By Jason Poremba
for FireRescue1.com

Quite often in our careers we come on scene to a fire that is beyond the point of making an offensive attack. The words offense and defense can be used in all types of fire attacks.

As an incident commander you could determine that an aggressive offensive attack on a car fire is necessary because there is a life hazard involved. On a different run you may determine that a defensive attack is warranted on a dumpster fire because there is no life hazard and the contents are unknown.

I say this to remind firefighters that we are not just talking building fires when we refer to an offensive or defensive attack. An initial and continual size-up will determine how you adjust your attack on any type of fire.

For the point of this article I will be discussing some major points in a defensive attack on a building structure. I will also highlight these points with videos. You will see in the following videos departments that got punished and rewarded for their defensive operations. You will realize that continual size-up is still the most important tactical safety factor on a fireground.

Defining ‘defensive attack’
NIOSH defines a defensive attack as an “exterior fire attack with the emphasis on exposure protection. The commitment of a fire department’s resources are to protect exposures when the fire has progressed to a point where an offensive attack is not effective.”

Read the full article, complete with instructional video, on FireRescue1.com.