"What's in your Pockets?"

I happened upon this website yesterday, and at a minimum, it's a fun look at what firefighters are carrying and their thought process. Be sure to take a few minutes and look at the rest of the site.



What's in your Pockets

Always an interesting question... Ask any Firefighter what's in the pockets of their gear, and why. Everyone has different ideas, and there is typically an interesting explanation.

http://www.vententersearch.com/pockets.htm

thanks!

a lot of clever ideas and if nothing else it shows you what a nasty bit of work firefighting is--which is why it's call "fighting" i guess and just not "putting fires out"

This one's my favorite:

"A rubber door strap, it is a simple piece of inner tube tire with two slots in it to slip over each side of a door handle. It prevents self closing doors from latching behind you."

Elegant.

I checked out the rest of that site, and it made me respect firefighters all the more. The pictures of structures that are "Not hat they appear to be from the outside", and other hazards was wild.

Talk about walking into the unknown.

This is brilliant!
Posted April 02nd, 2009 | Category: Random
http://www.vententersearch.com/?p=473

It's a great site!, I've been checking it out regularly for over a year now. I've been a volunteer for almost 20 years now and I can't tell you how much info is given on VES. Read it for a while and some of the names get very familiar. Some have pretty strong personalities but that is usually a good thing.

VES is a great site, and it truly is a lost art of the fire service. I found the site a year or so ago and it is now one of my 4 "home pages".

A lot of the idea's in the "Whats in Your Pockets" section are tricks of the trade that have been passed down from firefighter to firefighter for years. VES has become a cool collection of tricks of the trade (that not everyone agrees on, as you can see if you read the comments ;))

Very interesting...to see what the pro's carry...

Loved the photos.

But I confess ignorance on the "Shove Knife and Elevator Key."

What are these for, and how do they work?

Yup, that's a very good link. Thanks for sharing, one of the most interesting online resources I've come across lately.

The shove knife looks like some type of door-unlocking tool.

Those different door-choks are brilliant.

-Blast

As Blast said, the shove knife is for unlocking simple door locks. The shove knife is basically the end of a slim-jim car door opener that can be used in about 10,000+ ways. Most common is to open a door similar to how you see a credit card used in the movies (except this works better and doesn't break).

Elevator key's are for opening the outer doors of an elevator to gain access to the shaft/car. If you look at an outer door for an elevator you will see a small hole about 1/2" in diameter. The flat part of the key is inserted into this hole and drops down once clear the door. Rotating the key towards the outside of the elevator pushes a release level allowing the door to be opened.

Recently we had a stuck elevator call where a janitor, trying to be helpful, tried to force some large door wedges into the gap between the doors in an attempt to free the women struck inside. Once we got there, the release mechanism was damaged to the point where we basically had to break the door and release mechanism to get the door opened... needless to say the building's owner was less then thrilled with the $8000 bill to repair the door, he was happy with us once I explained what happened (not so much with the cleaning crew though).

I was just thinking the other night about what I carry in my pockets and the evolution both my off-duty EDC and my on-duty EDC has taken over the years as well as how the contents of my tunrouts have changed over the years.

Today I carry the following in my turnouts:
On my helmet:

• Surefire G2L in a Blackjack holder
• one large wedge
• 2 small plastic wedges
• earplugs (inside the cap)

In my Jacket:

• Koehler Brightstar Flashlight (the BEST handlight I have ever found for firefighting for the money)
• spare battery for Thermal Imaging Camera
• 4-5 rubber door stops
• 2 wedges
• 30' 1" Webbing with 2 carabiners.

In my Pants:

• modified vice-grips with chain
• Cutting pliers
• 8-in-1 screwdriver
• no touch voltage tester
• shove knife
• Gerber Hinderer Rescue Knife
• trauma shears
• 10' 1" webbing sewn sling (20' of webbing sewn in a loop).

Alan,
re: "small plastic wedges" and "rubber door stops"

Wouldn't plastic and rubber tend to melt or burn in a fire and thus fail? or is the intent to be in and out quickly enough that it's a non-issue?

I have had some plastic wedges melt on my helmet, but the small rubber ones like these have held up really well. I do prefer wood wedges, but these little rubber ones can be forced into places (like sprinklers) that wood can't.

You would be surprised how hot it has to be to melt some rubber without direct flame contact...

Thanks, I was thinking wood too, but for practical applications requiring softer flexible/pliable material rubber and plastic make sense.

A quick note on elevator door keys - different elevator manufacturers use different keys. They are uniquely shaped and not interchangeable. I know this only because in my line of work, I have to access the inside of elevator shafts all the time and work inside them.

And if a modern elevator does have a hatch in the roof of the car, it will likely be locked from the outside. I wouldn't say it'd be impossible to open from the inside, but it might be tough.

That's an awesome site, and there's a lot of good ideas there.

OMG, the custom vise grips are brilliant, I can't believe I didn't even think of that! Making a pair right now, today. NEED a pair of eyebolt vise grips for the plant.