Fire Control, Overhaul, Salvage, and Fire Cause Determination
Fire Control
Strategy to tactics
Fire control begins with a strategy decision: offensive (interior, life-focused), defensive (exterior, containment), or transitional (exterior cooling followed by interior attack). Frameworks like RECEO-VS and SLICE-RS organize the sequence - rescue, exposures, confinement, extinguishment, overhaul, ventilation, salvage. Select the attack method deliberately: direct attack applies water onto burning fuel, indirect uses fog into a heated compartment to produce steam, and combination uses both.
Flow path and modern fire dynamics
Modern compartment fires are usually ventilation-limited, so every opening changes the fire. Door control, coordinated ventilation, and closing the door to the fire compartment are extinguishment tactics, not just housekeeping. A transitional attack or a brief exterior stream into the fire compartment can cool the gas layer and improve conditions for the interior crew - but it must be communicated and must not push fire into uninvolved spaces.
Special fuels and master streams
Class B fires call for foam matched to the fuel; gas fires should not be extinguished unless the supply can be shut, or the unburned gas may re-ignite explosively. Master streams and elevated streams serve defensive operations and exposure protection. Standpipe operations require the right hose, a pressure that accounts for the building's height, and a charged line before advancing.
Traps
Distractors punish fog streams applied into a hot, occupied compartment, uncoordinated ventilation, and "surround and drown" answers where a savable victim exists. Transitional attack is often mislabeled as purely defensive.
Rule of thumb
Coordinate every opening with a charged line, and control the door - the flow path decides where the fire goes.
Overhaul, Salvage, and Fire Cause Determination
Overhaul
Overhaul begins after fire control and has three jobs: find and extinguish hidden fire, protect evidence, and leave the property safe. Open walls, ceilings, and voids where fire may travel, work with a charged line available, and remember that atmosphere can remain IDLH long after flames are out - monitor for carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide, and wear SCBA as conditions require. Note char depth, alligatoring, and burn patterns as you work; these observations are evidence.
Salvage
Salvage protects property from water, smoke, and damage. Use covers, move contents to a protected area, divert water, dewater, and ventilate smoke. The firefighter's instinct to overhaul aggressively must be balanced against destroying the very contents salvage is meant to save.
Fire cause
Cause determination follows origin: find the area of origin, narrow to the point of origin, then identify the cause. Classifications are accidental, natural, incendiary, and undetermined. NFPA 921 is a guide for fire and explosion investigation, not a design standard. Arson indicators - separate fires, abnormal fuel loads, removed valuables, timing devices - are reported, not adjudicated, by firefighters. Preserve the scene, avoid unnecessary disturbance, and document observations and who entered the scene.
Traps
A frequent distractor has a firefighter declaring the official cause. Others suggest overhauling a suspected origin before documentation, or confuse the four cause classifications.
Rule of thumb
Origin first, cause second: locate the area, narrow to the point, then let evidence - not assumption - name the cause.