In this weeks True Grit Nugget, instructor Marcos Orozco explains that primary search isn’t about following the engine, it’s about finding the fire, finding victims, and covering the structure quickly. Every second matters when someone’s survival is on the line. This training was at the Colorado State Fire Fighters Association 2026 Fire College in Aurora, Colorado.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION:

  Basically, we don’t have to go in the direction where the engine’s going, right? And you said, “I don’t know where the fire is.” Yeah. Well, no shit. None of us know, right? Right. That’s our job. Primary search is to locate, to find the fire. But we don’t wanna go where the engine goes. You’re gonna get clustered in the hallway.

My engine crew’s here, guess what? And I see all these other windows and doors. Shut it, bro. Yeah. And if you happen to break a window and that’s the fire room, okay, well at least you know where it’s at now. “Hey, engine crew, come over here.” Um, or pull a second line, a second engine, right? Whatever. You got the water can, you could hit it down.

Yeah. You can go jump through if you buy yourself enough space to go isolate that room, and at least it’s not gonna make the whole freaking structure worse, right? Right. So it doesn’t matter if we don’t know where the fire is. We got a water can. We’re good. But I know we’re not moths to a flame, and we wanna go where the engine crew’s going.

I like doing truck work because I’m, I’m light and fast. I’m not attached to that boat anchor that I gotta lug around through the entire building, right? Every second you’re out here wasting time, every second that the victim has less chance of survival.

* The training views expressed in this video are those of the training instructors, and not Fire Spotlight. The actions in this video are inherently dangerous and could result in death; should the viewers choose to adopt any views expressed in this video, he/she is doing so at his/her own risk. Fire Spotlight encourages viewers to review his/her department’s Standard Operating Procedures when adopting any new training views.