Task Force Tips

10/15/2026

Does your engine draft through one intake or two?

FULL EPISODE: “Multiple Intake Drafting” - Ep. 5 of Rural Water Supply. Head to the comments.

Andy Soccodato of The Water Thieves shows how priming two intakes separately gets more water out of a static source.
➡️ “We don’t go from zero to octopus.” Nose in and get fast water off the front intake with 20 ft of hard sleeve and one strainer.
➡️ At 22 inches of mercury, the setup is maxed out. That doesn’t mean you’re out of water.
➡️ Pressurized prime the second intake and the vacuum drops. This 34-year-old, 1,250 gpm pumper flowed 1,500 gpm with about 11 inches of mercury left.

👉 Watch the full twin tube setup and download your checklist. Head to the comments.

10/10/2026

09/30/2026

🔥 JUNKYARD FIRES: What's one tip you'd give a probie?

Biggest mistake you see?
How can this go wrong?
What role should foam play?
What other hazards are there?
What tools do you use?

Every crew handles junkyard fires a little differently.

👇 Drop your answer in the comments.

09/29/2026

Your dump site pump operator is doing two jobs.

Keeping water flowing to the fire while moving water between tanks.
That's a lot to watch with tankers rolling in to dump.

Henry Lovett's fix: a second pumper drafts from the primary tank and takes over the transfer.
Now the first operator can focus on the fire, with the pump's full capacity behind it.

👉 Download your tactical checklist by heading to the comments.

09/29/2026

How does your crew do it? FDNY stretches low floors.

First or second floor, they may just stretch from the rig.

Going to the standpipe? Catch the hydrant, then stretch 3.5" to the fire department connection.
If that connection is not in good shape, you audible and feed the first floor outlet instead.
Inside, you hook up one floor below the fire, and the companies behind you work down from there.

Alex Hilliard of FDNY Squad 41 in the South Bronx on where the department draws the high rise line.

👉 Full conversation on TFT Fully Involved E16 - head to the comments.

09/28/2026

Your jet siphons are stealing pump capacity from the fire.

Henry Lovett says each one pulls 150 to 200 GPM off the dump site pumper.
Run four and that's about 800 GPM out of a 1,000 or 1,500 GPM pump.

His fix at higher flows: at least two suction tubes off the dump site pumper.
Two intakes help the pump reach its full capacity for the jet siphons and the fire attack.

Count the jet siphons on the manifold.

👉 Download your tactical checklist by heading to the comments.

09/27/2026

Most urban departments file the deck g*n under defensive and leave it there.

Mike from Las Vegas doesn't buy that, and he wrote in to tell us why.

At 0:29 Ben Lehman answers him with the tactical situations where the deck g*n earns a look on an offensive or transitional setup, like a fire room that's engine-accessible from the street.

Practice is the whole thing. If you don't train it, you won't choose it.

How does your department use monitors on a typical urban or suburban scene? Or are you handline all the way?

****
Mike's question in full:

"Like most urban departments, it's not deployed often and is an afterthought. It's typically considered a defensive tool and most of our members don't think to use it offensively."

"Prior to working here I was in a small 9 man rural department and we used the s*** out of our deck gun. I love it and think it has more applications than most folks give it credit for."

"In my immediate we have a lot of mid and high rise buildings and I train my engineers and firefighters to consider using it when we have fire showing from upper floors. We talk about sizing up when we could deploy like this, what the positioning would need to look like for the engine, taking an inside or outside position, how to pre-aim so we minimize water loss, where to aim so we don't blow through ceilings."
****

👉 Let us know in the comments how your department handles it!

09/26/2026

How long do your tankers sit waiting to offload?

Henry Lovett breaks down what slows a tanker shuttle in Part 1 of his tank transfer tips from our "Rural Water Supply" series.

Henry's rule: a moving tanker is a productive tanker. Here are the first four things that slow water to the fire, according to Henry:

🚫 Tankers parked instead of moving
🚫 Suction hose shifting out of position
🚫 Dumping directly onto the strainer
🚫 A clogged roadway

Henry lays out the fix for each one, whether you're running rural water supply or dealing with a municipal water system that has issues.

Follow TFT for reasons 5 to 7 in Part 2.

09/23/2026

Primer won't catch on the draft? The fix is already on your rig.

BURP DRAFT: Steps 3-5

3. Open tank-to-pump and tank fill all the way. Gate back if you're running 2" plumbing.
4. Throttle up to 150 psi on the master discharge gauge.
5. Crack the master intake until you see the gauge fluctuate. That's trapped air moving through the tank fill.

Andy Soccodato of The Water Thieves LLC: open that intake in increments, never all at once.

👉 Download your tactical checklist by heading to the comments.

09/23/2026

An unattended ground monitor that jars loose keeps flowing.

The BlitzFire shuts the water down on its own if it gets knocked off position.
David Silverberg from Palm Beach Gardens Fire Rescue tries to trip it on Fully Involved.

Moving the hose line around doesn't do it. He has to kick it sideways.

👉 Head to the comments to watch the full episode.