Fire Stream Management Handbook

In These Pages You Will Learn from 60 Years of Intense Experience Putting Out Fires

Fire stream management can be defined as the systematic application of water streams to a fire for the purpose of extinguishment. Managing fire streams considers the following points:

• Flow rate
• Reach and penetration of the stream
• Form of water discharge
• Water supply
• Safety
• Integration with other functions, such as ventilation

This book focuses on the essentials: water movement and application of water for structural firefighting. It addresses and explains that basic aspect of firefighting that most of us thought we mastered early in our careers. Reason tells us something must be amiss since we continue to burn firefighters as well as buildings despite what is believed to be aggressive attack tactics.

Let’s start here, at square one. The techniques and procedures outlined in this book have been effectively developed and used in actual fire combat throughout author David P. Fornell’s more than 60 years in the fire service. If you have ever dragged a line down a blistering, living-hell hallway only to be pushed back by fire lapping over your stream, you need to know why it happened and how to prevent it in the future. A good hydraulics book will tell you how to make fire streams. This book will tell you how to effectively and safely use them.