Ray McCormack

Your interior fire attack has two components, stream reach and nozzle reach. The pairing is typically seamless during an aggressive interior attack. You must have the right amount of hose at the entry door and advance it aggressively to quickly accomplish both parts to gain extinguishment. 
Some in the fire service don’t fully understand the term “aggressive interior attack.” The aggressive portion is, in part, how quickly both stream reach and nozzle reach come together inside to achieve rapid extinguishment despite obstacles.

Once the hoseline enters the structure, it’s Game-on. This is where the nozzle team puts it all together: the training, the spirit, the push. 
When you are going down the hallway towards the fire room applying water, your stream is pushing back at you with pounds of nozzle reaction. You must overcome it and make it yours to control. As you work it and move forward, you know the room is getting closer. Your stream enters the room and starts to knock back the fire. Moving the stream lower, you sweep the floor and advance inside gaining a knockdown – This is stream reach.

 
To gain extinguishment, we need to apply ‘nozzle reach’ to the spaces still burning off to the sides, in voids, behind you, and the swing of the door. Any area that needs up-close attention will now get it, because you are in the fire room and can move to any area still burning. This is nozzle reach. 
Being in the fire room is where you need to be to gain extinguishment. When you use an aggressive interior attack, both elements come together rapidly; the fire goes out and we quickly occupy the space from the threshold to the fire room.

Keep Fire in Your Life

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