Bumper line loads

Bumper lines are one of those things crews either seem to overlook or are too nit-picky over. Personally  I enjoy the bumper line and have had the opportunity through two different departments to play with different hose loads and nozzles, also putting them into use on different car and trash fires. There are many different loads one can utilize for the bumper line, all with pros and cons.

One load I recently came across that i had never heard of is called the "Scorpion load" the video is from the guys at San Marcos Fire. I really liked the look of the load so my crew and myself gave it a shot last shift.

We currently use a hoseload that I am unfamiliar with if it has a name or not. So until I see it elsewhere Im going to refer to it as the basket load (self named due to the two handles similar to a basket you are left with). Essentially you start with laying a loop of hose perpendicular to the bumper, leaving a loop draped out of the hose bed, then make another loop (towards the grill) draped that way. Leaving two ears of hose coming out the front and back of the bumper. For the rest its a simple flat load running the direction of the bumper. Once loaded you're left with two ears of hose cradling a flat load, take one loop and feed it through the other. Leaving two handles put (like a basket) that are girthed together. For deployment you simply lift the handles and place the load on the ground and go. Sounds simple enough. One problem, now your left with a bundle of hose to be flaked out (we use 100'). With poor loading skills and the adrenaline of a call, its easy to kink up the hose.

The scorpion load is a quick and efficient load that is easy to deploy without kinks. We took 100' and loaded it accordion style (a basic load a lot of departments use) and timed one man deployments (working out the kinks), without running, the accordion load timed 17 seconds. One man scorpion load timed 10. Now 7 seconds doesnt seem like a lot, but if you can do it quicker and easier, why wouldnt you?

Heres the video from San Marcos Fire:

Scorpion load

Now, heres what I really like about this load. Its not shown in the video, but say you are in close quarters with the fire and dont have much room for all the hose to go straight out (which you wont in most parking lots or roadways) If you have two people available to pull the line, Nozzle man takes the nozzle and heads to the fire and the backup man takes the coupling loop and heads at a 90 degree angle from the way the nozzle man is heading. In our tests, the nozzle got stretched to roughly 40 feet from the truck with the hose fully flaked out in a large "S" ready to go. All in about 6 seconds. I couldnt help but enjoy such a perfectly orchestrated hose pull. 

Go out and train on what load your department uses. If it doesnt work very efficiently dont be afraid to try different loads. You never know what youll find. The key here is to train, train, train.