Summary: Garage fires are often underestimated — but they shouldn’t be. Are you asking the right questions before you stretch that first line? From fuel load to overhead door hazards, these fires can be a trap if you don’t slow down and size up. Whether it’s attached or detached, fully involved or smoldering in the corner, garage fires demand more from your team than just “put water on it.”
Before you even touch a nozzle, what clues tell you this isn’t just a “room and contents” fire?
Are you factoring in the potential for gasoline, propane, lithium-ion batteries, ammo, paint, or a car packed with hazards?
If you’re staring at a single overhead door with smoke banking down and no windows in sight, what’s really waiting behind that door?
What about structural concerns? Are those trusses above the garage holding up a room, or overloaded with junk from a decade ago?
How do you account for the fact that even detached garages can collapse or spread fire to nearby exposures, while attached garages might push smoke straight into the living space?
When you arrive at a garage fire, is your first line going to the garage itself, or are you putting it between the fire and the home?
If it's an attached garage, are you checking whether the door between the garage and the house is holding?
If that interior door is open, compromised, or already venting smoke, do you switch tactics and go through the house?
And what about the family dog someone might have chained up in there? Are you treating this like a potential rescue scenario?
Do you know what’s stored in the rafters?
Could overhead storage collapse on your crew once you open that door and change the fire’s ventilation?
Is smoke showing from the eaves, soffits, or roof vents, and if so, does that change where your second line goes?
Are you defaulting to a 1¾" because it’s what you always pull, or are you thinking about gallons per minute versus BTUs?
If you’re on a tight crew, is it safer to put water on it quickly from the outside with a deck gun, then stretch?
Does your crew have the training and experience to move a charged 2½" if that’s the tool the fire deserves?
When you open the nozzle, are you hitting from a flanking position or attacking head-on through the overhead door?
Is that overhead garage door helping you or waiting to trap you?
If it’s open, is it propped with pike poles or tools to keep it from slamming shut?
If it’s closed, do you have a way to force it quickly without wasting precious minutes?
Have you ever seen a torsion spring fail under heat?
If you’re thinking about cutting the garage door or popping windows, what’s your plan to control the flow path?
Is ventilation timed with suppression, or are you giving the fire exactly what it wants before you're ready?
And if you’re operating inside, can you see the top of the stream, or are you swimming blind with fuel cans nearby?
After knockdown, are you checking for fire that might have traveled through joist bays or behind drywall into the house?
Are you checking the attic space above the garage, or assuming it didn’t get up there?
Does your crew know what a compromised fire barrier looks like between the garage and the home?
With a detached garage, are you more aggressive with exterior knockdown, or still making sure exposures are covered?
With an attached one, are you running simultaneous lines, one for the garage and one for the residence?
Do you have different SOPs for the two, or is your crew expected to make that judgment on the fly?
When you pull up to a garage fire, are you repeating what’s always been done, or taking a moment to ask: “What am I really dealing with here?”
Are you using what you see, smell, and hear to guide your tactics, or letting the garage door write the plan?
Because in this job, the fires that look simple sometimes aren’t. And the ones that seem routine can change everything in a flash.
Want to take this discussion deeper? There’s a reel making the rounds right now that’s got firefighters everywhere debating these exact questions. What’s your take — are garage fires one of the most overlooked hazards on the job?