CFBT & the demise of the UK Fire Service

At one stage we were good. Very Good. In the late 90s and early 2000s, the UK Fire Service had an overlap of traditional “firemanship” with both the technical knowledge and experience which that bought, plus a successfully integrating “scientific based Firefighting” approach, aka “Compartment Firefighting” (CFB).

In the late 80s and 90s, innovators such as Paul Grimwood, John Taylor and innovative Chiefs of UK brigades such as Tyne & Wear Metropolitan (my alma mater) and Wiltshire FB had progressed to a stage where compartment Firefighting and positive pressure ventilation were successfully used at the majority of working structure fires.  The UK began a “standardisation” protocol, whereby Compartment Fire Behaviour Training (CFBT) operated within a documented (& legal) framework; “CFBT Guidance & Compliance Framework”. November 2000!

The framework was, and remains, a document that provides parameters for safe training in this type of Firefighting, the emphasis being on legally “safe”. Contents include “training facility design”, “learning outcomes for Firefighters, Officers Instructors” and so on.

Now at the time, this was a revolutionary document and approach, smoke was finally seen as “gaseous fuel”, the symptoms of rapid fire development were disseminated, “gas cooling” nozzle techniques to reduce volume and inert pyrolysis were practised, fire development was observed. This was based around “container-based” or “single cell” training. Which had and still has it's place.

Now, one oversight that us Limeys made was to fail to import the lesson that the Swedes teach, that is gas cooling/pulsation/fogging is limited by the factors of fire loading, compartment size & geometry and heat release rate, to mention but a few.

Resultingly, single cell training in CFBT was adopted as a “panacea” or remedy for all ills, policies and procedures altered accordingly, the reduced water usage for “pulsing” and fog attacks becoming standard. Capacities got dialled down. This in turn informed strategic decisions, purchase of lower water capacity tenders and pumps, water suppliers want to reduce flow through the mains supply? No problem! Apparently we can flow 110lpm/25GPM and solve all firefighting problems...

We became awesome at fighting low heat release fires in 400sq foot shipping containers!

Forgive me being facetious there, but this really did happen! 

A standardised approach to instruction, and the teaching of fire behaviour and compartment Firefighting is, was and always will be a good idea. However, despite the best efforts of many early innovators, brigades and FRS’s “sectioned” off various disciplines, rather than approach things holistically.

It is a sad indictment that Fire Behaviour and Fire Attack, SCBA (search techniques etc ) and Tactical Ventilation are still often taught as separate entities within the UK Fire Services when these are merely slices of the same pie. Does the provision of 3 courses within the same subject benefit those entities & organisations providing the training and selling the courses more than the recipients?

The lack of context in fire training has become apparent with catastrophic consequences, which I will come onto. The CFBT Instructor qualification is still based around a single cell container approach with 3 units in Theory of Fire Behaviour, Training (single cell) & PPV. PPV is merely a technique within the tactical ventilation toolbox.

Lack of context is a huge problem. I mentioned at the beginning of this article that there was an overlap whereby Firefighters had both knowhow (having used previous approaches and having knowledge of hydraulics, flows etc ) and CFBT coming to prominence. For a short period, Firefighters were equipped with a fuller toolbox of skills, and with adept Officers, deployed very successfully.

However, as time has progressed, retirements abound and the vast majority of the UK’s Firefighters have limited knowledge of the technical approach pre-dating CFBT. The baby got thrown out with the bathwater and “old fashioned” approaches demonised as the domain of “dinosaurs”. Hydraulics and Water calculations became “unsexy” and “outdated”. How wrong we were.

A misconception abounds that the same approaches in a container, using very light loading (OSB, pallets) that gives nice effects , will be equally successful in an involved structure fire with 10x the heat release rate. UK Fire Services have failed generally to acknowledge that the increased fire loading of high energy items such as laptops, furnishings etc alters the burning rate and fire profile significantly, one that the water capabilities and nozzle techniques, which have been relied on for the last 20 years, simply and scientifically cannot deal with. There is a time and a place for heavy flow, solid streams, that the majority of the UK are currently incapable or ill equipped to deliver.

The fire loading found in modern "house fires" far exceeds what can be safely replicated without risk of burns to Firefighters on the training ground. If we did load to this extent, we would very rapidly, and very publicly expose the limitations of our equipment, knowledge and especially our pump & hydraulics expertise (or lack of). It is a real juxtaposition, that in order to maintain safety in training, the reduced fire loading and subsequent heat energy release & thus effectiveness of water application can reinforce false or inappropriate paradigms.

In short we reinforce false impressions of our own capabilities, that of our equipment, physiological and psychological performance.

The lack of context within UK Fire Service training, epitomised by teaching disciplines separately, notably “tactical ventilation” has been instrumental in Firefighter fatalities in the UK. The Balmoral Bar in Edinburgh, Scotland and Shirley Towers, Hampshire have been two glaring examples of a ventilation tactic being adopted without consideration of the effect on fire behaviour. These events were pivotal in the line of duty deaths at both those incidents.

“Water tactics (flow) and Air Tactics (ventilation) must be regarded as yin & yang….there must be both or there may as well be neither”. (Walker 2017)

Us Limeys led the world for a brief moment and started moving firefighting in a pioneering direction. The principles that the CFBT guidance and compliance framework are based upon remain ethically sound. Standardised training nationally with a full understanding of tactical Firefighting, regular hands on, practical training delivered by qualified, knowledgeable instructors is still the right approach.

But….

Failure to ensure that information is up to date, delivered in context and part of a greater “toolkit” or “playbook” is where the UK has failed. My consistency of belief and efforts to alter this to reflect these changes have resulted in great personal cost to myself, unemployment & poverty at various times. Would I compromise? No. However, as we finally move towards recommendations I was endorsing years ago, and I see people promoted and hailed for championing these, the irony is not lost on me.

Given that the United States, Canada and other nations stand on the brink of adopting scientific based approaches to firefighting and training, it is of the utmost importance to look to the British model and learn from our mistakes.

It may be pointed that the UK has a commensurately lower rate of line of duty deaths than the US, however, let me play devil’s advocate….

Reduction of personnel, firehouses and increased response times, the misapplication of “default to defensive” tactical mode, has resulted in the UK’s fire services generally intervening when a fire has entered the “decay phase”, where usually structural failures (windows breaking due to heat) have allowed a fire sufficient air supply and to use up available fuels or a good percentage thereof. Luck rather than judgement has had an effect.

So, this Pariah is offering twenty years of brutal honesty, admission of mistakes, and exposing all the failures that myself and others have made, so that you, dear hearts, can learn from them. I also give you a way forward, so that you may drive on beyond us, for the greater good. Just call me & the others “Pathfinders” and keep on keeping on where we travelled away on a tangent.

Ben Walker delivers; “Street Fire Science and Tactical Curves” at FDIC 2018. His books, "Fire Dynamics for Firefighters", "Reading Fire" & "Fighting Fire" (with Shan Raffel) are available direct from Pavilion Media (UK) or via Amazon in your country.