REVIEWER FOR FIRE SUPPRESSION STRATEGIES AND CONTROL TACTICS

1. Fire-resistant - materials designed or treated to have an increased fire point.

2. Direct attack - A fire attack in which hoses are advanced inside a structure and hose
streams are directed onto burning materials.
3. Indirect attack - method of firefighting in which water is pumped onto materials above or
near the fire so that the splash rains onto the fire, often used where a structure is unsafe
to enter.
4. Fire Safety - pertains to precautions that are taken to prevent or reduce the likelihood of
a destructive fires to happen that may result in death, injury, or property damage.
5. Fire Protection - It is the application of science and engineering principles to protect
people, their properties and environment from the destructive effects of fire.
6. Exterior attack - a method of extinguishing a fire which does not involve entering the
structure. Often used when so much of the building is involved in fire that there is little or
no benefit to risking firefighter safety by inserting them into the structure. May be a
temporary measure when there are not sufficient personnel on scene to form an entry
team and a rescue team (to rescue the entry team). Also known as surround and drown.
Compare interior attack.
7. Firefighting Operations - is a fire suppression activity in the BFP focus on attempting to
prevent the spread of and extinguish significant unwanted fires in buildings, vehicles,
and forests, to protect lives, property, and the environment.
8. Flashover - simultaneous ignition of combustible materials in a closed space, as when
materials simultaneously reach their fire point; may also result in rollover.
9. Offensive Attack - method of firefighting in which water or other extinguishing agent is
taken by firefighters, directly to the seat of the fire, as opposed to being pumped in that
general direction from a safe distance. Typified by taking hoselines to the interior of a
building as opposed to remaining on the outside, a.k.a. "surround and drown.
10. Flash point - lowest temperature at which a material will emit vapor combustible in air
mixture. Higher than flame point of same material.
11. Pyrolysis - the thermal decomposition of materials at elevated temperatures in an inert
atmosphere.
12. Pulsing, gas cooling or 3d water-fog branch – a technique where water spray in correct
quantities can result in contraction of the gases without the over production of steam.
May assist as a control measure in small compartment. This is not an extinguishing
technique because it is still essential to apply water to the surfaces.
13. Running Card System: a system of pre-planning for fire protection in which information
about specific detectors, hazards, or other emergency response plans is indexed by
location, for rapid reference during an alarm.
14. Thermal balance - the degree of thermal balance existing in a closed room during a fire's
development is dependent upon fuel supply and air availability as well as other factors.
The hot area over the fire (often termed the fire plume or thermal column) causes the
circulation that feeds air to the fire. However, when the ceiling and upper parts of the wall
linings become super-heated, circulation slows down until the entire room develops a
 kind of thermal balance with temperatures distributed uniformly horizontally throughout
the compartment. In vertical terms the temperatures continuously increase from bottom
to top with the greatest concentration of heat at the highest level.
15. Upper Flammable limit - the greatest concentration of a flammable gas in air that will
support ignition and continuous combustion. Limits vary with temperature and pressure
but are normally expressed in terms of volume percentage at 25 °c and atmospheric
pressure.
16. Lower flammable limit - it is the lower end of the concentration range of a flammable gas,
normally expressed in percentage by volume in air, which can ignite with air at normal
temperature and pressure. Below lfl, the vapor/air mixture will not ignite.
17. Water hammer - large, damaging shock wave in a water supply system caused by
shutting a valve quickly, or by permitting a vehicle to drive across an unprotected fire
hose.
18. Flash fire - is a sudden, intense fire caused by ignition of a mixture of air and a dispersed
flammable substance such as a solid (including dust), flammable or combustible liquid
(such as an aerosol or fine mist), or a flammable gas. It is characterized by high
temperature, short duration, and a rapidly moving flame front.
19. Penciling - the penciling technique is a series of short bursts of water with a straight
stream directed at the ceiling and at the fuel load, aims to avoid high impact of water to
the seat of the fire to maintain thermo balance. This helps reduce the production of
flammable gases by cooling the burning walls and ceiling below their ignition point.
20. Exterior attack - a method of extinguishing a fire which does not involve entering the
structure. Often used when so much of the building is involved in fire that there is little or
no benefit to risking firefighter safety by inserting them into the structure. May be a
temporary measure when there are not sufficient personnel on scene to form an entry
team and a rescue team (to rescue the entry team). Also known as surround and drown.
Compare interior attack.
21. The Flammable Range - (also called explosive range) is the concentration range of a
gas or vapor that will burn (or explode) if an ignition source is introduced.
22. Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to change its shape, area, volume, and
density in response to a change in temperature.
23. Offensive Operations are generally performed in the interior of involved structures that
involve a direct attack on a fire to directly control and extinguish the fire.
24. Convection – transfer of heat through a medium such as air, h2o, etc.
25. Fireground strategy - is based on risks assessment of the fire ground condition, in all
consideration with the ideal fire attack using the 3 modes of operation: offensive,
defensive, and transitional. This involves four distinct aspects, which are locating,
informing, containing, and finally extinguishing a fire.
26. Thermal contraction - is a decrease in a material's volume when its temperature
decreases. As the temperature decreases, the average kinetic energy of the particles
decreases and they slow down and get closer together thereby decreasing the volume of
the material.
27. Transitional attack is a fire attack where the application of water starts on the exterior to
cool the fire area for a period and then repositioned to the interior for final suppression.
