NIOSH Report on 2005 LODDs in NY
NIOSH has released the report regarding the incident where six FDNY firefighters were forced to jump out 4th story windows.
On January 23, 2005, a 46-year-old male career Lieutenant (Victim #1) and a 37-year-old male career fire fighter (Victim #2) died, and four career fire fighters were injured during a three alarm fire in a four story apartment building. The victims and injured fire fighters were searching for any potentially trapped occupants on the floor above the fire. The fire started in a third floor apartment and quickly extended to the fourth floor. Fire fighters had been on the scene less than 30 minutes when they became trapped by advancing fire and were forced to exit through the fourth floor windows. The six fire fighters were transported to metropolitan hospitals where the two victims were later pronounced dead.
There were a ton of contributing factors including poor water supply, gusty winds, and evacuations of civilians. This report is a must read.
firedog Across America
Circuit City has a new service called firedog. firedog is having a contest called firedog Across America. Here is how the contest works:
1) Tell firedog Your Story Tell firedog your personal story about how a local firehouse has demonstrated service to your community. If your story is chosen as one of 10 finalists, you will receive a $10,000 home “techover” from firedog and your fire station will receive a $20,000 donation.2) America Votes
Once the 10 finalist firehouses have been chosen, the stories will be posted on firedog.com and America will vote for their favorite.3) The Best Part, Everyone Wins
All of the finalist firehouses win. For every vote cast for a finalist firehouse, that finalist firehouse will receive a $1.00 donation (total donations based on voting for all 10 firehouses not to exceed $250,000). After 16 days, the station with the most votes will be the national grand-prize winner and receive an additional $100,000 donation!
Cool! I'm going to make sure our constituents know about this program and hopefully they will enter their story and win our department a donation.
Deaf Firefighter's Blog
I've added a new blog to the sidebar called the Deaf Firefighter's Blog. A deaf firefighter from Pennsylvania is putting his thoughts online. Check it out.
Antique Oregon Fire Apparatus Needs Building
I enjoy museums and fire service history, so what better than a fire museum!
The Oregon Fire Services Museum is looking to put up a building to house their apparatus. Here is a good article from The Register-Guard that describes the equipment they have and their plans to build their museum.
TANGENT - Here they sit. Some of them. Motionless. No sirens blaring, no more fires to race toward, no firemen riding the tailboard.
Just sitting, unbuffed, in a moving and storage garage.
Not exactly a museum; not exactly an honorary locale.
There is nifty slide show of some of the apparatus. The slide show has audio of a couple of the guys on the museum board talking about their plans. Good stuff!
Comments Are Back in Firewhirl
I've turned the comment function back on in Firewhirl so feel free to comment on the entries. You will need to provide a name and email address. Also, before your comment will appear it will have to be approved. As soon as I approve the comment, it will show up.
If the spammers start commenting, I'll turn off comments to those posts. After a few weeks, I'll turn off the commenting function on each individual post.
Fire away!
Winecoff Hotel Fire - December 7, 1946
Sixty years ago the Winecoff Hotel burned in Atlanta, GA. Winecoffhotelfire.com has lots of details about the incident.
The Winecoff Hotel Fire of 1946 held the unenviable honor of being known as the deadliest hotel fire in the world and maintained that title until 1971 when one hundred and sixty-two people lost their lives in a hotel fire in Seoul, South Korea. The Winecoff remains, to this day, the worst hotel fire in American history. The fate of this once glamorous and celebrated hotel is unclear, but one thing is certain, it must never be forgotten.
NIOSH Reports
NIOSH has released a pile of fatality investigation reports. Lots of good info that you can use in your training programs. I'm not going to list them all, but here is one that caught my attention.
F2006-07 Two Volunteer Fire Fighters Die When Struck by Exterior Wall Collapse at a Commercial Building Fire Overhaul - Alabama
The remaining fire fighters noticed that concrete block walls on both sides of the structure were starting to lean outward so sections of the walls that were bulging outward were pulled down. At approximately 2130 hours, the two victims, along with a third fire fighter, were stretching a 1 ¾ inch handline to the front entrance to put water on hotspots when the front wall collapsed, striking the two victims. The third fire fighter was handling the hoseline a few feet behind the two victims and was struck on the foot by falling debris, narrowly missing serious injury.
Bridge Weight Limits Stop Fire Department
Firefighters in Nebraska encountered a bridge that was unsafe to cross with their apparatus enroute to a structure fire (from Firehouse.com).
The Bellevue Volunteer Fire Department was called to the fire around 9:15 a.m. But firefighters couldn't cross the wood plank bridge over a frosty stretch of Papillion Creek because of a weight restriction.
