Good questions! The ideal amount of cribbing to be carried is entirely dependent on a few factors such as what type of apparatus are you using it on, how much space to you have to store it, what other stabilization tools do you have & what the operational needs are. Offhand I would say that a typical class A engine should probably have 2 stepchocks 2 wedges & at least a dozen pieces of 4x4 cribbing but that’s just an umbrella statement, it’s all pretty much depending upon your needs & storage. Obviously a rescue or heavy rescue would be carrying far more than that. In fact, I have asked that question to most of the heavy rescue guys I have trained with & their answer is “never enough” ha ha ha. As far as specific lengths go I probably would not go shorter than 16” & not longer than 24”. Whatever length you cut though make sure it’s cut to a multiple of 4 (16” 20” 24”) so you can stack the same amount of crib on top of each other without big gaps or overlap. Ours are cut to 24” long which is pretty standard to most of the other agencies surrounding us so we can use each others cribbing on complex scenes needing more crib but also, 24” is how deep our compartments are so that worked out perfectly for us.
How many 4 by 4's do I need to have?
How long does the cribbing need to be?
Good questions!
The ideal amount of cribbing to be carried is entirely dependent on a few factors such as what type of apparatus are you using it on, how much space to you have to store it, what other stabilization tools do you have & what the operational needs are.
Offhand I would say that a typical class A engine should probably have 2 stepchocks 2 wedges & at least a dozen pieces of 4x4 cribbing but that’s just an umbrella statement, it’s all pretty much depending upon your needs & storage. Obviously a rescue or heavy rescue would be carrying far more than that. In fact, I have asked that question to most of the heavy rescue guys I have trained with & their answer is “never enough” ha ha ha.
As far as specific lengths go I probably would not go shorter than 16” & not longer than 24”. Whatever length you cut though make sure it’s cut to a multiple of 4 (16” 20” 24”) so you can stack the same amount of crib on top of each other without big gaps or overlap. Ours are cut to 24” long which is pretty standard to most of the other agencies surrounding us so we can use each others cribbing on complex scenes needing more crib but also, 24” is how deep our compartments are so that worked out perfectly for us.