SCBA knowledge…it doesn't get any more basic than this! Take a few minutes to review a tool that most of us take for granted.

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Ventilation on the fireground has been going on since firefighters fought their first fire. Over the course of time the reason for ventilation has remained the same but we seem to have lost our focus on why it’s done. One term that’s fallen out of our fireground vocabulary is “coordinated attack,” and that’s a great place to start talking about ventilation.

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Second-due truck company operations are only a discussion in many fire departments—they simply don’t have the staffing on the fireground to consider splitting first- and second-due truck work. In reality, second-due truck work is a continuation of the truck work that the first-due truck (or crew assigned to truck work) must accomplish.

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Truck company operations have been performed on the fireground since the day firefighters started responding (way before you and I became involved). One of the things that’s happened in the last 10 or so years is that the emphasis on truck company operations, and the skills it takes to actually perform them, has really exploded-more awareness, more knowledge, more training. During all of this time a couple things have remained constant...the importance placed on the knowledge and skills it takes to get the job done varies with every individual firefighter-and solid truck company skills, performed at the right time, makes things easier on the fireground!