Latest / Fire Engineering Podcast / Fireground Hydraulics and Water Supply: LDH, Hydrant Hookups, and Drafting
Transcript
- Nat Kapustin: Education is key. Don't just buy on price. Buy on performance. Schedule a hands-on flow demo to get the real-world data your team needs. Because the best choice isn't always the lowest bid. Well, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening. Wherever you might be in the United States or the world, because you know we are an international podcast. Ha ha. welcome to the October Bill Gustin Hump Day Hangout. Talking about engine company operations today. hope everyone's doing good. I hope you didn't miss us too much this last month. I am Clark Lamping from the Clark County Fire Department, coming to you from Sunny Las Vegas. Actually a little cloudy today. We're having some rain. We're getting hit by that hurricane that's coming up Mexico. So that's interesting. I don't know what you people in Florida always talk about these hurricanes. I'm looking out my window. It doesn't look terrible. It's I'm not sure. so as we always do, we're going to introduce ourselves around, starting with my favorite retired chief, Dan Shaw. Dan Shaw, how are you, brother? Good, Clark. Good to see you guys again. Good to hang out with you this month. Dan Shaw, retired ops chief from Fairfax County and currently one of the technical editors for Fire Engineering magazine. Perfect, Dan Shaw. Perfect. And then we have my favorite Canadian by far. but we couldn't have Brian King on the show. So we've got we got Brent Brooks on here today. So Brent Brooks, how are you doing, brother? doing fantastic. Yeah, 31 years with Toronto retired, and now I'm I'm out in the East Coast right now as assistant deputy chief. yeah, loving life. And yeah, I can't wait for this show. This is this is an exciting one. Andy and I we we just met each other last month in person and did some work together. So yeah, let's let's get to work after Jimmy. Also my favorite Chicago and he's probably celebrating 'cause the Bears are looking so good this year. and it's the first time since nineteen eighty-five. So pretty sure he's floating on cloud nine. Jimmy Davis, how are you, brother? I'm doing good, guys. Hello to everybody. go bears and go socks. Yeah, they're they're playing today. They're in the wild card. But Jimmy Davis here, Chicago fire going on thirty-two years now. Thirty-two years. Thirty-two years. Wow. Wow. Jimmy, remind us where you're leaving for as soon as you leave the podcast today. Where am I leaving for? Yeah, where are you going? Where are you going on vacation? that's not I wish it was today. October Over to Denmark. Denmark. Finland. Yeah. Sweden and Estonia. Wow. Fantastic. are you gonna do some hose lays? You're gonna show those folks up there how to do some hose lays and saw how we do stuff in in Chicago. They might be able to show us a thing or two as well, Clark, you know. Yeah. But no fire stuff. Yeah, my wife would kill me. And no wandering round hallways and stairwells in the buildings either. Yeah, I can't help myself. You'll find me or Brooksy in a stairway or the fire alarm panel somewhere. we're not too far from each other. I I know for a fact. I went I was in San Francisco with Brooksy once and all we wanted to do was go look at standpipes and and hookups and stuff. It's like, you know what there's you know, Brooksy, there's there's a bar full of people right here. Yeah, but it doesn't have an FTC. I don't want to go in there. You don't have to pay to go to museum. You just go to any high rise, any standpipe equipped building your hotel, and you start doing dry stretches and and sizing up the building and and our topic today of maximizing the water supplies. Yeah, it's that's my vacation in a nutshell. Perfect. 'Cause you're a nerd just like everyone on this show, or a bunch of nerds. And it's I'd like to introduce our special invited guest, first time on the show. Hey, Daryl Daryl Leggins. Look who it is, Daryl. How you doing, bro? Good. Good morning. What's shaking in the the Oakland area? Tell us. well, they actually just had one heck of a fire. it was probably one of the highest life hazard fires I remember in a long time. Four-story you know, open light well balloon frame apartment building, fire in the first floor apartment, venting out of And burning the entire staircase from top to bottom. They had 100 people in the building and they got the fire out. People were tying towels and bed sheets, old school, trying to escape. And it just shows how important that first line is. Yep. And that first line went right onto the first floor stairwell and started working their way up. Yep. And you gotta get that stream. People don't talk about this. You gotta get. Under the stairwell and get that stream pointed straight up so you can get as much of that staircase out as as possible. But it was an o open well you said? Yes. Wooden stairs? Wooden stairs. Did were the stairs compromised to a point that you could no longer use the stairs for evacuations after the fire was out? Did you have to take everyone out windows? they were I wasn't obviously I wasn't at the fire just talking to friends that were there, but yeah, they were able to get people out of the out of the building via the staircase once it was put out. Wow. nice job. Nice job. One hundred rescues. That's about that's about ninety eight more rescues than I've had in my career. Yeah, and you c you could say rescues, but it's just the that water. Water wins. Water rescue. Yeah. And you protect it right in place, Daryl. Keep they all kept in your unit or are they hanging out the windows? The jump we call jumpers out here in Chicago. They start jumping from windows. Did they have any jumpers? I didn't hear of anybody that that jumped, only you know, ready to start boogieing out with the towels tied to the the window banisters, but So they would they they would be forced to shelter in place, which means they need the fire department, and the fire department needs big water. Yeah. That's you know what we should do one of these days? We should have someone on the on the podcast on the hump day that can talk about moving big water from hydrants to nozzles. if you guys you know, I read this I read this book once. I thought this book was really, really good. look at that. Uh-huh. Water thievery by a guy named how do you pronounce that name? It's just a little bit Italian. It's Saccadato. Saccadato. Andy Saccadato. I told Chief Dave Rhodes, I said, you know, I don't even like this guy. I just like saying his name. So I want to have on the podcast so we can say Saccadato. So Andy Saccadato, how are brother? Why don't you tell us? Great. Now we're not Italian is bonding. Great. I am I'm absolutely honored to be here and chatting with y'all and something that I love so much in the fire service and that's moving water. I I started my fire service career at the age of sixteen in a volunteer fire department up in New Jersey. I got hired with the city of Charlottesville, Virginia in two thousand eleven where I spent nine years as a driver operator there. while I was there, we didn't have promoted engineer positions, but That's pretty much the role that I served. I never promoted past the firefighter rank. I loved I love driving and pumping and operating aerials, all that good stuff. I left there in 2020 to take a job at the Tennessee State Fire Academy, where I oversee pump and aerial programs for the state of Tennessee. so in in between