Have you seen photos of working fires from across the country with firefighters who are flowing 1I-inch hand lines? It may look good to the public, but is it effective firefighting, especially when you also have limited staffing or even a limited water supply? In contrast, the 2H-inch line is perhaps the most forgotten weapon in the fire service arsenal short of a cellar nozzle.
For anyone who hasn't studied the evolution of firefighting tactics, it may come as a surprise to learn that is wasn't that long ago that the 2H-inch line was the standard hose pulled on most structure fires. In fact, when my uncle first started in the fire service after World War II, the 2- and the 1-inch booster or “red” lines were the only lines available for a fire attack. Perhaps even more interesting was that the 2H-inch line also was the most frequently used supply line.
As late as the 1980s, an engine company most likely would have wrapped the hydrant with a 2H-inch hose to lay into the fire. For a working fire, dual 2H-inch hoses were dropped from the same hydrant. In large cities, companies in high-value districts such as warehouse and manufacturing areas often had six or more firefighters staffing two pieces of apparatus: a primary engine and a hose wagon. On the way into the fire, the primary engine usually hit the closest hydrant while the hose wagon would reverse lay back to the same hydrant to pump both supplies. Or it would lay separate twin supply lines to another nearby hydrant and give the primary engine three supply lines to help provide an adequate fire flow. The large-diameter hose, or LDH, we use as a supply line today came about less than 30 years ago, and has been improved substantially since that time with the development of lighter-weight couplings and synthetic fabrics. Because LDH has significantly less friction loss, it can provide a greater volume of water over longer distances than the multiple 2H-inch lines.
While the 1H-inch fire line started to make an appearance in the 1940s, it didn't come into its own until pre-connected hose beds became standard on most fire apparatus. These fire lines were first used by retrofitting gated wyes to the standard 2H-inch discharge of post-World War II fire engines to provide an outlet for two 1H-inch fire lines. The versatility of the 1H-inch line and its successor, the 1I-inch line, wasn't fully realized until mid-mounted swivel pre-connects became standard on most apparatus during the 1970s. Even after the universal acceptance of these smaller fire lines, company officers taught their crew members that in heavy fire situations, the “back-up” line always would be the next greater-sized fire line, i.e., one or more 2H-inch lines.
In the evolution of supply and fire lines, one factor has varied — the number of firefighters arriving on the first-due units. While it still takes 16 to 20 firefighters to handle a working residential fire, the number of personnel on a unit has eroded to four or less, with some departments arriving with as few as two firefighters on a rig. We quickly call enough companies to fill this initial staffing, but it may take longer to assemble that number than in the past. To compensate for this lack of staffing, many companies are passing up the hydrant that would provide an uninterrupted water supply and instead are relying on the 500- to 1,000-gallon onboard water tank for an initial attack.
In other instances, fire crews have become complacent that most fires can be handled by their onboard water supply and feel that laying a supply results in unnecessary work. The dangerous roll of the dice is leaving the job of establishing a water supply to the second-due unit. Why? Because that unit could be delayed, e.g., be involved in a motor-vehicle accident or have some mechanical difficulty, which would leave the first engine crew to fend for itself. Once fire lines are pulled, the only viable option may be to hand-carry the LDH back to a hydrant — a huge, labor-intensive evolution.
Recently, I've seen the different effects of these approaches. The staffing of the first-arriving engine companies were identical, but the outcomes certainly were different. At the first incident, the first-arriving crew elected to pass the hydrant and attack the fire in a single-family dwelling — which had a well-involved attached garage — from the exterior with a 1I-inch line. (It is important to remember that garage fires should be considered to have a heavy fire load given that most contain automobiles, tires, lawn mowers and gas grills, as well as the fuel for each of them in a very confined area.). The second-arriving unit was a quint. Because the fire appeared to be gaining headway into the roof, this unit was requested to ladder the building for possible ventilation. The third-arriving unit was unclear about securing a hydrant but also was directed to place a second 1I-inch line into operation from the first engine. When the lack of a water supply became obvious, the quint's crew was redirected to establish a water supply.
