Give 'em a way out!

It is important to think about how you and your team would approach a burning race car with the driver still on-board. Using your extinguishers and fire streams effectively to make a path of egress (exit) for the driver is critical.

An important concept to keep in mind is to work as much from the closest point to the driver and fight away from the car. When you watch videos carefully, you will often see rescuers pushing the fire toward the driver, not away from him/her. It is not always possible to use this tactic...the majority of the time it is. Think about putting yourself between the driver and the fire.

Remember that gravity can be your friend. Unless there is an unusual reason not to, fight the fire down the banking, not up. Often, this situation is totally compatible with tactic mentioned in the previous paragraphs. Trying to push the fire up the hill is not productive...and especially if you are using a liquid agent, the extinguishing will run down hill putting out the burning fuel/liquids.

This sounds perfectly obvious, and it still is worth mentioning, pay attention to the driver after he/she exit the car. I have seen several situations where a driver exits the car, on fire, and the safety team continues fighting the vehicle fire and does not go after the driver. That driver needs to think he/she needs swimming lessons!! They must get extremely wet (yeah, dry chemical or CO2 does not make it) very quickly, and that hot fire suit needs to come off PRONTO. Modesty has no place in this discussion. Leaving the hot material in place will aggravate any burns present and can cause new burns by simple contact with the skin. If you ever look at what I carry in my on-track holster, you will find 2 rather large and sharp scissors...the idea being if we have to remove a hot fire suit quickly, more is better.

Think it over before the need arises...look at videos on the Internet...critique yourself and others...we all get better when we do. Simply throwing water or powder at the fire is not good enough...we can be more effective when we give it some thought.

At the end of the day, everyone goes home standing up.

Why we do what we do

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAELVdoHmUE

Please take the minutes it takes to watch this video! It demonstrates any number of critical points about how drivers need to think about their protective clothing and equipment...how safety crews are equipped and trained for what we do...and why we do what we do. This situation can happen any night...at any track...in any class of car...with any type fuel.

Please...give this video some thought...how would you and your crew measure up?...how would your firesuit and accessories protect you in the same situation?...what would you want to see done differently?

Congratulations to the Hanford Safety Team on "getting it done!"

At the end of the day, everyone goes home standing up!