all that I own my own business called the Water Thieves LLC. Where we go around the United States. we tried to go to Canada, but that that didn't work out. But anyway, we we go all over the United States and teach pump operations how to maximize your water supply, whether it be from a hydrant or from a draft. if if you if you move water, we'll we'll show you how to be efficient with it. So I'm just really passionate about the fire service, especially pump operations. and moving water. I love it so much that that I bought my my own fire engine. I actually have it it's from my my the fire department that I started with as a volunteer back in New Jersey. It's a nineteen eighty eight Mac and yeah so an anytime I'm not moving water I'm playing with the old girl. So yeah that's my pride and joy. I'm pretty sure there's something inappropriate I could say about that. But yeah yeah Hey Andy, tell us about your latest job, your newest job. so I I I'm assuming you're referring to FDIC. Yeah, absolutely, brother. Absolutely. th this year I'm still blown away by it, but this year I was asked to be on the FDIC advisory board. I couldn't believe that I was in the room with a lot of the folks here and and helping help them with all that on the advisory board. absolutely honored to do it and yeah, just just really happy to be a part of it. Perfect, perfect, brother. Before we get any farther, I'd like to make sure that we acknowledge and thank our host, Key Firehose. And I'm pretty sure today we're gonna be talking a lot about fire hose. And my dad would always say, You get what you pay for. And if you buy cheap hose, you're gonna continue to rebuy cheap hose or you could buy quality hose once. And you can continue to use quality hose. So we appreciate every single month. We absolutely appreciate Keyhose's sponsorship and in all the hands on training they sponsor across the country, they are always delivering crates and crates and crates of fire hose for students to get their hands on. And if it wasn't for you, Key Hose, our hands on training all over the United States would look much different than it does. So again, thank you very much, Keyhose, for your sponsorship and and allow us to be on. Every single month. Now, real quick, Andy, why don't you tell us a little bit about the book? I showed you the book already, but this is this is a fantastic book. And in my opinion, and I'm looking at my library right now, there's two books, two books that if you are responsible on the fire service to deliver water, this is one of them. This is one of the best books I've ever read: Water Thiever by Andy Soconado, and also My Friend Water Delivery by Pauli Shapiro. All right. Pauly Shapiro, we lost Pauly Shapiro a couple years ago. He died of heart disease. He was an amazing contributor to the fire service. But his book's a little different than yours, Andy. Tell us the differences in the books and why you chose to write what you did. Yeah, so you know, Paul Shapiro is absolutely a mentor of mine. I remember you know, reading his stuff and and being inspired by a lot of the a lot of his writings and and everything that he had to offer. and you know, I've always been passionate about not only moving water from hydrants, but really, really passionate about the rural water side of things. And you know, don't get me wrong, I love hooking heavy to hydrants and and maximizing mains and doing all that. but I jokingly say that, you know, as any anybody can hook to a hydrant Turn a stem and get water out of it, right? It's it's really about knowing how to maximize with your connections and how you're getting water into the pump. That that's where a true pump operator kind of shines. where I came from, both where I volunteered and where I worked for the city of Charlottesville, there was in a lot of instances, a lot of people were afraid to draft. And there was this aversion to drafting and operating from static bodies of water. And you know, I personally it always intrigued me because when I looked at it and boiled it down, I consider the most primal thing that a pumper needs to be able to do is get water from a static source. So I I always had had this draw to learning how to maximize that and do it from a draft and everything like that. Do everything I can do from a hydrant, but also do it from a draft. So you know, when I was I I had a lot of great mentors while I was in Charlottesville that showed me a lot of great things, Dale Dean being one of them with Albemarle County Fire Rescue. but doing some research and and trying to find out the best way to do things, I didn't find a lot of things in print. and and there wasn't a lot of stuff on the drafting side of things that you know, I could show other people or reference or this, that and the other. So I started Doing myself, right? Testing things, trying things out, getting you know, operating things, collecting data. And you know, I said, not only is there some disconnect with the hydrant side of things, there's a big disconnect on the rural water side of things. And it had always been a dream of mine to to kind of compile it and put it into a written form. And I was granted that opportunity through fire engineering books and and I'm humbled beyond belief that that that they were willing to put all that nerdy stuff into a written form. So that that's kind of the compilation and how it how it was born, right? I wanted to dispel some of these myths with regards to hydraulics. I know there was a lot of things that I learned when I was a driver operator in the volunteer setting and and even the career setting. You know, you'd ask why? Why do I do this? Just because we I told you to do it that way, that's how you're gonna do it. And I'm a firm believer that if you understand The why behind certain aspects, you will be able to troubleshoot things when things go sideways. And that's really what it's all about about being a good operator. It's troubleshooting, right? It's it's figuring out and and how to fix problems that occur on the fire ground. so that that's that's kind of where the book was born from. And it fills an important, important gap in the fire service, Andy. I tell you that. I tell you that. Darrell Liggins. Darrell Liggins. Have you ever been on a residential fire that started out offensive and then it started going south? When I say a residential fire, we we use a residential water supply on Clark County, which is the second pumper arrives, they do a forward lay with a single five inch up and they and they supply the attack pumper. All right. Do you do something similar to that in Oakland? yeah, with a a four way valve and four inch water supply. Okay. So you're using the four-way valve. So we don't use a four-way valve. We're actually testing a four-way valve right now, but we're not using it. So we simply do a straight five-inch to the attack bumper. And how many times on the fire scene has anybody on the panel heard this? we're gonna have to transition to a defensive operation. Let's put the ladder pipes out and flow the ladder pipes, shut all the hand lines down because we don't have enough water to supply the hand lines and the aerials. Has anyone ever heard that on a fire scene? I've definitely heard that. Yeah. I was what is go ahead. I was gonna say, one of the the challenges we had with the the four-way valve is a and Andy can probably speak more on this is there's a misunderstanding sometimes between adding more pressure and and getting more volume. the A lot of