There was a video that went viral recently about a volunteer fire crew extinguishing an auto fire. There were several

errors in judgement and poor choice of tactics with how the incident was handled.

The officer did not set a proper example of holding the crews to the proper PPE (personal protection equipment) standard. In addition a better approach to extinguishing the fire could have been used.

This article is to share a visual example of “why” we are to use all our PPE with SCBA on auto fires, or any incident for that matter.

In case you did not see it, here it is linked below. Notice that the fire is flaring up because the water reacts with the burning metal.

Demonstration of improper PPE when extinguishing an auto fire:



In the video above they got away without injury. A close call with the flare up from the reaction of the water with the

metal on fire and the firefighter nearly getting burned and potentially losing his vision.

Now, watch this video of your everyday auto fire and ask yourself what would have happened if this firefighter and crew were not wearing proper PPE with SCBA?

Be Prepared! What would have happened if this firefighter was not in full PPE including SCBA?

What can we learn from this?

This is a clear visual lesson of what happens on auto fires. Does it happen at every auto fire? No.

But what is your eyes worth?

What is your lungs worth?

Do you want to live and be able to fight another fire?

Do you want to have to retire because of a physical injury from being lazy about wearing your PPE or taking a short cut?

Like me, I believe you value your health and your career in the fire service.That’s why we need to always be prepared and always put on our proper level of PPE. So we can go home and we can come back tomorrow and fight another fire.

We as firefighters have a lot of risk to face without making it more risky by taking short cuts.

Take care of your PPE, use your PPE including being on air and don’t take short cuts.

If you do, eventually, it will get you.

What do you think?