BA procedures 466 Flashcards
Purpose of BA procedures
The purpose of BA and associated control procedures is to reduce the risk of respiratory injury to firefighters and provide safe working practices when BA is used
What should you not use BA maintenance rooms for?
Under no circumstance should RPE maintenance rooms be used to store anything other than RPE, nor should they be used for the cleaning of other items.
Who is responsible for ensuring BA is worn?
The IC
When can you have a BA crew of one?
- Car fires
- Rubbish fires
- Working at head of aerial appliance
BA crew of one - what is mandatory
- Stage 1 EC
- In line of sight from ECO
- In open air
With regards to BA, what must a WM ensure at the start of every shift?
- Nominate BA wearers and ECOs
- Allocate BA comms
- Ensure BA equipment tested and defects reported
- Ensure spare BA sets tested with ‘spare’ on tally
- ECO, BA, comms & GTCPS wearers recorded in log book
Considerations for FF’s on phase 2 development
Are trained in and can do BA & ECO. However, watch managers must take into account the skills and experience required to wear BA or carry out the roles of ECO or team leader and consider the level of supervision that may be required.
ECO to ensure following equipment available
- ECB
- ECO tabard
- Chinagraph
- Evacuation whistle
- Main & branch guide line tallies (where applicable)
- Aide-memoirs 1-11
- Guide line(s)
- IEC pack
- Hand held radio
- ECB tripod & bracket
Most important elements of wearing BA
- Adhere to and comply with BA procedures
- Communication
- Teamwork
- Pressure/TTW checks regularly
- Check telemetry signal regularly
- Understand BA supplements FFing skills & practises
- Effective briefing/debriefing of BA teams
- Awareness of physiological effects of working
Comms. All personnel must ensure the following take place:
- Briefing for BA teams before committing
- Debriefing after withdrawal
- Exchange of info on handover of tasks to other BA teams
- Regular updates from BA team leader on conditions, progress and team status
Request EDBA message
From…@…; EDBA required; TM…
Will mobilise FRU x3 and PA (for EDBA support) x3
Who is responsible for briefing/debriefing BA crews?
IC or nominated officer. Not ECO
What must officer briefing BA crews do?
- Brief whole team before starting up
- Confirm comms available & call signs
- Define what they have to do
- Define any restrictions
- Define location of work
- Show plans if available
- Brief where any persons and/or fire suspected to be
- Brief on whereabouts of other BA teams and their tasks
- Inform team of any known hazards
- Inform team on nature & frequency of progress reports required
BA crew debriefing considerations
- Debrief as soon as crew closed down
- Obtain updates on all elements of original briefing
- Gather info about fire condition by judging heat damage/steaming of PPE, signs of exhaustion, air consumption significantly above what was expected
Duties of BA wearers
- Do not don BA en route to incident
- Undertake an A test where appropriate
- Don and start in safe air
- Ensure minimum of 240 bar when reporting to ECO
- Establish & confirm call sign with ECO
- Hand BA tally to ECO
When can you use handheld radio in BA team?
- When BARIE set not available. 1 radio per team
- Not used in flammable/explosive atmospheres
- Only used in compartments where naked flame already present
- May be used in compartments where DIM sweep has taken place for explosive/flammable atmosphere
Definition of BA working duration
Working duration is the time between taking the first breath, and the operation of the low pressure warning/whistle.
Because consumption of air in BA varies over a wide range, all wearers must:
(a) Carry out regular checks of their Bodyguard to monitor their consumption.
(b) Monitor the pressure remaining in the BA set.
(c) Return to the entry control point before their low pressure warning/whistle begins to sound.
(d) Liaise with ECO to ensure turnaround times take into account both live telemetry and manually calculated TOW being used by the ECO for return to ECP.
In assessing working duration, team leaders and wearers should take into account all aspects of the incident. These include:
(a) The air consumed to reach the scene of operations.
(b) Work undertaken at the scene of operations.
(c) Conditions within the incident – (heat and humidity reduces working duration and causes physical exhaustion).
(d) The possibility that conditions on the exit route may have deteriorated.
(e) Information received from the communications operator/ECO and other BA teams.
(f) Remember that consumption rates on the way out will be higher due to the natural effects of physical exertion.
BA team leaders should:
- Ensure BA teams never split
- Ensure whole team fully briefed and debriefed
- Co-ordinate gauge & telemetry checks and return to ECP before LPWW
- Be aware of conditions and monitor team members
- Withdraw team if comms & telemetry lost
- Undertake crew rotation
- Re-assess objectives in light of changing conditions
- Ensure whole team uses bodyguard withdrawal button when withdrawing & confirm to ECO with comms
- Inform ECO of accidental activation of withdrawal button (task can continue with annotation on ECB)
The BA team leader must withdraw the BA team and inform the ECO/communications operator if any of the following occur:
(a) Any BA team member has an uncontrolled loss of air.
(b) A low pressure warning/whistle sounds.
(c) Any BA team member seems unwell or confused.
(d) Any BA team member’s Bodyguard display becomes faulty or unreadable.
(e) A BA team member’s ADSU/DSU sounds (ECO should also be alerted to this by the ECB).
(f) Any BA team member indicates they may have been exposed to an irrespirable atmosphere due to a dislodged or defectivefacemask.
(g) A complete loss of both radio and telemetry signals simultaneously.
Any BA team member being informed that another BA team member is entangled in cables must:
- Say to entangled wearer “Stay still and cross your arms at chest height”
- Approach wearer with caution and safe movement
- Locate cables with head to toe sweep, back of hand
- Rescuer use own cable cutters
- Repeat
- Restow cutters
When BA wearer becomes entangled in cables and cannot contact rest of crew
- Inform ECO of entanglement & location
- Remain as still as possible
- Activate DSU
- Locate cables by sweeping down either side of body
- Use cutters to cut as far away from body as possible
ECO being informed of cable entanglement must:
- Commit emergency crew
- Inform IC