28. Conduction - direct transfer of heat through contact or through a medium.
29. Defensive attack - is an exterior fire suppression activity directed at protecting
exposures.
30. Radiation – transfer of heat in the form of light energy.
31. Fire Control - is the practice of reducing the heat output of a fire, reducing the area over
which the fire exists, or suppressing or extinguishing the fire by depriving it of fuel,
oxygen, or heat
32. Fire Resistant - defined as a material that is inherently resistant to catching fire. This
means it does not melt or drip when exposed directly to extreme heat.
33. The “Two Lines In” Technique - Requires Two teams and two hoses are used to combine
a solid water stream and a fog nozzle. The technique is used for fires that are in high
wind areas. Of the two teams, one focuses on ensuring that the fire doesn’t spread while
the other one focuses on the direct attack of the fire. With proper communication
between the teams, this technique will be quite effective.
34. Fog Attack - This technique is used particularly in closed compartment fires, where a
medium angle fog is delivered upward onto the overhead burning gases, has the
potential to maintain the thermal balance of the overhead gas layer and improve visibility
and it works by using the fog nozzle of the hose, rather than a jet to extinguish the fire.
35. Scene Size-up is the analysis of the fire condition, fire environment for any indications of
thermal events like, flashover, backdraft and flashfire or smoke explosion.
36. Blitz Attack - involves attacking a fire with large amount of water to extinguish the fire in
seconds. The blitz attack is an offensive attack in which we are sending all our water at
once onto the seat of the fire.
37. Direct Attack - Any treatment of burning fuel, such as by wetting, smothering, or
chemically quenching the fire or by physically separating burning from unburned fuel.
38. Pulsing is a technique used to cool the hot gas layer and as such needs to be directed
so that water vaporizes in the gas layer and not on surfaces.
39. Indirect Attack - Uses solid stream and uses water most efficiently on
ventilation-controlled fires. The primary fuel with these types of fires are the fire gases
and the combustion process within a compartment and indirect attack can be considered
gas cooling if performed on the interior of the structure. It can also be considered
transitional if performed beginning on the exterior.
40. Fire Retardant - defined as a material that has been chemically treated to slow down
ignition, burning, or actually self-extinguish when exposed to an open flame. Regardless
the original material, it must be chemically treated to retard the spread of flames.
41. Surface-to-Mass Ratio - the surface area of a fuel in proportion to mass.
42. What does thick black smoke indicate? Thick black smoke indicates heavy fuels that are
not being fully consumed. At times, black smoke can be an indicator that a manmade
material is burning such as tires, vehicles, or a structure. As a general rule, the darker
the smoke, the more volatile the fire is.
43. LIFE SAFETY SYSTEM - Any interior building element designed to protect and evacuate
the building population in emergencies, including fires and earthquakes, and less critical
events, such as power failures. For fire suppression, hand-operated fire extinguishers
and, often, building sprinkler systems are provided.
44. What does flame color usually indicate? Flame color is usually an indicator of the oxygen
supply and the extent of a fuel oxygen pre-mixing, which determines the rate of
combustion.
45. Life Safety - is a framework that identifies the components that must work together to
minimize risk and help prevent loss, injuries, and death from fire, electrical, and other
hazards.
46. LIFE SAFETY SYSTEM - Any interior building element designed to protect and evacuate
the building population in emergencies, including fires and earthquakes, and less critical
events, such as power failures. For fire suppression, hand-operated fire extinguishers
and, often, building sprinkler systems are provided.
47. What does flame color usually indicate? Flame color is usually an indicator of the oxygen
supply and the extent of a fuel oxygen pre-mixing, which determines the rate of
combustion.
48. Structure Fires Involve the structural components of various types of residential,
commercial, or industrial buildings or community-based building.
49. Fire Safety - pertains to precautions that are taken to prevent or reduce the likelihood of
a destructive fires to happen that may result in death, injury, or property damage.
50. Fire-resistive rating means the degree to which a material can withstand fire as
determined by generally recognized and accepted testing methods.
51. Fire-resistive time rating is the length of time a material can withstand being burned
which may be one- hour, two- hours, four- hours, etc.
52. Water Expansion Ratio to Steam - when water evaporates, it expands 1700 times larger
in volume to become steam. When it condenses, it compresses back into tiny droplets of
water. And we call those tiny droplets of water condensation.
53. What does White smoke indicate? Light white smoke indicates that pyrolysis is occurring
adjacent to the main body of fire. White color indicates moisture and gases are being
released from the product. When the smoke is forced from the structure through cracks,
filters large particles and will be white.
54. What does gray smoke indicate? Gray smoke indicates a combination of mixing. It can
be mid stage heating with white or black or it can be when different smoke areas
combine. It could indicate smoke production changes from mid stage heating to high
heat or smoke indicates fire is slowing down.
55. What does black smoke indicate? Black smoke contains high quantities of carbon
particles and is an indicator of the amount of ventilation available at the seat of the fire.
The thicker the smoke, the less clean burning, and the less oxygen available. Fire is
involving synthetics, plastics, residents, polymers, and products made from hydrocarbon
derivatives will give off large quantities of black smoke. Thin black smoke with smooth
lines exiting at high in an Opening and going straight up indicates flame Driven smoke
with good ventilation. Direct result of heat from the flame.