Fire Departments tailor each station's equipment to the area it serves. They train their staff based on the situations they are likely to encounter.
In a former life I worked alongside several of the people instrumental in developing NFPA 13R. Part of that development was that department's development of a fire hose nozzle "with a spear at the tip". It could be jambed through the roof of a wood framed structure from the exterior and spray water into the attic space without causing flashover.
In recent years, many fire departments have focused their political efforts on requiring domestic fire sprinklers in new one and two family dwellings and the major US model code - International Residential Code - has required this in the last several editions. Multi-family dwellings have required sprinkler systems for at least a generation.
Incidentally, the approximately 3000 fire deaths in dwellings pales in comparison to fatalities from falls (or for that matter self-inflicted gunshots or automobile collissions). Falling asleep while smoking is the most prevalent cause of a fatal fire in a dwelling.
The number of fires has been going down over time, although the number of firefighters haven't. They do have to be close enough to fires, so can't decline as much. The overall declines are however good from a quality of human life perspective.
Firefighters don't fight fires "Over the past 35 years, the number of fires in the United States has fallen by more than 40% while the number of career firefighters has increased by more than 40%". Shows false alarms, medical calls etc. http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/07/fir...
Interesting stuff but I was kind of referring to the fact that homes are so close together that when 1 house burns, the neighbours on each side burn as well.
In a former life I worked alongside several of the people instrumental in developing NFPA 13R. Part of that development was that department's development of a fire hose nozzle "with a spear at the tip". It could be jambed through the roof of a wood framed structure from the exterior and spray water into the attic space without causing flashover.
In recent years, many fire departments have focused their political efforts on requiring domestic fire sprinklers in new one and two family dwellings and the major US model code - International Residential Code - has required this in the last several editions. Multi-family dwellings have required sprinkler systems for at least a generation.
Incidentally, the approximately 3000 fire deaths in dwellings pales in comparison to fatalities from falls (or for that matter self-inflicted gunshots or automobile collissions). Falling asleep while smoking is the most prevalent cause of a fatal fire in a dwelling.