times city hydrant systems are not marked of the size of that that water water main. And you could be adding more pressure, not getting really much more volume. We were fortunate that we had a map system that showed on the computer and the old hand-drawn maps on the wall, the different size water supplies throughout the city in in both pressure range and volume but sometimes you had to supply that four way from a a different hydrant that it was actually connected to to get more volume. All right. And Andy, could you please tell us why why we kept having these problems that, you know, with a forward lay on a five inch, why could we why do we keep running out of water? What what could we do differently as far as water supply to fix that problem? Yeah, absolutely. And you know it's You know, you're listening to this and saying, you know, yeah, I've run into that. it's it's all over this nation. And you know, I blame a lot of it on the introduction of large diameter hose. Not that L D H is bad. That's not what I'm trying to say. Because Paul Shapiro is rolling over in his grave right now, you better watch what you say right now. So when large diameter hose was originally introduced to our fire service, the common thing that I talked to from from folks that were in the fire service before I was born, right? I'll give you that, right? Is that the salesman came across and said, this is an above-ground water main. This above ground water main and the solution that it was solving was the need to have to put pumpers on hydrants all the time because we had to pump our medium diameter hose. We all knew that the medium, the two and a halves, the dual tool two and a halves or the dual threes, they had friction in them. Right. We had to put a pumper on the hydrant to actually get volume downrange. The large diameter hose solved that problem for our residential mindset, right? A four and five inch hose has virtually minimal friction loss in it at the 300 gallon per minute flow. Right. And and let's be real, most of our residential fires, most of our fires today, we're we're handling that with one or two hand lines, right? Very rarely are we doing that five hundred gallon per minute flow. So there's this mindset, in my opinion, that has that has stemmed where people think that there are no fri there is no friction loss in large diameter hose. Friction loss is it's it's it's a it's a bitch, is what it is, right? And I tell people that the way you need to think about friction loss is it's an exponential relationship with flow. When I double the flow, I quadruple the friction. So friction loss doesn't show its ugly head. until we get into larger flows, right? Larger scale incidences. I have an example that I that I do in one of my presentations when we're talking about this of pretty much what you just laid out, Clark, right? I have a pumper that has five inch on the ground and you know I lay 600 feet of five inch from from the hydrant and connect it directly into my pumper. And before I do that I I show a slide that has All this hydrant flow test data, assuming that we went out and we pedoted this hydrant and we did our our flows like we're supposed to. And the the hypothetical hydrant that that I'm using in my scenario is capable of 2600 gallons per minute at 20 psi residual. and that's what people tend to forget. They forget that fire hydrants are rated to flow their volume at a low pressure. a fire hydrant is no different than a nozzle. it it's a nozzle that's in the street and the nozzle pressure that it operates at is twenty psi. So we all know that our handline nozzles are f one fifty at fifty or two hundred at seventy five, whatever it may be, right? Our fire hydrants are fifteen hundred gallons a minute at twenty or two thousand at twenty, right? That's what we need to remember. And twenty Psi is not enough pressure To overcome friction in hose several hundred feet, right? Unless we're using 12-inch hose. If we want 2,000 gallons a minute, you know, any distance, we would need to be using hose that none of us want to pick up. So the the the issue and what what this stems from is we're used to the 99% of the time we're dealing with one or two handline fires and we're not prepped. For these once in a career or you know very rare fires where we're flowing multiple master streams, right? So that's why I tell people LDH is not the problem. It's our mindset. Our mindset is we're using the LDH and we're taking it from this mindset of, well, most of the time 300 gallons a minute is all we need. So pressure, hydro pressure alone is all we need for that. It's when we get into that one or two. aerial ladder or master stream fires where no, right? Well if it's not working for the LDH, it must be a water problem. And nine times out of ten, it's not a municipal water problem. We're trying to flow so much water through what can essentially be equated to IV tubing at that kind of flow rate. You know? So the solution is putting pumpers on the hydrant. Really all that has changed tactically from from now to you know 50 years ago is when we absolutely need the pumper on the hydrant. Back then, we needed pumpers on the hydrant from the beginning to support regular hand line flows. Today, that needs to happen when we're putting heavy caliber streams in circuit. And that's where four-way valves come into play, like Daryl was talking. Perfect. Perfect. Chief Chief Shaw, what was your water supply, commercial water supply strategy in Fairfax? Is that an unfair question? Is that too general of a question for you? No, no, I mean I I think I mean it it hits something that we just we we don't give enough love. I mean we we have four types of technicians in in Fairfax, right? Apparatus technician have a EMS technician. Technical rescue technician, hazmat technician. Three of them get required continuing education every month. One of them never does. And so we just assume that when you drive an engine, you get enough continuing edge just because you drive. Well, like Andy was saying, you know, I think we were reflective of a lot of suburban urban fire departments. We're really good forward lane, one to two room fire department. That's what we do. That's the fires we go to. So when you roll up on a commercial building, or in a case of like we had a fire in a residential over commercial under construction, it was 175 feet by 75 feet by four floors on fire upon arrival. Guess what the initial tactic was? Forward lay with a five inch off the and so if you use like the ISO now needed fire flow formula, we needed something like twelve to fourteen thousand gallons per minute. Not happening. So how often do we train our drivers to roll up to a building and our officers roll up to a building and go, No way we're doing anything to that? We need to take a stand over here and we have an idea how quickly we can get an engine attached to a tower ladder or sh a truck and what that time frame, what what is our reflex time like talking in high rise language, right? We run off high rises, we talk about reflex time all the time. What's the reflex time for us to get an engine attached to a hydrant that is a suitable amount of flow? attached to that towel ladder in the right position and to take a stand and to stop it from going to the next building. and so, you know, when you talk about commercial fire tactics, you know, we need to, especially as in state commanders, we need to have a switch that we flip that we can communicate to the fire officers coming, the