We were dispatched and responded to a report of a vehicle fire in a two-stall attached garage. Upon arrival of the first due engine, the engine officer established command and made a report of a mini-van fire inside the attached garage. The bulk of the fire was under the hood with some damage to the garage drywall and some smoke in the house. 

A two-man crew stretched a pre-connected 1-3/4" hose line with an adjustable nozzle to extinguish the fire. They entered the garage through the large garage door, which was already open. They were never out of sight of the engine and visibility was good. Shortly after starting the fire attack, the hose crew started calling for more pressure. As the equipment operator, I increased the pressure about 15 psi and waited for feedback. The attack crew again called for more pressure and I increased the pressure again. This happened a couple more times until the calls for pressure became more emotional and it was reported back to me that the attack crew was barely getting any water. At that time, I double checked all the gauges on the engine, which indicated plenty of pressure. I then followed the hoseline and could find no kinks and the line was very hard from the pressure. I decided there must be a problem with the nozzle and then pulled another pre-connected 1-3/4" hoseline with an adjustable nozzle and handed it off to the fire attack crew. 

Shortly thereafter, the attack crew reported the same problem, low pressure or no water coming from the tip. I again checked all the gauges and then walked the line, again no problems found. As extremely improbable as it seemed, I had to assume there was a problem with the second nozzle. At that time, I removed the adjustable nozzle from the first 1-3/4" line and attached a smoothbore tip to that line. It was handed off to the attack crew and they extinguished the fire without further incident. Upon inspection of the first malfunctioning tip, we found that small pieces of hard black rubber had entirely plugged the nozzle from the screen to the discharge. We made the same discovery when examining the second malfunctioning tip. The next day, the adjustable nozzles were disassembled, cleaned, then reassembled and placed back into service.

As unlikely as it may seem, when you have ruled out the probable causes of a problem, the improbable may just become the answer. I would never have expected to have two nozzles fail at the same time. 

Our pre-connected 1-3/4" lines have adjustable nozzles on them and have been very reliable. However, they did not function when subjected to foreign material trying to pass through. We keep smooth bore tips on our engines as well and they came in handy for this situation. We were lucky that this was not a fire requiring a more aggressive interior type of attack. A water failure in that sort of situation could be disastrous for the attack crew. 

In this instance, the attack crew in the garage was never out of sight of the engine and was able to walk in and out at will. Sometimes events happen that are obviously not expected and cannot be planned for. During such times, it is important to keep your wits about you and think outside the box. There was potential to panic when two hose lines failed, but the engine crew "kept it together" and worked through the situation. It was determined that the hard black rubber which had plugged our nozzles was the sealant that had been used around the water fill on the top of the fire engine. Apparently, the sealant had broken free, fallen into the water tank, and was chopped up into small pieces in the pump. The pieces then found their way into the adjustable nozzles where they could not pass through and hence cut off the water flow. 

The next day, our department back flushed the pumps on our engine to ensure it was clear of any more debris. We also removed the rest of the sealant from around the water fill and installed a screen on top with smaller holes to make sure this would not happen again.