Firefighting Techniques: Size-Up: Reading the Pitched Roof
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SIZE-UP: READING THE
PITCHED ROOF
03/10/2014
By Jeff Johnson
When arriving on scene at a fire
building, it is easy to get tunnel
vision regarding the smoke or fire
that is showing. Fireground
commanders must create a
systematic size-up that will help
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ensure their crews are consistently evaluating “what you
have, what you are doing, and what you need.” Sending
personnel to the roof can make a difference in life safety
and fire control. This article will look to the roof for
helping determining your size-up.
The obvious thing you look for on arrival is the smoke.
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Whether you arrive at a one-, two-, or three-story
building, if smoke is showing, there is something to learn
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from looking at the pitched roof. First, is the smoke
hanging around the eaves or is it rising high into the sky
indicating heat with the smoke. High-heat smoke
indicates a more developed fire, thus putting the
occupants and firefighters in a more perilous position. If
smoke is hanging (laminate) around the eaves, this
indicates—at least from the exterior—that smoke with
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less heat has made its way to the upper floors. Next, you
need to see what type of roofing material has been used
to weatherize the structure.
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The roofing material tells you several things about the
roof. If heavy fire is underneath the roof decking, with
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asphalt shingles, you can have heavy, dark smoke
coming from the roof line. With smaller fires, you can
have significantly less smoke coming from the roof. The
danger of asphalt shingles and lightweight truss
construction is that the shingles can mask the roof failure
that is about to occur. If the roofing material is much
more substantial and heavy such as slate tiles or clay
tiles, that roof substructure was required to be beefed
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up, and you will need additional personnel to accomplish
the ventilation. With a heavier roofing material, the roof
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can collapse as early as a roof with lightweight
construction, so keep evaluating the fire conditions either
on the top floor or in the attic.
ROOF LAYOUTS
Dormers are
invaluable for
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indicating the attic
conditions. By
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looking into a
dormer, you can
typically see if there
is active fire or
smoke inside the
attic. The dormers
can also be used to
help vent the heat
and smoke. Another
roofing indicator is
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located on three sides of the roof, where you have
normal pitched ridge lines, and on the fourth side, where
you find a shorten ridge line to a flat roof. This can
indicate a section on the roof where heating, ventilation,
and air-conditioning units can be placed, adding
additional weight to the roof structure. Next, I will look at
roof features such as skylights, pipe vents, and
chimneys.
You can learn a lot about how the roof is holding up
during the fire. On arrival, a quick glance across the roof
line helps you see if there are any skylights. With a
working fire that requires ventilation, skylights are an
easy opening. You must remember that when taking out
a skylight, you can find a dust guard that is either clear
plastic or a screening material for UV protection. This
material needs to be
removed to make the skylight vent effective. Next, look for
rain guards and flashing to see if it is mounted flush with
the roofing materials. If you take a quick glance, about 10
minutes into the response, at those rain guards and
flashings and you see they are now raised above the roof
line, this indicates that the roof is coming down.
Tar that is used to waterproof the roofing around pipe
chases, rain guards, skylights, flashing, and chimneys
will begin to melt at 130°F; melting tar indicates that heat
is accumulating in that area. For the safety of firefighters
operating on the fireground, you have to watch for the
chimney pulling away from the roof. Additionally, you
must watch for the roof pulling away from the chimney
(similar to the rain guards and flashing) because it also
indicates that the roof is coming down.
ROOF VENTS
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One type of vent on the roof is the turbine attic vent; you
can get instant information on the fire depending on how
fast these vents are spinning. I have seen many
advanced fires in wood frame structures showing heavy
smoke from the roof line. In these fires, the turbine vents
were spinning as fast as you can imagine, which
indicated high heat in the attic that needed to be vented.
If the turbine vents are not spinning, you will have little to
no heat in the attic space at that time. It must be said
that if you have windy conditions, these turbines are less
reliable, but still look for the smoke. Fixed attic vents will
allow the easy flow of smoke, so any smoke condition
with heat greater than the outside temperatures will rise
out of these vents easily.
Sending personnel to the roof can be a difficult decision
based on the fire and smoke conditions, the pitch of the
roof, the roofing materials, your personnel, and the
equipment. However, it is an invaluable operation that
you must consider. You may not have to ventilate the
roofs at fires that are not located on the top floor or fires
that consist of contents only; you may be able to remove
the smoke using horizontal ventilation on the floor above
the fire. An obvious change to this notion would be fire
that is extending through pipe chases and the walls into
the attic space. If you have fire on the top floor or in the
attic space, then roof personnel may be there for an
extended time performing ventilation and overhaul.
TRAINING
Firefighters have to train for operations on roofs to be
effective at these incidents. This training should include
the following tactics and information:
Roof cutting techniques and equipment.
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Identifying when roof conditions are becoming
untenable.
Evacuation procedures.
Knowing to climb to the ridge line—not down to
where they can fall off the roof—should they ever
become disoriented while performing roof
operations.
Ensuring ground ladders are three to five rungs
above the roof line to help firefighters identify ways
off the roof when ordered to evacuate.
Taking the correct tools up to the roof the first time
to affect timely ventilation, which will then allow
firefighters to get off the roof before conditions
become too unstable. Roof ladders, pike poles,
saws, flashlights, and self-contained breathing
apparatus are minimums to operate in perilous
situations above the fire.
The best training opportunity you have involves the roofs
in your districts. To become more effective at ventilating
residential pitched roofs, you must have practical
experiences. Doing site visits at new construction and
older pitched roofs can help firefighters when it comes
time to open a pitched roof. Building a training prop is
fairly inexpensive, while getting hands-on practical
evolution will further reinforce pitched roof operations.
Lastly, let us look at roofs during defensive operations.
When using aerial ladders and towers during defensive
operations, you have to remember what roofs are
designed to do: shed water away from the structure! I
have been at incidents where towers and ladders are set
up and flowing water on the roof of a defensive fire, but
they are having no effect on the fire. If the fire is through
the roof, then, obviously, use those streams through the
roof. However, if the fire has not burned through the roof,
lower the master streams to exterior windows and
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openings to flow water directly into the fire from positions
out of the collapse zone.
When performing size-ups, use what the companies and
the building are telling us. The roof is just one critical
piece of the building from which you can gather
information. Don’t forget to look up when performing your
size-up.
Jeff Johnson is a 27-year fire service
veteran and a battalion chief with the
Kansas City (MO) Fire Department,
assigned to midtown. Johnson has
served as a firefighter, fire apparatus operator, and
captain before being promoted to battalion chief. He is an
adjunct instructor with Blue River Community College’s
Fire Science program and a certified Missouri Fire
Instructor. Johnson has a master's degree in public
administration and has presented at various conferences.
He will be presenting at FDIC 2014 in Indianapolis. You
can follow Jeff on Twitter @Jefffire89.
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