Episode: 2935
Title: HPR2935: The work of fire fighters, part 3
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2935/hpr2935.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 13:33:38

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It's Friday 1st November 2019 and this is HPR episode 2935 entitled The Work of a Firefighter
Part 3. It's hosted by Yerun and is about 30 minutes long and carries a clean flag. The summary is
the continued introduction into the work of firefighters. This episode of HPR is brought to you by
An Honest Host.com. Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR-15. That's HPR-15.
Better web hosting that's Honest and Fair at An Honest Host.com.
Hello and welcome to another episode of one of my podcasts and this is the third one
in my series on Firefighting. Let's first start with the questions I got. I got a question from Ken
Fallon saying he was rather disappointed about the parking habits of his neighbors in his neighborhood
because a lot of cars are parked on top of the underground fire hydrants and his question was
well do we crush the cars or not? Well unfortunately we don't but there are mitigating things that we
can do to get water because well as soon as you have rescued any animal victims it's time to try
to put the fire out using on average water except we don't use water when there's an electricity
fire and you don't use water and there's a gasoline fire because gasoline floats on top of water so
you only increase the burning area. So what we do with the gasoline fire is we intermix the water
with a special soap and it produces foam and the foam will cut off the oxygen to the gasoline
fire and thus extinguish the gasoline fire. So all kinds of oils and gasoline and whatnot can all
be extinguished using foam and everything you need to produce foam is on the standard
truck that that gets out to the incident. The other thing is suppose that you arrive at the scene and
all underground water hydrants are covered and you desperately need water there is a system
that well in Dutch it's a great water transport but it will translate to large water transport
and it's a truck and the truck has a sort of container on top of the truck and it contains
really really really long hose that also is very big if you if you would cut through it the diameter
it's I believe something like 15 centimeters or something and on the on the same in the container
is also a diesel engine and a hydraulic pump so what happens is the the truck will go to any place
that has a large body of water a canal a big pond whatever something with a large amount of water
and it will put down the container it will then remove the the diesel engine from the container
place it on the soil on the ground and throw the hydraulic pump into the water
and this hydraulic pump is clearly has two hydraulic horses hoses attached to it and also the
water hose and when you start this the diesel engine and you you get the oil flowing it produces a
large amount of power to pump water and this can go up to 2400 liters per second so that's
upper minute anyway it's a lot trust me next here the truck will lift the container the remaining
container with the remaining hose on its on its back on the truck because it contains something
like one and a half to three kilometers of hose and it will start driving at the average speed of
40 kilometers an hour which is pretty fast well it's not that highway fast but nevertheless
and while it's driving the hose is pulled out of the container simply by driving so that
that gives you within a radius of one and a half or three depends on the system kilometers
around the the diesel engine gives you an outlet for water and you can connect your gear to it
you're firefighting gear to it and once they start pumping it it's a lot of water that they pump
it's you can feed more than one truck I believe something like three or four trucks can
simultaneously be fed from this one system where all trucks have three to four hoses deployed
so it's it's it's a lot but this truck has to drive to the location where he needs to be deployed
so it's not like give me this large water and it will be there in in the next three to five minutes
so you still have a problem if the cars parked on on top of fire hydrants but given time
that there there will be enough water on site what do you do in between well you could start with
using two trucks one a few blocks away that will that's able to attach to the first fire hydrant
and will pump to the second truck at the second truck will deploy a water so that works too
if if the situation calls for it so there are alternatives in place in case somebody or a lot of
but somebody's parked at car on on top of fire hydrants now the other question was somebody let me
get this right okay this is by Steve Steve says you've said that you are a volunteer firefighter
I'm wondering if most firefighters in the Netherlands are volunteers in the US there are volunteer
departments for sure in rural and small town areas but most of the medium to large cities have
five departments where the firefighters are employees of the city of council our country well
it's it's similar to the Netherlands it's it's similar we we talk about volunteers and we talk
about professional firefighters but at the same time in the Netherlands they are on they have a
contract with the same organization it's just by history it's called volunteer and by history
it's called professional but both of these individuals either what we call volunteer what we call
professional is being trained and paid and and managed by the same organization in the
Netherlands it's the same the large cities have what we call professionals what which means that
they will come to the station for 24 hours do that and then they are off for 48 hours until they
have another shift and that's because it's it's pretty expensive to have people on on a regular
salary but if you have let's say more than seven eight incidents per day it just is cheaper to
have people on the contract than using volunteers on the other side all the other
towns and those are you know smaller than 100,000 inhabitants or something they all have
volunteer firefighters still on contract with the same organization but they have an exercise
evening once a week regular for regular exercising and on theory and practice of firefighting
and everything it entails and they have a beeper a pager and as soon as that goes that starts beeping
you hurry to the station you put on your suit and you get in this big red van and and go do your
thing if you look at the the what's the word for it the the numbers let's put it like that the
numbers the ratio between them it's well about 80 80 percent of of all firefighters in the
Netherlands are volunteer firefighters because 80 percent or let's say put it the other way
