Fire Reporting & Initial Attack (IA) Scenarios

1. Fire Reporting & Initial Attack (IA) Scenarios • Imagine you’re the engineer on the fire train with the person sitting next to you as your crew. • Take a radio mike and use it for all radio traffic • Go through the steps for I. A. • Briefly describe what you’d do • Instruct your crew what to do

2. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 1a • You’re patrolling westbound from Ballast towards Huckleberry crossing. It’s a clear day with light wind, temperature in the 80’s on a late July afternoon.

3. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 1b • You spot some wispy smoke about 25’ from the tracks in light fuel. • Action on your part: • Initial Radio Report • Size-up

4. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 1c • Initial Attack • With what • With who • How • Report back to Sumpter Depot with progress and status

5. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 1d • Critique: • What do have? • What are your main concerns? • What are your safety concerns? • How difficult would your suppression activities be? • How would this situation impact the railroad?

6. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 2a • You’re patrolling westbound from Highway 7 towards Ballast. A beautiful warm afternoon in mid-August with a light breeze. You notice some thunder heads building to the west of Sumpter and they appear to be moving your way.

7. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 2b • Suddenly your crew alerts you to a small column of smoke off to your left in some moderately dense brush • Action on your part: • Initial Radio Report • Size-up

8. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 2c • Initial Attack • With what • With who • How • Radio traffic, if any

9. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 2d • As you start attacking the fire, you notice the wind picking up and see flames about three feet high in heavy brush ahead of you. • Now What? • Size up • Radio Traffic • Your Action

10. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 2e • Critique: • What do have? • What are your main concerns? • What are your safety concerns? • How difficult would your suppression activities be? • How would this situation impact the railroad?

11. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 3a • You’re patrolling eastbound between Bad Water crossing and Huckleberry on a hot, muggy summer afternoon with little wind. • A thunder storm had rolled through the valley the previous night, with rain and numerous downstrikes.

12. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 3b • You catch a whiff of wood smoke and slow down to investigate • Suddenly a man pops out of the brush, pointing south, and says There’s a fire over there and your train started it!”

13. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 3c • You stand up on the fire car and can just barely see some smoke rising lazily above some heavy brush a hundred yards or more from the track.

14. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 3d • Action on your part: • Initial Radio Report • Size-up • Initial Attack • With what • With who • How

15. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 3e • Critique: • What do have? • What are your main concerns? • What are your safety concerns? • How difficult would your suppression activities be? • How would this situation impact the railroad?

16. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 4a • You’re sitting on the stub track at South Sumpter on another warm afternoon in mid-August with a light breeze. • The steam train has just whistled off from the depot at Sumpter to begin the last run of the day back to McEwen.

17. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 4b • You look down the main line and notice smoke rising from a tie near the Sawmill Gulch crossing. • What do you do? • Radio traffic • Instructions to the steam train • Fire suppression activities

18. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 4c • Critique: • What do have? • What are your main concerns? • What are your safety concerns? • How difficult would your suppression activities be? • How would this situation impact the railroad?

19. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 5a • It’s a hot late August afternoon and you’re patrolling between Hwy. 7 and Ballast westbound. • There’s a light, erratic wind and thunderheads west of Sumpter. • The steam train has had firing problems and needed to stop twice to build up steam. • You’ve waited back for them to get going again.

20. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 5b • As you get close to Ballast, you see a column of light gray smoke on the right in moderate fuel about ten feet from the track. • You notice some foot high flames licking at the base of a pine tree. • Your crew spots another smoke on the left side about twenty feet from the track in light fuel.

21. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 5c • Action on your part: • Initial Radio Report • Size-up • Initial Attack • With what • With who • How • Directed at which fire(s)?

22. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 5d • As you get you start your initial attack on the fire to the right, the wind starts to pick up. • That fire starts moving up into a pine tree. • Meanwhile, your ever vigilant crew spots a third smoke on the right, further away and in denser fuel.

23. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 5e • Action on your part: • Ongoing Size-up • Radio Report • Concerning Attack on these fire: • With what • With who • How • Directed at which fire(s)?

24. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 5f • Critique: • What do have? • What are your main concerns? • What are your safety concerns? • How difficult would your suppression activities be? • How would this situation impact the railroad?

25. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 6a (variation on #5) • It’s a hot late August afternoon and you’re patrolling between Hwy. 7 and Ballast westbound. • There’s a light, erratic wind and thunderheads west of Sumpter. • The steam train has had firing problems and needed to stop twice to build up steam. • You’ve waited back for them to get going again.

26. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 6b • As you get close to Ballast, you see a column of gray smoke on the right in moderate fuel about thirty feet from the track. • You notice some foot high flames licking at the base of a pine tree.

27. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 6c • Action on your part: • Initial Radio Report • Size-up • Initial Attack • With what • With who • How

28. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 6d • You decide to pull a 1” hose line for initial attack, fire up the pump and start into the woods with your crew and the hose. • Your tactic appears to be working! Just as the fire starts up a tree, you hit it with water and the flames calm down. • Some flame remains on the ground. As you prepare to douse them….

29. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 6e • …you discover you are now standing in dense brush… …ALONE. • You call out to your crew and he doesn’t answer. • How many problems do you now have? • Your action at this point is?

30. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 6e • So, you retrace your steps and find your crew sitting on the motor car, sweating profusely and gasping for breath. • What’s your Radio Traffic? • What do you do?

31. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 6f • Critique: • What do have? • What are your main concerns? • What are your safety concerns? • How difficult would your suppression activities be? • How would this situation impact the railroad?

32. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 7a • It’s a very hot early August afternoon and you’re patrolling between Hwy. 7 and Ballast westbound. • There have been minor problems all day and you’re following Train # 3, which is running an hour late. • Finally, a light breeze has picked up to cool you off just a bit.

33. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 7b • As you come through the rock cut, there it is! You and your crew see it at the same time!! • A fire has started on the right of the tracks in grass and light brush and is burning uphill towards a structure. • The smoke is light gray and the flames a couple feet long.

34. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 7c • To top it off, there’s that breeze you were cherishing just minutes ago, encouraging the fire towards a rather nice looking home. • Action on your part: • Initial Radio Report • Size-up • Exposures threatened.

35. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 7d • Initial Attack • With what? • With who? • How? • Directed at what? • What are your priorities?

36. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 7e • The fire is in light fuels and not burning terribly hot. • You decide to deploy a hose line and work one flank. • Your goal being to work the flank up to the head and be able to protect the structure. • Action on your part: • Ongoing Sizeup • Initial Attack

37. Fire Reporting and IA Scenario 7f • However, the wind is not helping and you’re having trouble on the flank. • The fire is getting very close to the house and it doesn’t look like you’re going to get there before the fire does. • Action on your part: • Ongoing Sizeup Report • Your strategy

38. Fire Reporting and I A Scenario 7g • About the time you’re ready to tell Sumpter that the house is about to become involved, a man shows up with a 1” hose drawing water from a small irrigation pump in the river and begins to hose down the area between his house and the fire. • Action on your part: • Ongoing Sizeup Report • Your strategy

39. Fire Reporting and I A Scenario 7h • Critique: • What do have? • What are your main concerns? • What are your safety concerns? • How difficult would your suppression activities be? • How would this situation impact the railroad?