firefighters coming in, that we are no longer doing a forward lay one to two l room fire department. We need multiple water supplies to make sure that we're not stealing from each other. And we need to make that transition from inch three quarter to two and a half to a tower ladder below zero or we know whatever device you use, whether it's a deck gun or a hydro, you whatever whatever device we're using. But you're the one that drives that transition because there's multiple things we think about when we go to commercial building fires. Like we don't worry about plenum spaces when we go to residential buildings. We don't worry about FTCs when we go to residential buildings, we don't worry about taglines when we go to residential buildings most of time. But you know, for the water supply could idea. A lot of times it's gonna be that instant commander who can drive that and get that switch to flip to kind of help something so you can avoid that failure cascade that happens a lot of times we see on incense. Yeah. Perfect. I agree. Brent Brooks. Yeah. Nat, if you wouldn't mind pulling up that picture for us. and and and and a mentor of mine, Maurice Doyle told me this. we are known as the blue planet. We are filled with water, but when we have a fire, we have a hard time finding it. So we always maximize our hydrant. It it it it it it doesn't matter. And we gut in this culture that even if you pull up to a dumpster fire and you hook up to a hydrant and you hook up to the stores connection, the second the driver becomes idle, which means they're not doing anything, they pull the second line. If they become idle again, They pull the third line, and now we have a maximized hydrant. And people say, well, how come you maximize it on a dumpster fire? Because we're getting the sets and reps in in in in maximize that hydrant. Well, the same thing goes to stamp pipe. So there's a a maximized hydrant in in the middle, and now we have a maximized stamp pipe on the right. So we we maximize everything that we do because if we know how much we have left in that hydrant or in that stamp pipe, we know what tactics that we can do. downrange. And like Dan, you know, Dan saw saw says, there's no there's no time machine. We we can't buy that time. If fire's becoming 16 times bigger every three minutes, how long would it take you to add that second line or the third line and and prepare for master streams? You're gonna lose that battle. So in predicting and forecasting the what type of water we might need, why don't you just eliminate that whole thought process, maximize the hydrant, maximize your stamp out every every time. So when those conditions do change, I just simply you know pump more water or or or open a valve or run along another line to the area. We're not pausing, we're not shutting down, we're not resetting, we're just adding to the water supply that we already have. You can take that picture down now, Nat. Thank you. And I say maximizing their water. that's just, you know, I love I love occupants. you know, it's it's their water. The city put it there for us to protect them. So we're using their water. to help them. That's all I got for you on that. I went on a tangent, I know. And that so Brooksy, it looks like that picture you have are those four inch lines? Those are five in in this picture. This was our super pumper that was hooked up to this case, but normally we have four inch lines. So our super pumpers have five and then our other apparatus have four inch. And then we have an evasive valve at the new department that I'm at. And the super pumpers in the high rise district, obviously, correct? It's well there's two that split the city and yeah if if tower one's being set up, it's a two hundred and thirty foot tower. it's it it gets the super pump assigned to it. And if we get a high rise, we get a super pumper assigned to it as well. And so this picture, that's your policy to go three five inch on You're not gonna use two and a half, but you're gonna go three five inch. No, and and and and and that's a and that's a that's a great point, Claire, because We always talk about master streams, but when we look at lithium lion car fires underground and we use the Bres distributor, or the wind impacted fire, we're using the Bres distributor, or we have an unsafe floor, we're using a Bres distributor. That's a 500 GPM weapon. And if we put two 500 GP GPM weapons into play, guess what? The the one the one stores or the two two and a halves aren't gonna do it. And we see that all the time on our training ground. They say, yeah, we got to. One four inch and we got two two and a halves coming off off the hydrant. Okay, let's put two Brezins into play. Well, why would you ever have two Bresins into play? Well, we use it for EV exposure protection. well, guess what? Wouldn't it have been nice to just put the two four inches on it and not worry about it? We can have two Breslin distributors going. And those are just hand lines, right? So yeah, just just get in the habit of modern day fires are are are changing. we cannot play catch up. Once we recognize the signs that this fire is getting away from us, it's too late. So just do this off the hop, off the start, when you become idle, keep that process building so you maximize maximize your water. So when conditions do change, it's a it's a it's a simple fix. Fantastic. That's fantastic. What would your Andy Andy Sakadato? What would your recommendations? First of all, before we move any farther, we're at the halfway point, Andy, what kind of hose do you prefer? Yeah, so the the hose that I use a lot for my training and and even even on my pumper, right, is is all key hos. you know, I'm a firm believer in using stuff that works. I'm a firm believer in using stuff that is tried and true and and that's why that's why I believe in key hose. whether it be for supply operations or attack operations. I I'm a proud supporter of Key hose and and I am honored to say that you know every stitch of hose on my eighty eight Mac is key hose. So fantastic brother. Thank you. And Clark you're also sponsoring H Rock, Water on the Fire and Battalion Boot Camp this year as well. Key hose is sponsoring them. And so those those kids are coming in. And how many how many feet of hose are we talking about there, Cat Chief Brooks? Well, just for the high rise, we need twenty-four sticks. And then we need another nine sticks of three inch. And then LDH. Don't know yet. We gotta figure that out. We gotta we gotta lay it out. But a lot of hose. Like more than those fire departments carry on a day to day basis, put it that way. Yep. And they always show up. Those crates of hose always show up, no matter where in the United States. And when we ship them back, they're wet and they're heavy. I bet you it's double the cost in shipping on the Yeah, absolutely. And we don't pack right and we blow up the cardboard box. Yeah. I I don't know why they keep sending us hose because we we just make a mess. Make a mess. Yep. Andy, tell us about some of your thoughts on taking the residential water supply into a commercial structure. What should we be doing on a commercial structure? Let's just say, for example high rise. We have a high rise fire. All right. What should a high rise water supply look like? Well, you know, I I gotta say, right, Chief Brooks hit it out of the park with that with that image and showing us how to set up, right? The one thing that you know, I I com I commonly get the the feedback or