Indoors fire fighting subjects rescue personnel to severe risks; both physical and mental. Our method of cutting through and cooling fire gases, conducted from a safe position on the outside, is at present the safest option available to Rescue Services.
With regard to the work environment for rescue personnel in general, and smoke divers in particular, there are no operations in working life that are subject to greater risk than smoke diving.
Smoke diving involves serious risk and it subjects firefighting personnel to extreme stress. Personnel are subjected to both physical risks (such as intense heat, explosion, falling parts of buildings, sharp objects, and the risk of falling when the range of vision is reduced or is nonexistent) and mental risks due to extremely stressful situations.
Smoke diving will always be one of the main tasks in the Rescue Service. There are actions that cannot be accomplished in any other way, eg, interior life-saving in which people must be carried out from the fire area, or post-extinguishing work in which material, etc, must be removed.
Our method, conducted from a safe position, of accessing and interrupting development of the fire by quickly cutting through more or less all types of building material and cooling the fire gases is at present the safest option available to Rescue Services.
In the role of Rescue Leader, to order smoke diving as the mode of operation without considering alternative means of action involves the shouldering of great responsibility with regard to work environment and the Rescue Leader should ideally always have planned optional methods in the preliminary stage of the rescue action.
Combined methods, using Cutting Extinguisher, thermocamera and positive pressure fans, provide optional possibilities for the rescue leader instead of smoke diving.
The ability as far as possible to secure a safe work environment for rescue personnel should be paramount for all those concerned; everyone from the owner/proprietor of the object exposed to fire, via the head of the Rescue Service in the municipality and all the way to the individual fireman.
Safety advantages of the Cutting Extinguisher:
- Improvement of firefighter safety because the fire is combated from a safe position outside a building/construction whereby the risk of injury due to intense heat radiation and/or explosion of fire gases can be avoided.
- Improvement of work environment for firefighters because a fire can be combated from the outside, reducing the need to enter hot and smoke-filled areas involving the risk of toxic and carcinogenic substances affecting the skin and lungs.