How does your Truck Company rate?

By Lt. David Polikoff

Truck Companies are the backbone of the fire service. A Truck Company can make or break a fire. Unfortunately the Truck Company seems to be an after thought in departments other than that of the urban city's (New York City, Chicago, Boston.) I think that any real Firefighter knows that if you do not have a good truck crew working on the fire ground things can go down hill very fast and firefighters on the scene could be hurt or killed!

The job of the truckie now is not like it was 20 years ago. People in the fire service looked at the truckies of the past as big bulls that smash and break things. Many in the fire service looked at the truckie as, lets just say they were not the sharpest tools in the shed. I have always had the utmost respect for the truckies of the past as well as most of the ones of today. If the building was falling down around your ears you can count on a true truckie to be there to get the job done.

There are many things that people in the fire service need to take into consideration before they decide to move up to be a member of a truck company. Yes I said move up! I feel (and I know that there are many others that will agree with me) you must be smarter than the average firefighter to be assigned to a truck company. The truck is not some thing that just anybody off the street can jump on and then be called a truckie. There is a lot of knowledge that goes with riding a truck company. Any department that has a truck should have minimum requirements to be able to ride. Some of the minimum requirements might be having general knowledge in the following fields: building construction, electricity and all utilities, elevators, technical rope rescue and carpentry. I feel you must have extensive knowledge in the following areas: fire behavior, search and rescue, rapid intervention training, forcible entry, all forms of ventilation, all power tools carried in your fire department, 1 man ladder throws for ladders up to 28 feet. The list could go on and on.

As you can imagine there are a lot of jobs that a truck company is responsible for. Just to list a few of the common jobs: ladders, forcible entry, search and rescue, ventilation, rapid intervention, utility control. The fact is that the jobs listed here are what need to be done on 90% of all fires. As I stated in the beginning you can not just jump on a truck and think you are a truckie. A truckie needs to be able to think for himself as well as work in a team. The officer will not always be there to give you direction so it is important to know your job cold. If you are running a 4-man truck, 2 will go in right away (the officer and the force entry man) and 2 will stay out to throw ladders and take care of outside ventilation (the driver and the vent man). Once the outside duties are finished those 2 will join the inside team.

It has been my experience that the Truck Company will find the fire and need to relay the fire location to the IC as well as the engine company. Once the Truck Company finds the fire they must confined it to the area of origin. Simply closing the door to the room that is on fire can do this. But what if there is no door or the door has burned through what do you do? Easy use another door. "Where do we get another door?" you ask, well most interior doors are hollow core doors and can be pulled off the hinges with very little effort. Use it to block the open door way to the fire room. Also if you are on the 2nd floor and you have fire leapfrogging into the window from a floor below use the same technique as stated above to block the window and advise the IC.

Do you think a newer firefighter would be able to accomplish what I have listed above if he/she were faced with a similar situation? There are always exceptions to the rule but I do no think the average newer firefighter would be able to think quickly enough to react to a given situation.

This brings me to my point. You need to be a highly skilled firefighter to be a functional member of a truck company. Unfortunately I have seen truck companies treated like buses. They leave the firehouse and they stop at the fire. The people that get off don't have a clue what it takes to handle truck work. As stated in the beginning a truck company can make or break a fire. What category does you truck company fall into? Think about it on your next fire.