BA Entry Control

[Steve]

I tried to get some traction on this subject (as part of another thread) a few years ago. But I wanted to have another stab at it. The proliferation of GoPro and top quality mobile phone cameras have seen a rise in TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and other accounts featuring Firefighting crews from around the World working on scene.

The US doesn't count as they seem to have a different attitude toward safety (although that is changing). But our fellow European Firefighters seem to be quite similar to the UK fire service. Similar buildings, similar demographics and a strong attitude toward safety, with the resultant low numbers of Firefighter casualties and fatalities.

So, why are we still insisting on BA entry control procedures that are now over 70 years old and fundamentally do very little it seems, unless we are talking about very serious deep seated fires in commercial premises. In my whole career, I can only recall a handful of occasions where I was committed deep into a building and felt my air contents and BA turnaround times were a significant factor. A week after I attended the 20th anniversary of the deaths of Billy and Adam in my area of London, an incident I was involved in, in the aftermath. BA control didn't save them and whether or not they'd have been under BA control would have made no difference to the awful outcome. The same can be said for Harrow Court and Shirley Towers.

I have watched some footage today from France and Belgium, they have similar BA sets to us with modern telemetry, although a lot use the helmet clip on facemask, (incidentally, so many of then have beards, another age old hot potato), and they seem not to go through any BA entry control point, being trusted to take care of their own air management and welfare. 

I know this has become an absolute holy grail with the FBU obsessed with it, any talk around it generating instant accusations of wanting to compromise Firefighter safety. The practices are based on historical fires in London, of a kind that are probably unlikely to occur these days, in the late 1940's and 1950's. I'd be interested to hear people's views based on their experience and whether, taking the heat and emotion out of it, we really need to be so rigid. 

My other question is, why are all of the other modern nations across the world, who don't carry out this old analogue method of working, not killing Firefighters as any talk of removing BA entry control seems to inevitably lead to?

[JL_Martin]

Hello !

From a french point of view, BA entry control is still in use in our work. We only use it for big events, such as an underground car park fire, where firefighters can spend en long time doing exploring/reconnaissance job.

For regular fires (flat or house fires for exemple), it's still an option, but we consider our firefighters to be trained and autonomous enough to check themselves their BA pressure. But there are often 2 Ffs ready to go in case of distress / incident. (Safety binomial).

[Steve]

@JL_Martin this is exactly what I was thinking, the majority of our BA wears are simple and low risk (in terms of what BA control does), it is effectively a waste of time with the risk being in other areas such as flashover, backdraught, burns, falls etc. Can you tel me how your BA entry control works please?

[Messyshaw]

@Steve, you may be right and the whole system needs to be reviewed, but how much time would it save in reality?

With new occupational health based rules restricting an individual's BA wearing time at a shout, I suppose it's possible that any review of BA procedures could backfire and result in a more complex BA entry process

My concern is any two-phased approach (with an optional use of a BA entry system) would require the OIC to make a risk critical decision very early on at an incident at a time where they are juggling 101 other priority/risk critical matters.  It would be very easy to make a poor decision when overwhelmed. As you say, the sheer amount of video footage now available (thank God I am retired!!) shows some pretty awful operational decision making (have you seen the canal boat fire at Paddington????!!!) and makes me wonder if its wise to add any more stress to Incident Managers

 If the process involved (like now) using BA entry systems as a default upon arrival, and then rowing them back later when a full risk assessment allows , maybe that's the way forward.

In addition,  certainly in my experience, some premises look 'small and simple' from the outside, but are hugely complex inside. For example in the NW10 area, there are many businesses that front onto residential streets and look like a terraced house from the front.  Plus, as the early collapse of gang nailed roof trusses, e-bikes and Grenfell has shown, innovation and piss poor building methods create very serious risks at the smallest of premises.

I can understand the FBU's anxiety although they've always demonstrated inflexibility to change to be honest .  My view is I cannot see a huge issue in maintaining the status quo as does it really take that much time to establish or use many resources? I am not sure

Its an interesting question though and I am looking forward to more views here 

[JL_Martin]

I'll do my best to do a summary

We work as binomial during our missions, you are not supposed to work  alone. For all engagements, small or big fires, all binomials will do a crossed checking :

-Full and correct wearing of your PPE

-Correct and good sealment of your SCBA facemask

-SCBA correctly connected to your facemask

-Cylinder's pressure check (at least 270 bars for a 300 bars cylinder)

 

During the binomial engagement, they have to check often their air pressure. The most common rule is to use 1/3 of your cylinder to go in, 1/3 to do the job and 1/3 to go out.

But you can adapt it if you want (some like keep, maybe, around 1/4 to go out). 

 

For the big events, there is a checking guy, with a binomial management board. Because of numerous appliances that could be involved.

The little tags are for the binomial names, then air pressure of each guy, entry time, estimated time limit (based on 100 litres/minute) and mission of the binomial.

If one binomial is missing after the estimated time is over, the crew manager in charge of the area is advised, and a security binomial (dedicated to this only mission) is send with RIT pack and all the stuff.

And every firefighter has a radio with him, at least in my fire department.

I hope to be understandable...