the question, why do we need to do all that? Why do we need to do all that? And and my rebuttal is always why don't you want to do that? Right. And when we boil it down, right, what does it hurt to have more volume coming into the truck? It doesn't hurt you. It doesn't hurt them. If anything, it makes everything better. If we really boil it down, the the aversion to these heavy hydrant hookups and and taking the time to do exactly what Chief Brooks showed is we're lazy. We don't want to pick up two more sections of five inch, right? And and this is this is one of my One of my pet peeves in the fire service, I I cannot tell you how much it it really grinds my gears to hear firemen complain about having to pick up hose. That is literally what we get either paid to do or we are volunteering to do. That's our job. It's no different than the garbage man saying, you know what, today I don't want to pick up garbage. Well, that guy's getting fired, right? So it is our job to put hose on the ground. It's our job to build out a redundant system and an efficient system. And Clark, to your point, right, for these commercial tactics and high-rise tactics, right? What what I want to see especially is that heavy hooked hydrant, but specifically like what Chief Brooks showed, large diameter hose, right? I tell all my my my students. For firefighting operations, the only type of hose that I want to see connected between pumper and hydrant is LDH, whatever that may be, whatever you have in your department. Four inch, five inch, or even six inch soft suction hose, or like in Chicago, they're using six inch pressure rated hard sleeve, right? That that I mean that is the gold standard, right? But to to the the argument I get a lot is well, why am I gonna put large diameter hose on a two and a half inch sideboard, right? I'm limited on that two and a half, it can only flow so much water. And that's not wrong, but it's important to look at it, right? When when I look at a dead gun, for example, or or a tower ladder stack set, you know, a lot of times I have a two inch tip somewhere in that stack set. And at 80 pounds, that two inch tip is going to flow a thousand and sixty two gallons per minute. Right? Well, a two and a half inch hole is bigger than that, and at twenty pounds, it's gonna flow around nine hundred to a thousand gallons a minute. Okay, so you know, the other thing that I tell people is even even if we want to get into that two and a half inch opening, right? That two and a half inch opening is six to eight inches long, right? It it's not fifty feet and eight inches long, right? So when I put a two and a half on that side port. All I'm doing is building resistance. And I've done it. I put flow meters on there. And a lot of people that don't believe in the heavy hydrant mindset, it's because they've used the wrong hose to do it, right? You're not gonna see tremendous gains when you put a two and a half or a three inch on the sideboard because it's simple fluid dynamics. Fluids take the path of least resistance. If there's a lot of resistance in this outlet compared to this outlet, The majority of the volume's gonna go out of the lower resistant outlet, right? Which is what the name of the game is. We're we're essentially trying to minimize friction as much as we can from hydrant to pumper. And you know, friction on the intake side of the pump is the enemy. I want to minimize it. The way I do that is multiple connections, big fat hose, and as many connections as I can get into that pumper. if I can do that, I get the volume. Because we've got to remember. I can only get that max volume at twenty PSI. So I gotta minimize friction as much as I can to get the volume in there. That's why we use five inch or four inch or six inch on our hydrant. if you want more I I could talk for a long time about this, but if you want more information, all that information, data, numbers, all that stuff is in water thievery. It's all in there and it explains it all in a mathematical way. That isn't too over, you know, our firemen brains, but it explains it in a way that, you know, kind of clicks it. Okay. I have a I have a question for you. Yeah. And it goes back to most of our success at fires or, you know, one or or two lines, and we're not always in the mindset of big water or we're not always constantly reminded that we may need larger water and one thing I noticed with departments that use four-way valves is they don't always have a pumper go to the four-way valve. And and my department was was the same way. And I didn't see much reason that on a day-to-day basis that we should be in practice of having a pumper, whether it's a second or third dew pumper, whatever your operation is. Go to the four-way valve, spot it, hook up the the lines, you know, maybe not charge it till that first two engineers saying they want more more pressure. But if you are doing that all the time when you need it, you're you're ready for it. Your engineers are practicing it. They're already in the mindset. Because when we have to switch gears because it's something different, we have trouble switching gears when we fall into this residential, you know, low water volume. mindset. Do you see that a lot of departments are are operating the way that I'm seeing that they are not hooking up to these four-way valves and essentially just hooking it up to the the hydrant? Absolutely. And you know, it's so much so, Daryl, to the point where I know there are places that I've been to and have had students in Tennessee where I routinely have people tell me, yeah, we have four way valves but they don't come off the truck. Or we got four-way valves, they're in storage closet. And I'm like, what are we doing? Right? We you have a tool that is there for you. And a lot of people in my professional experience that are averse to four-way valves, the complaint that always comes back, whether it's the OASIS valve, whether it's a Harrington AWG valve, whether it's the Humat valve, the biggest complaint that people have is typically. Well, people mess up the connections. They don't know how to hook to it. That's an easy problem to fix. That is there's there is no exception for that. Because to your point, Daryl, if we're hooking to it every single time, whether it's a fire alarm or a seven alarm, right? It's the same, it's a set and a rep. I can get that experience, I can get those connections. And to your point, I may not have to charge them, but I'm ready to go. And if nothing else, I'm ready Affirming how to make these connections, right? The four-way valve, in my opinion, is not a difficult appliance, right? People people struggle with it because they don't touch it, right? Typically. And and I think that can be fixed in a lot of different ways. But you know, I like to think of that four-way valve as an insurance policy, right? It is there. It it it allows me to get quick water because we all know that fast water wins. Right. To to what our discussion before, fast water wins. But if I need to build to something that is more substantial, higher volumes, right? That is my insurance policy that allows me to do that without interrupting the initial flow. And Andy, I think you hit something that is so important. It comes back to training. Yeah. The way the way we train. And I asked this this question routinely when we're teaching is how many of you require multiple water supplies on a working fire? And it still mu all the hands don't come up. But then I'll ask them like, hey, how