 
Exposed to a direct & high radiant heat load - yes.
Where does one end & the other begin ?

cheers

[rescue5271]

I am reading the latest CFA BRIGADE MAG,and in it they list the operational update and list some of the things that went wrong over the last fire season and to remind members what to watch out for...Great way of doing it as this goes to all members in the mail who can read what has been going on but also gives members the chance to read the story rather than hear it 2nd or 3rd hand...may be this is the way CFS should go rather than officer handing on information that may not be 100% as they missedout on what was being fully said....but then again CFA have a lot more money than CFS....

[Robert-Robert34]

I passed my burnover training with flying colours last wednesday night after missing out in October due to having other things on at the time 

[ff83]

The CFS does burnover training wrong to start with.

There is too little training in how not to get caught in a burn over. A comment earlier on this page refers to what to do with a strike team caught in a forest fire. Quite simply unless you are working from a anchor point you do not enter that forest. I'm sure part of your training requires you to watch the deadman zone. Why would you go into a forest on a day of high enough FFDI to cause a burnover and not be right at the edge of the fire?

If caught in a burn over the training should read put your head between your knees and kiss your arse goodbye as escape from an intense burnover in anything other than a Fireking without you or your crew sustaining injuries is incredible rare. 

No forest is worth that much.
 

[Zippy]

Treat a forest like a fully involved abandoned house.  Attention to Exposures (risk of spread) to other area's is the priority.

[6739264]

Treat a forest like a fully involved abandoned house.  Attention to Exposures (risk of spread) to other area's is the priority.

Dont you dare say that near a Plantation Firefighting Instructor, they'll lynch you on the spot.

[Zippy]

haha i wont,  but its filtered sensible not to go anywhere near a forest fire, let the w/bombers take care of it.

[Crank]

ff83 said it all.

Work from an anchor point and you will almost never have a problem.  Its all well and good to say let the water bombers put it out but they cant mop it up.  They will knock the head down and slow the spread but the ground crews need to chase down the flanks for an effective knock down.

As extreme as some forest fires are the average size of one is 1.5HA if you dont include Ash Wednesday.  With continuing improvements in Foresting the danger becomes less and less.  And the chance of big fires is reduced.