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by brooksgarrett 3097 days ago
Speaking from experience, it's primarily due to 'tradition.' All of your combi-nozzles and rate control valves are rated and marked in GPM (Gallons per minute) and hose is purchased and stored as 50' sections. NFPA specifications for the hose required on a first due engine are in feet.

A department can't decide to use metric alone. The entire industry first would need to support at the minimum both standards.
1 comments
johansch 3097 days ago
It's probably possible, somehow, to quantify how many americans perish every year because of this.
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maxerickson 3097 days ago
I bet it is close to 0.

In recent years, the total number of fire deaths is 3000 to 4000 per year:

https://www.usfa.fema.gov/data/statistics/fire_death_rates.h...

Many of those deaths will have happened regardless of the response.

In some sense, across 300 million people, even 3000 is close enough to zero (there's more than 2.5 million total deaths each year in the US). That doesn't mean that improving fire response isn't important, but it might not be a very good place to look for incremental improvements in mortality.

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brooksgarrett 3093 days ago
I agree. I've never been on a fireground and had someone yell, "We lost the house because you didn't divide by 12!" Fireground math is a very rough science. Every engine in our district has pre calculated charts for every cross lay and discharge so you aren't doing the math on scene. Additionally, once you deploy line you have a radio and can ask the engineer to increase or decrease pressure with no math required.

A much bigger issue is the lack of recruitment and volunteerism in the American fire service. People simultaneously don't want to increase property taxes to fund career departments and they also don't want to volunteer. Communities can't have it both ways. Lack of staffing is a far greater risk than whether I'm dividing by 10 or 12.

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mindcrime 3097 days ago
I agree with @maxerickson, I'd bet that that number is approximately 0. The reasons people perish from fires rarely if ever have anything to do with a math mistake on something like this.
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