many of you follow this? I have been on fourteen or three for almost twenty years, and we have written in here in fourteen or three that unless you have a system that is engineered, which means that you were built your burn buildings engineered to be able to hit that adequate water supply, you must have two water supplies. So when you pose that question back to people, like, okay, when you go to a training fire, which I know you go to, would you You control the fuel load, you have to do a walk through the structure, you light the fire, you have to have two water supplies. But when you go to a hoarder's house at three o'clock in the morning in a suburban or urban environment where, to Darrell's point, they're not paying into the NFPA scheme and you don't know what the gallonage is in that water supply system, you're like, one water supply, we got it. So it's ridiculous that we train to a certain way. That you have to have multiple water supplies, but yet when we go to a working fire, which we have no control over, we're like, let's just go with one. And you know, that's that deviation that happens where you know, normalization of deviation, where you just, well, nothing bad's happened to me yet, so why would I change? Well, Chief, to your point. I know for my department we we bring four engines to every fire. First lays out, second picks it up, third goes to the rear, fourth picks it up every single time. We may not charge that second line, but it's there in place. And to your point, it's like when you go to the gym, man, we're just exercising a muscle, getting it bigger and stronger. Sets and reps. Yeah, to your point, Chief, right? So I you know, I I see this a lot and I and I think at the end of the day, right, water supply is not sexy. It's not a sexy topic in the fire service, right? and it's one of the things engine company operations as a whole are one of the most basic things that we are taught in our entry-level firefighter training. So when what I experience a lot is, you know, I have classes where I have a lot of engineers or people that are wanting to learn and be passionate, this that and the other. And the feedback I get a lot of times is, man, we take this back and I have company officers or battalion chiefs or chief officers who are saying, Nah, you don't need that. We've never needed that before. Right. The younger guys that they see the advantage of it, but they can't get it past this old mindset because I have never needed it before. Right. And and the the the the saying I always like to say is, have you not needed it before or did you not know that it existed before? Because those are two different things. And it's not your fault if you don't know what you don't know, but right, it's it's it is it is there. And that's why one of my goals, And I probably need the help of everybody on this committee or on this group, right? Is to develop a water supply for chief officers class, right? Because that's what's needed. That is what's needed, right? The firemen get it. A lot of times the pushback is, well, I've been the fire chief for X number of years, or I've been in command for so long. You don't need that. You don't need that. And why does experience have to do anything with when you come back to the level of training? But yeah, and and and Andy, you hit a a really important part. I mean, I how many times do you ask people like what is where do you send the second chief when you have a war w rural water supply operation? unequivocally it'll say water supply group supervisor. Yeah, because it's so important. But what do you do in an urban environment when you have a large fire? No, that no, no, that that that position's solely for when we have drafting. No, I mean, you know, one of the biggest fires we had, that was what was the linchpin that saved us was You know, taking a chief and saying, I need you to solely be in charge of finding these water mains and make sure we're not, you know, robbing Peter to pay Paul, which we were doing. yeah, and then that opens the other part of to your point. I mean, water supply's not sexy. We get you know almost quadruple the number of engines on fires than we do trucks, so we just take it for granted. But, you know, learning your water mains, we learn a very valuable lesson of this idea that, you know, we need more water. So call the water department and tell them to up the water. Yeah, that's not how it operates in the 2000s. It's an automated system. That our water supply system was almost shut down because they thought it was a water main break. Because the computer system was saying, how is there so many gallons being dropped in Route One Corridor? Well, it's because we were pulling that water. And so, you know, the system's gonna adapt to it naturally. But you know, you don't learn that until you go through that evolution or you kind of dig deeper as a professional and you get deeper into the training and say, what are all the things we need to understand? Now we have iPads and iPhones that that water supply group supervisor can bring up, can see every main, can see how many gallons are flowing through that main and say, go to that block and do a long relay and then you'll pull from a different system. But it is that, you know, taking it to the next level, not just taking it for granted because nothing bad has ever happened to you. Yeah, on that point, Chief Shaw, n that that's never happened. We've never needed it before. I always tell those people the cemetery is full of people that have never been dead before either. Right. Jimmy Davis. Jimmy Davis, I understand you're running out of battery and I know you have some valuable stuff to say. So what you got for us, brother? Before we go on or No, my charger, I'm down to nineteen percent. I forgot it at the firehouse yesterday, along with my brain. Andy, great stuff, man. I can listen to you all day. Maybe because I can relate because we're both paisanos. You know? I'll drip along with that. Yeah, yeah. Andy, I'm gonna say Andy, you've you've probably studied Chicago Fire Department. And we can move big water very quickly and very efficiently. And I know that Quinn when Quinn was the commissioner back then, that's when we took those big futuristic leaps into time in the fifties. He was envisioning things that we're talking about today. I mean, almost fifty years ago, sixty years ago. you know, we got Lake Michigan as well, too. So we have plenty of water, but when I got on the job a long time ago, it was a long time ago, thirty-two years, that's the one thing I noticed is that man, we can get on some big water, Chiefs, some big, big flows, because this was already taught in the culture, even before I got on. So I I would say my depart very good model. for moving you know water efficiently you know and our hydrants what's it called Chicago fire, what is your what is your procedure for hooking up? You have four way valves, you do heavy hookups, you do we call it maximizing the hydrant, triple tap. I like Andy calling it a heavy hookup. Andy we call it hogging the hydrant. If there's gonna be a need for that, you know, you're you're gonna be able to predict how a fire's going probably like we said that what's gonna happen in the next twenty minutes from now, especially when you're gonna larger buildings and commercials, things will be almost done automatically. But on a a typical residential fire, you know, if they're if they're doing one or two lines on this thing, we put a gate valve, all