A second alarm was called when the incident commander realized that the fire load in the garage exceeded the limitations of both 1I-inch fire lines. A quick-thinking company officer on the second alarm laid into the fire from a hydrant and connected to the LDH that the quint's crew had begun to hand-carry to a hydrant. It eventually took two more 1I-inch fire lines to overcome the BTUs from the fire in the garage. One or more 2H-inch fire lines should have been the tactic of choice even when starting with the engine's 500-gallon onboard water supply. The odds are certainly better that the rate of flow from the 2H-inch line might have been enough to overwhelm the fire with two minutes worth of water, compared with four or five minutes of water from the initial inadequate 1I-inch fire line.
At another incident, this time in a multi-family apartment complex, the fire originated on the balcony of one of the units. The fire had autoclaved up the front of the 3-story brick-and-frame structure and into the soffit before the arrival of the initial engine. Vinyl siding covered the upper floors, which added to the rapid spread of the fire. In this instance, the first company elected to take the hydrant and lead off with a 2H-inch fire line from the exterior. Before the incident commander had the opportunity to complete a 360° overview of the building, this company had successfully checked the exterior spread of the fire and with subsequent arriving units mounted an interior attack that limited the damage to four of the 24 units in the building. At this fire, a second alarm was called by the company officer and a third alarm was subsequently staged by the incident commander for additional staffing, had it been necessary.
The final example was at another apartment complex. In this case a well involved kitchen fire on a lower floor and an open apartment door resulted in heavy smoke and fire traveling down the main hallway of the building. The fire already had flashed over in the apartment of origin before the arrival of the first crew, which also believed that there were still-occupied units on the upper floors. This company secured a water source and began with an interior attack down the hallway using a 1I-inch fire line to place themselves between the fire and the stairwell needed to evacuate the upper floors. A subsequent engine company also took its own water supply and then extended a pre-connected 2H-inch fire line up a rear stairwell, meeting the first line at the open door of the fire apartment. Both lines combined to make quick work of the fire by overcoming the heat from the fuel within the apartment.
So why the case for the 2H-inch fire line, especially when there is limited staffing or a limited water supply? As one veteran fire officer once told me, today's fire loads actually are a ton of gasoline in solid form disguised as tables, chairs, sofas and mattresses. Simply, while a pre-connected 2H-inch line may take a bit longer to deploy, it puts a higher volume of water on the fire to overcome the BTUs of a modern apartment or single-family dwelling and maximizes the flow for the number of arriving firefighters. Putting big water on the fire in most cases causes the fire to go out and saves lives and property in the long run.
A word for those who use engine/water tender operations for their sustained water supply: Blitzing the fire with an initial attack from a 2H-inch line using a large volume of water may be the right call, especially when using an exterior attack on a well-involved structure. Calling early for additional water tenders is never a bad call for any officer. Even while waiting for additional water tenders, it is better to be standing outside out of water with a darkened fire because a 2H-inch line or master-stream attack, than being outside out of water with a still-blazing fire because multiple smaller hand lines — that individually do not have the capability to overwhelm the BTUs generated by a fire in well-involved structure — were used.
The secret in using the 2H-inch line, like any other tactic in the fire service, is investing the training time and practicing the evolution until your crews feel comfortable with deploying and using this tool. It clearly can pay dividends in stopping a working fire in its tracks while providing a greater margin of safety for the interior fire crews from flashover.
Chief Robert R. Rielage, CFO, EFO, MIFireE, is the chief of Wyoming (Ohio) Fire-EMS, a 78-member combination fire department bordering Cincinnati. He previously served as the fire marshal of the state of Ohio. A graduate of the Kennedy School's Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government at Harvard University, Rielage holds a master's degree in public administration from Norwich University and is the immediate past-president of the Institution of Fire Engineers-USA Branch. He is a member of the FIRE CHIEF Editorial Advisory Board.
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