In Rescue Mode, securing a water supply is the essential first step. If water is readily available, lock it in immediately; if not, have the second arriving engine lay in a supply line so water can reach the scene without delay. This creates the critical logistical backbone that enables any rescue effort and supports potential fire control. Once a reliable water source is established, you can drive tactical decisions and communications from a solid footing. While locating the apparatus safely and briefing command are important, they come after the foundational step of ensuring water is available to sustain operations.

The main idea is to protect life safety and establish safe routes before doing the actual smoke removal. Pressurizing the Fire Attack stairwell first creates a clean, protected entry path for firefighters into the fire area and helps keep smoke out of the route they’ll use to reach the fire. Next, pressurizing the Evacuation stairwell safeguards the occupants who are evacuating and keeps that egress path tenable for both civilians and crews. Ventilating the Fire floor is done last to remove smoke and heat once those critical stairwells are secured, improving conditions for suppression without pushing smoke into the stairs. This sequence balances keeping three essential paths—attack, evacuation, and the fire floor itself—in a way that supports safety and effective firefighting on a first alarm.

Fire Front Following is a post-front tactic used after the fire edge has moved through an area to address safety and property protection. It focuses on locating any trapped or endangered people, establishing a perimeter, extinguishing spot fires around structures, and knocking down hot spots to reduce ember production and rekindling. This approach allows crews to work along and behind the leading edge to secure the scene, protect buildings, and prevent new ignitions from embers. It isn’t about pre-emptively girding the area before the front arrives, it isn’t restricted to rural areas far from structures, and it isn’t specifically about approaching from the head of the fire to tackle spots.

Controlling smoke and heat movement is essential in a high-rise incident, and a dedicated Ventilation Group is established to handle all smoke-control operations. This unit plans and directs ventilation tactics—such as pressurizing stairwells, placing exhaust and supply fans, and coordinating openings—to create tenable conditions for occupants and firefighters. They assess the building layout, determine the best paths for air to move, and work with fire attack and search teams to ensure ventilation helps, not hinders, operations. By centralizing this function, the incident avoids conflicting actions and ensures a coordinated approach to smoke removal and visibility, which is why the Ventilation Group is the responsible unit.