7 hours ago, Steve said:

@JL_Martin this is exactly what I was thinking, the majority of our BA wears are simple and low risk (in terms of what BA control does), it is effectively a waste of time with the risk being in other areas such as flashover, backdraught, burns, falls etc. Can you tel me how your BA entry control works please?

[Becile]

Am I missing something from the above?  it looks not disimilar to a  uk ba board , just slightly different , still entry and exit times and based on 100 lpm in this case.

[Steve]

5 hours ago, JL_Martin said:

I'll do my best to do a summary

We work as binomial during our missions, you are not supposed to work  alone. For all engagements, small or big fires, all binomials will do a crossed checking :

-Full and correct wearing of your PPE

-Correct and good sealment of your SCBA facemask

-SCBA correctly connected to your facemask

-Cylinder's pressure check (at least 270 bars for a 300 bars cylinder)

 

During the binomial engagement, they have to check often their air pressure. The most common rule is to use 1/3 of your cylinder to go in, 1/3 to do the job and 1/3 to go out.

But you can adapt it if you want (some like keep, maybe, around 1/4 to go out). 

 

For the big events, there is a checking guy, with a binomial management board. Because of numerous appliances that could be involved.

The little tags are for the binomial names, then air pressure of each guy, entry time, estimated time limit (based on 100 litres/minute) and mission of the binomial.

If one binomial is missing after the estimated time is over, the crew manager in charge of the area is advised, and a security binomial (dedicated to this only mission) is send with RIT pack and all the stuff.

And every firefighter has a radio with him, at least in my fire department.

I hope to be understandable...

@JL_Martin A fantastic summary, especially as I assume English is not your first language. It seems an identical concept, albeit slightly different in design, to the UK BA entry control board.

12 hours ago, Messyshaw said:

@Steve, you may be right and the whole system needs to be reviewed, but how much time would it save in reality?

With new occupational health based rules restricting an individual's BA wearing time at a shout, I suppose it's possible that any review of BA procedures could backfire and result in a more complex BA entry process

My concern is any two-phased approach (with an optional use of a BA entry system) would require the OIC to make a risk critical decision very early on at an incident at a time where they are juggling 101 other priority/risk critical matters.  It would be very easy to make a poor decision when overwhelmed. As you say, the sheer amount of video footage now available (thank God I am retired!!) shows some pretty awful operational decision making (have you seen the canal boat fire at Paddington????!!!) and makes me wonder if its wise to add any more stress to Incident Managers

 If the process involved (like now) using BA entry systems as a default upon arrival, and then rowing them back later when a full risk assessment allows , maybe that's the way forward.

In addition,  certainly in my experience, some premises look 'small and simple' from the outside, but are hugely complex inside. For example in the NW10 area, there are many businesses that front onto residential streets and look like a terraced house from the front.  Plus, as the early collapse of gang nailed roof trusses, e-bikes and Grenfell has shown, innovation and piss poor building methods create very serious risks at the smallest of premises.

I can understand the FBU's anxiety although they've always demonstrated inflexibility to change to be honest .  My view is I cannot see a huge issue in maintaining the status quo as does it really take that much time to establish or use many resources? I am not sure

Its an interesting question though and I am looking forward to more views here 

Very fair and measured points @Messyshaw, I'd expect no less from you, and food for thought for me as I am viewing this as a concept in Isolation.

Yes, I did see the Paddington video BTW, at the start, I thought, "This is Paddington, this will go well..." I slowly died second by second as the footage played. Very occasionally, I was known to be quite grumpy and spiky on the fireground... not often, as a measure of how others behaved and performed. But that would have been one of those occasions where I'd have been throwing "effs" around like confetti!!!

[Messyshaw]

52 minutes ago, Steve said:

Yes, I did see the Paddington video BTW, at the start, I thought, "This is Paddington, this will go well..." I slowly died second by second as the footage played. Very occasionally, I was known to be quite grumpy and spiky on the fireground... not often, as a measure of how others behaved and performed. But that would have been one of those occasions where I'd have been throwing "effs" around like confetti!!!

That did make me chuckle 😂 - which is more than the video did.  I know this area pretty well and access is difficult, but not impossible. Please tell me that the FF with the bucket was brand new and was being wound up

Sorry to hijack the thread, nut the video we are discussing is here
 

 

[Becile]

All you need is the Benny Hill music 

[Keith]

Wouldn't fancy being that Oic if he was invited into Steve's office for a chat.🤣

Getting back on track regarding BA entry control, with telemetry systems, it may not be required to monitor air consumption, but more so as an accountability tool. Even at a simple bread and butter house fire, with for example one team firefighting on the ground floor and one searching on the first floor, if something goes wrong on the first floor, the brief is there for the emergency team to follow. For the bigger and more complex jobs, its essential and if you don't have it in place from the first team going in you're never getting that back.

We were late to the party in adopting the new BA operational guidance to replace TB 1/97 and the biggest change I noticed that it on one hand it sort of goes back to the older 1/89 to limit numbers at Stage 1 and more control for Stage 2 etc whilst at the same time incorporating the newer measuring to limit overexposure and contaminants to improve overall firefighter safety. Again you need to be using this from the start and for the minor jobs so that it gets embedded.

[Percy]

Another far too overcomplicated and largely outdated practice. Am I saying that there should be no BAEC? No, absolutely not just totally revamped using more modern technology and far simpler to follow procedures.