Ventilation/Roof Ladders

In Ireland, many structures have clay tile roofs, this creates a problem when you are trying position a roof ladder. Roof ladders hook over the peak of a roof and help distribute the weight of firefighters working on the roof.

American roof ladder with hooks folded in.

Ordinarily, a firefighter climbs a ground ladder to the edge of the roof, and slides the roof ladder up the roof until the hooks reach the peak. 

Placing roof ladder

But if you attempt to slide a ladder up a clay tile roof it will catch on every tile. So the Irish carry roof ladders with this little innovation.

Hook end of roof ladder sticking out from under storage container.

Hook folded down.

Wheels. The wheels help the ladder roll over the clay tiles.

As near as I can tell, vertical ventilation is not performed in Ireland, as they only ventilate after they have the fire knocked down. So I can’t imagine that their roof ladders get used much, but when they do, a clay tile roof won’t slow them down.