FIRE SURVIVAL – TRUCK & BUSH

 

AIM

 

To ensure that members have the skills required to survive in an emergency fire situation, either in the bush or in the fire truck.

 

OBJECTIVE

 

At the end of the training session members will be able to:

 

a)     Detail the safest escape route to be taken when trapped by a fire in the bush.

b)     Outline the safest refuges from fire that can be found in the bush and locate examples of these in the bush

c)      Explain the steps that should be taken if trapped in a fire situation in the fire truck.

d)     Demonstrate the procedures for taking refuge in the fire truck in an emergency situation and making the truck as safe a haven as possible.

 

At the end of the training session crew leaders will have demonstrated:

 

a)     Procedures for taking refuge in the fire truck in an emergency situation and making the truck as safe a haven as possible.

b)     Organising a crew to undertake the correct procedures to prepare for taking refuge in the fire truck.

c)      How to correctly position the fire truck to minimise the impact of a fire front on the crew.

d)     The safest escape route to be taken when trapped by a fire in the bush and appropriate refuges that may be used if overrun by a fire front.

 

METHOD

 

            Theory

           

Explain to members the safest route to escape a running fire on foot in the bush.

            List and discuss refuges that can be found and utilised in the bush.

            Explain when it is safe to move through a fire front on foot and when it is not.

Outline the steps required to make a fire truck safe in the event of an approaching fire front that cannot be out run.

Explain how a fire truck should be located in the event of being over run by a fire front.

Explain the steps that the crew of a fire truck should take to ensure their own safety inside a fire truck that is over run by a fire front.

Discuss the two scenarios, one being situations where a crew needs to seek immediate refuge, the other where a crew has time available to take some equipment off the truck prior to the fire front hitting.

 

 

 

 

Practical

 

Firstly members should have safe refuges, which can be used for protection against fire in the bush, identified for them in the field. Crew leaders and members will be asked to identify a safe escape route from a possible fire path in the field and identify refuges that they could use if they could not escape the fire front.

 

The crew leader will then be given a possible fire scenario and asked to position the tanker to provide for the safety of the crew when over run by the fire front. Members will demonstrate readying the fire truck and taking refuge in it in the previously given scenario. This exercise should be repeated several times and timed to add additional urgency to the scenario.

 

Performance Criteria

 

·        Crew leaders will correctly position the fire truck to minimise the impact of an approaching fire front within two (2) minutes of being advised of the direction of the approaching fire front.

·        Crews will take refuge within the fire truck within sixty (60) seconds of being advised of the need to take refuge. This will include turning on the spray bars, closing all windows and vents, covering all firefighters with blankets, switching on appropriate hazard warning lights and commencing the notification to Fire Coms of the situation.

·        Crew members will identify an escape route from an approaching fire front as if they were on foot in the bush.

·        Crew members will physically identify three (3) possible safe refuges from an approaching fire front in the bush