right, and then we'll call it soft suction into it. We put our our engines right on the hydrant, right? in reverse lays. Ford lays is not a thing that we use here. Maybe it's a Midwest thing. but I know forward lays are popular in other jurisdictions, but we go right on the on the hydrant. second thing that I like too, Andy, too, is that we we like to do things on redundancy. As well where the first and second engine will get separate water supplies and also lead out the d you know, different lines as well. I can't tell you how you know happy I'm to see that and how it's again in our culture. I'd been online where the pumps went kaput. Right. I'm I'm I'm doing a f battle slugging this thing out and then what happened? Oop no pump. And then they had to restart the process and get water and that. But I think what you're saying here, and I think the overall theme is that we really need to set ourselves up for success when it comes to you know g getting water, man. And I man, I look forward to picking up your book here. matter of fact, I think I'm gonna go and order that. Next time I see I'll hit I'll have you sign that in that, Andy. But great information in that as well. Yeah, absolutely. Jimmy, I got a question for you. So the majority of all your hydrants in Chicago are double steamer, correct? Correct. Yeah. four and a half. Four and a half quarters. Yeah. At what point do you all make the transition from using soft suction hose to the pump intake to the the pressure rated hard sleeve? Yeah, when I get on it was it was standard protocol on a two eleven or greater. those at coming on the two eleven would have to get on the hydrant using the six inch we call it the heart suction. Yeah. and again we train on that too. That's part of the culture, something that we take pride in as well. So anything beyond, you know, two eleven or beyond, then we're going into those those part suctions. And for the viewers, that's that really big black looking little bit of flexibility to it. But that's at six inch as well. And you know, like I said, this is nothing that was invented that is new to us. You know, like I said, this is something from the fifties, man, and it just carried over. and that's something that we take great pride in, Andy. Yeah, absolutely. And and you know, you hit a a really important part, right? That I that I like to tell people, none of this stuff is new. This is this is stuff that has been out for a long time. Well, the new part of it is the LDH that we have available, right? But as far as, you know, the tactics and and everything like that, really not new. It's just, you know, we're we're using them in today's setting. Amen. What what I what I really like is there's a process set up for success. The drivers, you know, it like anywhere else, there's some people super knowledgeable. There's the Andes and Legirs and Shapiro's and those organizations that are very knowledgeable with the main sizes and the the the pressure ratings of the hydrants. But Chicago has a system that is set up f for success in the lowest common denominator. Across the bay from me, San Francisco, they always have two pumpers at the at the hydrant. They'll either have the the the pumper at the scene, they lay Dual threes down the block and another pumper may lay two more threes to another supply, or they'll have an engine lay dual threes to a hydrant and another one taking dual threes from that pumper at the hydrant to another hydrant. And they are always setting themselves up for redundancy. And if a pumper goes down, there's already three pumpers. in this in this operation and they are just setting themselves up for success and I think too often we're setting ourselves up for just a basic one one line operation. I have a question for you Andy I was playing with a a hydraulic assisted draft I I don't know if there's what that category is called I just think a hydraulically assisted drafting device like a turbo draft. Yeah. because we were using four inch, we were not having good success. I think you needed really five inch for this. Now the city of Oakland has a lake, a lake in the middle of the of the downtown area. And there's no setup way to draft from from that source. No, and so I wanted a way that we could try to pull water. Do you address these devices in your book? And even though I was in a urban area, California's mostly rural. There's a always these large fires where people have swimming pools in the backyard or there's some lakes and a lot of the members that go off onto some of these larger fires do do draft, you know, quite a bit, although we don't really do it in the city. What are your thoughts on those devices? Daryl, I I'm glad you brought that up. I love I r I do have a section in the book on them and I refer to them as water eductors because that that's what they are. They're they're an adductor on steroids. That's really what they're designed for. And in fact, right now we got a class going where where we have one of those turbodrafts going to power the whole the whole drill field right now. So they are a fantastic option for accessing water. That you otherwise couldn't get to because you don't have enough hard sleeve or manpower or time to assemble all that and do a traditional draft. Now, I tell people that in their traditional configuration, they're not the answer to big water. They're the answer to close water, quickly, reliably. Right? Now, there are more advanced ways that you can use them, and it's all outlined in the book. on on how you can use them in an open circuit to get access to distant water, but also get big water. One of the drills that we do in the advanced pump operations course that we teach at the Tennessee State Fire Academy, it is routine for us. We have a a pond in the center of the campus that is 125 feet away from where we can park the trucks. So we'll put three or four turbo drafts into operation going into a dump tank and we'll flow easily three thousand to to thirty six hundred gallons per minute consistently from that operation. So in the right configuration, they can they can be really beneficial. And in fact, this year, this past year at FDIC, one of the one of the stations we had at our hot class was showing that exact setup. To teach people, yeah, in the rural environment, they're great for getting water quickly for maybe setting up a basic fill site. But in the urban environment, they are fantastic for getting w access to water that is in your city that you're using to supplement your hydrants. Because that's the one thing that I run into a lot. people think seem to have this idea that fire hydrants are this endless source of water. Eventually, you can run out. And at a certain point, right, the incident commander or the water supply officer needs to be thinking: okay, we can keep using hydrant water, but we need to supplement this with something else. And a lot of times we have water within our areas that we can do that with. And those water reductors are a great option for it. And you hit a big point, Daryl. you know, a lot of people that have a bad taste in their mouth with them is they're using the wrong. supply line. Really, you have to use five inch or larger for that return line coming back. Four inch really what you're putting in is about what you're getting out, and you're really just wasting your time. So great point. And yes, it's all in the book. Perfect. Well, we are at about at about an hour. And this is the time that we start wrapping up. So I'm going