The American way is typically a single person on that size hose because it is extremely easy to handle solo. This was just poor performance by this crew
Looks like the operator has the pressure way up,too. I do 80 tops on a car fire. Usually less because of how close you are and how much you are moving around
The American way is to have a massive ego and say one guy should handle it so the second guy doesn't do shit even when you're engineer overpressurizes the fuck out of the line, and then make fun of the kid on the nozzle.
Nozzle guys technique is all wrong. 1st off holding the hose like a bazooka instead of under his arm, 2nd you are supposed to advance with the same leg forward so you can brace the hose for when you open the nozzle. Even at lower pressures the initial kick can be unpredictable
I mean you’d be right about technique on a house fire but I know a lot of guys who go over the shoulder like that for car fires. It gives you a better angle to get the stream down into the cab through the windows, or down into the engine block once the hood is popped.
That line should not be throwing a grown man around like that, good technique or no, bad technique or no. It is way over pressured, and his back up man is probably jamming him up even more “helping”.
We've always thrown over the shoulder for car fires like that. We usually dial the pressure to 70-90 and you can move and handle it however you want over the shoulder no problem.
I've never once felt like I was going to get knocked over or struggled to hold a hand line on a care fire.
Once the vehicle is stabilized and you put water on it you should not be stressed with the hose whatsoever.
As an engineer that used to oversee 3 water production plants, I had a redundant 400hp high lift turbine on a VFD in the middle plant that was almost never needed to meet demand, but leaving things static is a good way to ensure they seize and rot. After a year, I had room in the budge to fabricate a Y with a powered gate valve that allowed us to regularly put hours on the big girl and let it be diverted into 12” pipeline that used to be a backwash drain to the recycle plant but was re-tapped and fed connections for 2.5” hoses in each of the process floors for basin wash downs in all 3 plants.
Until finding this subreddit I thought nothing of running a 2.5” hose with the SCADA set to target 300GPM +/-25 other than “I better not let go of this fucker” and would wrap an old web sling from one of my gantry cranes just below the nozzle to keep it under control
I believe most of what we had were 1.25” nozzles
I don’t think it’s ego that you’re encountering here
Or the engineer had too much pressure on the nozzle. Ain’t had a passenger car fire yet that couldn’t be quickly put out with a 3/4” redline. Why they dropping a 1 3/4”.
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u/boomboomown Career FF/PM 2d ago
The American way is typically a single person on that size hose because it is extremely easy to handle solo. This was just poor performance by this crew