Fire Fighter Venting A Roof

Operating on the roof during a building fire requires us to have a secondary means of escape.

Fire fighter venting a roof.

However there are many other critical steps that we need to master in order to make roof ventilation an efficient process. We determine this by reading the smoke seeing the fire vented looking at the roof material for signs of heat and our experience. But if resources are such the vent team may need to place both sets of ladders prior to making the roof. Venting the roof like they did seemed like a lot of extra work that didn t pay off too much.

2 my experience taught me that the larger the hole the better. When we talk about roof ventilation we often focus on the cut itself. Heat and smoke rise into the attic where the fire can move quickly. Another reason for venting the roof is to see how far the fire has progressed.

Ventilation is an important tactic at structural firefighting operations. That said how much time do we have how much reach do you have and how much help do you have all dictate size. Firefighters may go ahead of the fire on a roof cut holes to access the attic and stop the fire from spreading through the attic. This will likely be the responsibility of crews on the ground.

There are two types of ventilation we deal with all the time at fires.