to start with Chief Dan Shaw. Final thoughts, comments, concerns, Chief Shaw. It is another great conversation. Andy, thanks for being here. I always love talking to engine company operations. I spent a good amount of my career being an engine operator. I absolutely loved it. And I think you hit something, you know, some key points that I think we especially for Chiefs, and I agree with you wholeheartedly, is you know, we should be training and approaching and having the critiques and feedback where we're talking about our positioning for tactical success with our engine companies, understanding the water supply needs to match the fire we're at. That app that you know, that that nozzle selection also needs to be also matching that fire we're at. And then that fire stream application, like what are we doing to ensure that when we're flowing that water, that we're achieving that feedback we want that's appropriate? And then from the command side, is that all those things we just talked about, the positioning, the water supply, the the the apparatus, nozzle selection, your fire stream application, does your current command structure reflect that? And if it doesn't, then we're really missing the mark because you as a leader in the fire ground or as the organization, you're not really giving the credit, you're not shining the light on what is a probably the most important thing because I always joke, 'cause I mean I I teach with a a guy who has spent his entire career in a truck. He can throw all the hooks and halligans he wants at a fire. It's not going out. It's a proper application in the hands of a skilled operator. And so what are we doing as leaders to endorse that and enhance that? And your your you know, your book is really right down that path and another great thing to have in a library to add to that level of professionalism we're looking for. Thank you, Chief Shaw. Jimmy Davis Well, you gotta have like five percent left at this point. Any closing closing comments, thoughts, criticisms, concerns? No, I feel like about take the Pizon route again, please. Come on. Yeah, yeah. Andy, great to to see you and being on the show, man. I tell you what, as I said earlier, man, you're doing some great things to get out there and educate the the fire service as well. Just continue to You know, keep up the good work, man, and you definitely got some fans here listening to you. we can never know enough. So thank you again for filling my cup today with some water. I just was hoping you can help me with my battery life on my computer. I think I'm down to about five percent, guys. but take care. Be safe, brother. Thank you. Thank you. Chief Brent Brooks. Chief Brent Brooks. Yeah, this is this has been great. And I have two O's on my last name. Brooks has two O's, and and friggin' Andy's got three O's in his last name. Like I've never seen it until today. But I'm gonna steal this from you, Jimmy. Hog the hydrant, hog the hydrant, hog the hydrant. What are you doing? I'm hogging the hydrant, right? today's fires are outpacing us. It's that simple. They're outpacing us. So hog the hydrant, get the water. I know we said that water supply is not sexy, but if you're on the end of a hose line and you're not getting water, you need it. So send sexy, call for sexy, maximize it, hog it, bring sexy to the end of the nozzle, and we're gonna be more successful. So thanks guys for this. and thanks for the trios. And just for the record, everybody, I do have sexy's phone number. If we need that, just go out be able to give that to you, all right. If want to call sexy and send sexy, she does work in Las Vegas with me. yeah. and Darrell Liggins. Daryl Liggins. I don't think I could I can't hear you now, Clark. I think we're having a problem, but can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yep, he just turned it over to you, Daryl. Can you hear me? I can hear you, yeah. Okay. I I have a lot of questions for Andy, so hopefully we can share a beer or a cigar or a cup of coffee, next time we're in the same town. it is the fire service is ninety five percent focused on moving and flowing, like you said. Because it's fun. sexy was the word you used. that that's great stuff, but you can't do much moving and flowing if if you don't have a good water supply. And I just think the fire service needs to have systems in place for things to be successful. And this isn't just for driver operators, chiefs, firefighters, company officers. need to know what's going on because I I'll I'll spare war stories of people asking for things to be done that couldn't be done with the water supply we had. And so anyway, thank you for writing the book. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on one as well. And I'm sure all the questions I have for you are are mostly in there. Thank you. Yep. Yeah I agree. I agree with everything everyone said. what I'm gonna take away, my favorite quote of the hour is friction loss is a bitch. And so it is. yeah, and I have seen and everyone on this panel has seen so many instances of water supply gone wrong and how that works out at the very end. especially on the commercial fire ground, we are still in 2026 taking residential water supply tactics and strategies and a mentality, like you said, Andy, a residential water. water supply mentality to a commercial structure. And I've heard so many times I've got a great video of us having to shut lines down and we're just giant commercial buildings and we can't get water. Well, there's a forty eight inch main running down the street and they just don't know how to move the water from the hydrants to the nozzles. It's unfortunate. and it is it is a lost art. And I I think it's a hundred percent right, Andy, because it is not sexy. And so we have to Yeah, we have we have to make it sexy. We have to make everyone understand how important it is before someone is interior of a fire and they lose their water. All right. That's when sexy becomes critical. So final thoughts for you, Andy. Anything you want to close up? Land the plane, Andy. Man, I I I just I am so unbelievably honored to to be here talking with you, you all. you ch I look up to all of you. Y'all are mentors of mine. So thank you so much for for letting me talk about my passion, which is water supply and pump operations. the biggest thing that that I can give the viewers is, you know, go out and try it. Go out and train. If you think think something will work, go out and find out if it does, right? I can't tell you how many times I've heard you know, all kinds of weird anecdotal thoughts and theories at the kitchen table about how something won't work because of X, Y, and Z when it comes to water supply or anything like that. The only way you know is to go out and do it, right? The only way I learned to, you know, do a twin tube draft and how much I could do and how quickly I could do it was to pull the rig outside in the back parking lot and and just twin tube draft. So don't be afraid. You know, you'll have a target on your back, but you're gonna be a better pump operator because of it. And eventually everybody else will be too. So thank you all again for the opportunity. I'm absolutely honored and yeah, this means the world to me. All right. Thank you very much for your participation, Andy. that's about it for this October episode of the Hump Day Hangout. We appreciate you listening, we appreciate you supporting us, everybody. Please stay safe and we look forward to seeing you in November.