Pinto Garbage Truck Fire

We're moving apartments, and I was exhausted and fell asleep around 9:30 PM. When the call came through, dispatch said a caller reported a "fire inside the complex of Pinto's on Route 46." I woke up and was in a daze, confused on which apartment I was even in. At the firehouse, only 4 of us showed up in total.

We came down Rt. 46 and I didn't see smoke or anything yet. AJ called back to us from the front officer's seat and told Brian to get the hydrant, wrapping both of our rear 3 inch lines around the hydrant as we slowly rolled forward. I jumped out and pulled both line's off our rear reels so he'd have enough length. I went to grab tools when AJ said "forget the tools, we'll work off their truck, lets just go."

When we got close enough, I saw it was a garbage truck fully involved, and the Chief ran up screaming for us to hurry and get up there. Once again, I hate when people get hyper at car-fires if there's no exposures to concern us. The truck is already a loss, why should we run in 15 degree weather when there's black ice everywhere just to gain 10 seconds on a fire that's already totalled the truck or car.

Anyway, the safety officer yelled at 2 guys from Engine 614 to mask-up, so I dropped to a knee, masked up and walked over to back up the former Lieutenant of another company on his 1 3/4 inch line. Fire was ripping through the front cab of the truck, but after a few seconds of straight-stream, the fire quickly darkened down. We hit it again in the wheel wells before walking around to the front to see if it was completely out. It was, for the most part, so we continued just hitting hot spots before quickly putting up a ladder to view down into the truck for any other extension.

Going back to pack up at the engine, I learned that Brian didn't wrap one of the 3-inch lines tight enough around the hydrant and as the engine drove forward, the line got loose and was pulled down the street. Left with just one line, he hooked it to the hydrant but opened the hydrant too early when a Chief called for water, when he should have waited for his Driver/Pumper to call for water instead. The water flow caught the driver off guard but he got it under control in time.

Things like stretching lines, wrapping hydrants, and pulling hose off our reels are the essential things at every fire, but it seems our guys have gotten so cocky with their knowledge of our engine that they don't want to drill on those things anymore. Then we get stupid little mistakes like these that could really cause havoc if it had been a structure fire instead of a truck fire.