only 20 percent of the Netherlands is occupied by big cities and all the other one there are
rural and small smaller towns so most part the volunteers are by far and large the biggest portion
all firefighters in the Netherlands so I hope that answers the question of Steve now I have prepared
a few other subjects that I would like to discuss with you the first one would be breathing you know
when you get into a fire infested house or building there's a lot of smoke there's a lot of heat
and there are even occasionally flames so it's not really healthy to breathe in and out in that
kind of environment the water the water the air is too hot it will burn your lungs your lungs
cells will start shriveling and start leaking body fluid and you'll drown in your own your own
water your own body way fluid so that's it's not really healthy so you need something and that's
of course a breathing apparatus you got a tank full of breathing air it's not oxygen it's just
regular air that's all around you in this tank now think about this for a minute it's it's a tank
it's it's contents is for six liters and it's it's pressure is 300 bars and so how much
liter of air is that well simple a matter of multiplication six liters time 300 bars is 1800
liters of a breathable air inside this tank okay clearly that's something that can run out so
what are we talking about how long will it last well that's the trick so see normal if you know
do normal breathing you breathe six seven inhalations per minute you're relaxed nothing really going on
and maybe on average you breathe four liters per breath so that makes 24 liters and if you try to
get 24 liters out of this this tank it will last you 75 minutes which is more than an hour it's
pretty much but you get into the building you you're working with a house maybe it's already filled
with water so it's heavy maybe you you have a high pressure host so it's not so heavy but at some
point maybe you encounter a victim somebody laying on the floor clearly unconscious and you need to
get him out of there as soon as possible well the only way to do that is by dragging or lifting so
there are several procedures in the Netherlands they use the breathing sorry a lifting technique
called row tech in Belgium they have a completely different technique I think it's a better one
but we get to that later so you pick up this person average weight 70 80 kilograms with two
persons and you start maneuvering back to the exit now at that time you're talking about serious
physical exercise and your your inhalations will increase and they can increase up to 40 or 50
per minute so 40 or 50 per minute let's say 40 and four liters per breath is 160 liters per minute
and then your tank is just enough for 11 minutes and that's not a lot so it's in maybe find a victim
and get out as soon as possible the other thing it's nice thing about this this this this
tank this this breathing apparatus there's there's a there's a physical mechanical that's better it's
a mechanical buzzer build in that starts sounding a sort of a beeping sound not beeping but it's a
that that kind of sound and it starts to do that as soon as the pressure drops below 50 bars so it's
50 bars you know that it's time to really hurry up and get out as soon as possible normally you're
trained to look at your gauge your pressure gauge as much as possible as often as possible so you
and you you should be out of the building before it starts what's the word for it it's not beeping
well you know what I mean you know it's the whistling or something the sound so if if you get
out of the building while this thing is is whistling it's and you you you've not done a good job
thinking about your own safety okay no heroism that's that's all those that stuff that's crap it's
fake think of your own safety and that's the only way you can think of others to help as well
so worst case 11 minutes to get out and it can be a challenge now the other thing is when you're
inside a building how do you maneuver about how do you walk about how do you orient yourself
because the thing is you don't see nothing I think that's bad English but you get the point it's
not black it's gray in front of your helmet it's it's because of the smoke you don't see anything
so you can't just start walking around and hoping for the best so what do you do it's
simple you always keep in contact in close contact with the wall either on the left side or on the
right side but nonetheless one of the sides it's gonna be and so this is we can try this if you're
at home I don't do this in your car because it it not only looks weird but it could turn out
dangerous so don't try to mimic what I'm telling you while you're driving please don't
okay so suppose I am following a wall on the left side so on my left I have a wall
and I'm in contact with it with my hand now I wouldn't use the palm of my hand because if there are
electricity leads that have been that have suffered from the fire then the copper is exposed
maybe even still containing a high voltage on them that's unhealthy so you use the back of your
hand to follow to guide yourself along the wall because as soon as you're back of your hand
touches a hot lead it will spasm the muscles and and and create a fist and that's not
bad because it will get your hand away from the hot lead so that's that should be on the safe side
that the other thing is you want to not only keep in touch with the wall but you also want to check
for light switches and those kind of things so you keep moving your arm up and down to follow
the in a wavy kind of movement up and down against the wall the other arm on your right side
also has a function although you're following the wall on the left and that's because you want to
shield yourself and your mask from any hot leads or piping or whatever sticking out of the ceiling
above you and that you could okay maybe run into so you have a similar wavy gesture with your
right arm but not to your right but more to your to to let's say in front and above you so it's
above and in front of your face though that that kind of wavy thing I know it's it looks silly but
in practice they thought about it and it works so and not nobody sees it because well you know
you can't see anything so nobody sees you doing silly stuff now those are the arms we also have
two legs left well one of the legs is your standing leg and the standing leg if you're following
the wall on the left is the left leg your standing leg so that's the one that your weight is standing
on and the other leg is used to to touch in front of you if there are maybe with a wooden floor
or something like that open openings gaps where you could fall into so you're you're using your
right leg to talk to to feel if there is a hole in the floor and if there isn't then you will