...
The department's firetrucks weigh 23 tons or more, he said. The bridge, near Fairview Road just east of the Kennedy Freeway, has a posted weight restriction of 1 ton.
Safety questions:
Does your department check bridge weight limits in your jurisdiction?
If your department was in the situation described in the article would your trucks have been driven across the bridge?
This wouldn't have been an easy decision, but I think the Bellevue VFD firefighters made the right call.
USFA Report on December and Holiday Fires
The USFA has published a report on fires that occur during December and the holiday season. Cooking is the biggest cause of fires during this time period followed closely by heating.
Meal preparation for parties and family gatherings during the holidays typically generates lots of activity. Traditional holiday decorations and rituals frequently include candles which, as an open flame source, also can lead to holiday tragedies when not monitored properly. Children in particular are attracted to candles.8 This attraction can be especially dangerous during the holidays when candle use increases.
The report is only a few pages and it has lots of good info for fire service personnel and the public at large.
Pickup Fire Magnesium Explosion
Check out the cool video of a magnesium explosion at a pickup fire over at Roanoke Firefighters.
I think I'll try to show this video at our next fire meeting to encourage our firefighters to wear proper PPE at vehicle fires.
Questions for Firewhirl readers:
1) Is it standard procedure in your department to wear SCBA at vehicle fires?
2) Should it be standard procedure to wear SCBA at vehicle fires?
Just send your answers to me via email at joe@northernplainsfire.com.
Email regarding Esperanza Fire
A Firewhirl reader sent an email regarding the Esperanza Fire. He provides a good perspective on this incident, so here is the entire email:
Howdy...
I've been waiting to see the Green Sheet Report on this incident. Just tonight I came upon your web-site coverage from a "search". I tried to write a comment by clicking on the "COMMENTS" at the "POSTED" date, but couldn't find a way to enter text.
I'm a CDF Captain--retired (8 1/2 yrs.) and during my career whenever a burn-over/injury/fatality occurred, I'd often think, "Wow! that could have been us!" I tried to always make safety the first priority. Everything else became secondary. But, then, you never know when the speed and/or intensity will occur faster than the senses can recognize.
I worked on the Esperanza Incident as a 'pickup-runner driver' and did have some opportunities to drive into the burn area up Hwy. 243, and recognized some areas where fire intensity was, obviously, extreme. For example, there were several areas where the guard-rail posts (what are they?..10"x10" wooden posts, if not 12x12's) had varying degrees of charring on them. But there was one section of guardrail in particular, easily 100' long, where EVERY post was thoroughly & totally incinerated to ground level.
Having the thought of the fatalities in the mental forefront, and thinking how needless it was that they should have happened, I came up with this as my analysis:
County planning departments need to change their building permit approval criteria. They need to say, "Sure, you can build there, but you will use building materials that will survive a Santa Ana driven wildfire. Our fire department is not liable for the protection of your structure from wildfire. Sure, if you have a structure fire (not wildfire related) we'll be there to handle it." Much more responsibility must be placed upon the property owner for their own wildfire survivability.
Certainly, numerous properties have been tabulated into the "Savings" part of the equation, often exceeding the value of the "Lost/Damaged" column. But the value of these lives and equipment lost far outweighs any "Savings" accumulated from all fires combined. The value of the training, experience, competency; being an integral component of each of their own families, as well as that of the fire community, etc. has come to an abrupt end. Also, the $100,000+ worth of equipment can no longer be used to save lives or multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property that it could have over the life expectancy of the vehicle.
I'd hesitate to put blame on the crew or chain of command. The precedent has been set that that is what firefighters do. They drive fire engines opposite to the flow of traffic of those evacuating.
There've been 3 times in my career that I've said, "We've got no business being in here. We need to get back out." We were lucky, or, more properly, cared for by Guardian Angels. Likely, for an instant, the crew of Engine 57 recognized that, too, but didn't have even an instant in which to react.
California wildfires frequently burn with a ferocity that far exceeds the capability of ground/air resources until the flame length and spread rate moderates more to match man/equipment suppression capabilities. Home owners, planning commissions, fire services, news media, politicians, et al, need to take another look at the future of wildland/urban interface fire response.
Nothing can be done so that "this will never happen again", but some of what I've mentioned can minimize that recurrence.
'Nuf said,
Bill Bruno
Visalia, CA.
Thanks for the email, Bill.
If you would like to comment or join in this discussion, please just send an email. I had to turn off the comment feature on Firewhirl because spammers were just sending tons of junk. I'll be more than happy to post people's thoughts, however, I reserve the right to edit the material or not post it.
