Blog
Upstairs Seal
1/2 story fires- In this video, the fire is in a bedroom on the half story. I like how you can see evidence that the knee walls bank heat down a lot more than in a full-height ceiling, especially above the stairs. Upper floor or half story fires are funny,
Split Level Push Down the Stairs
This is part of a series of training burns designed by one of our instructors, Jay Bonnifield. These were not done under the West Coast Fire Training banner but he wanted to share them on this page. These burns were for Snohomish County Academy instructors only. The experience of the
Flame on the Bottom of Smoke
In this video, we see a fire with a thick layer of smoke low to the ground in the fire room. The moment to focus on is when the fire begins to crawl along the bottom of the smoke layer. This is a red flag as the transition from the
Bathroom 1 Vent Point Ignition
In this video, we see turbulent fast-moving smoke coming from the fire room but the smoke level in the next room is still high off the ground and not very thick. A person or crew proceeding ahead of the hose line could easily encounter this situation. The obvious thing to
Coaching the Attack
Often during live-fire training instructors push students to go as fast as possible. The thought is to have to students move like they were “on the fire-ground”. Instructors yell at students in an effort to increase the level of “stress”. This is a misunderstanding of how true stress inoculation training
Rollover and Compartment Breaks
As many people have noted, the largest changes in fire behavior come at compartment breaks. The header between one room and the next forces heat and fire gasses to accumulate in one room for a time before they can break out into the next. This means that conditions can be