move your left leg not in front of your leg but at the same at the same line so the next to each
other so you only increase steps with your right and you get you get your left one up to the right
before you move the right one a little further okay well if you it takes some exercise I know
but at some point it's just as normal swimming or walking or well you know those all those things
that say that they say you never once you you get the hang of it you'll never forget it
so that's the wall the walk you know do the talk walk the walk talk the talk
now there is there are two more things I'd like to talk to you about and those are those typical
fire fire behavior that maybe you've heard of them maybe you haven't but it's the flesh over in
the backdraft now what does that mean well the flesh over is basically rather simple what happens
is the fire will sort of jump from one piece of furniture to another now that's strange why would
a fire jump well just imagine you have a room and there's a fire on the couch and the temperature
increases the fire increases and with every fire there's a massive amount of infrared radiation you
know heat warmth warmth radiation heat radiation and this infrared radiation will also
touch fall upon whatever you call it on furniture that's not already burning but simply by the
infrared light it will start to decompose whatever the material whatever it is and thus
thus creating flammable gases that are not yet on fire because the ignition temperature
is not high enough but nevertheless this new piece this other piece of furniture is creating gases
and at some point the room in the temperature the temperature in the room will increase to that level
that the earlier generated gases will ignite and then you sort of have a jump of a fire from one
piece of furniture to another so that's a flesh over it's it is what it is it's not pretty
spectacular but it's just a way of describing what's happening during a fire and the other one
is the back draft now the back draft is something that most of you have heard about I've heard about
it there have been a few movies about it and the movies especially the movie back draft listen it's
a movie okay it's the way it's portrayed is not realistic but I think you already guessed that
nevertheless back draft itself is usually usually dangerous let me describe it like this so you have
you have a room in your house and there's a fire in the in this room so a lot of heat is produced a lot
of gases burn gases are created it's all it's all on fire all the oxygen is being used but the
room is closed the doors closed the windows are closed etc so at some point in time there is
oxygen depletion and the fire will extinguish but there is still a lot of energy left in the room
in the form of temperature so all these materials that were burning keep on producing
flammable gases simply because it's very hot in the room but they can't burn because there's
no oxygen anymore okay now so far so good at some point let's imagine somebody opens the door
what happens is a sort of a pumping effect where you get smoke out air in smoke out air in and
this is the speed it's not quicker it's not slower it's about this speed smoke out air in smoke out
air in and this this happens about 10 times just enough time for the room to get enough oxygen
to explosively burn all those burning gas all those fire gases that were remaining in the room
but couldn't burn and then you get a sort of explosive explosion like flame that gets out of the
door so don't stand in front of the door never healthy on youtube if you look for a backdraft there are
many spectacular movies so short clips showing you what a backdraft can do and it's it's pretty
impressive so a backdraft is something that as a firefighter you should really be careful about
and always look out for always check always open the room carefully see what happens with the smoke
is there a pumping thing going on and if so well what you could do is open the door for a few seconds
and spray water to the ceiling as as to cool the room because at some point maybe you get then
an explosive mixture but if the temperature is low enough it won't ignite
that's one thing you can do or you can break a window and force a backdraft but then in
in in a in a direction that's safe to to everybody else there are depends on the situation what kind
of solution you would you would take so don't and again don't try this at home right
I've seen a training centers simulated backdrafts using shipping containers where at one end
there is is a sort of a wall created and behind the wall there's a door in the wall and behind
that they just throw in pallets one after the other it's usually a huge fire it's very hot
at some point they'll close the door you wait a few seconds so it can create a burnable gases
but nothing much happens and then you open it and you get a backdraft but then in a controlled setting
so having the right gear making sure the process is is under control it's it's really very very
cool to witness but because what you get is not so much of an explosive backdraft but you you get a
flow of of gases that could burn but are not burning yet over the ceiling because they're hot
gases over the ceiling of the shipping container and then there because it's still warm inside
they're ignited so it's more over when you look up you see a sea of flames yeah it's sort of a
sea with with waves and and created by by by some flames so it's yeah it's it's warm but at the same
time it's very beautiful to look at again don't try this at home don't make an installation like that
unless you know what you're doing and if you've never heard of fire fighting before you probably
don't so don't do this if you want to witness this in a controlled environment just apply
become a volunteer firefighter why not there's a shortage in a lot of areas at least in the
Netherlands and I can't imagine it's the same in other countries and why not step up to the plate
and yeah be all you can be and do some adventure stuff okay anyway that that's it for today
um I hope you enjoyed it and like the last two episodes I would say if you have any more questions
regarding firefighting just put them in the comments and if there are any I'll address it
in a force episode episode and if not well then three is as much as it was I don't
I'll figure out I've got enough other subjects to do podcasts about so I hope you enjoyed it
this is a German battle again and signing off maybe seeing you at
no archcamp is already gone if you read if you hear this so I hope you enjoyed archcamp I did
probably I guess um maybe in March you will go to cloudfest in Munich Germany if you do I've
got a surprise for you but that's for another day um okay so till we meet again bye bye
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