BY JERRY KNAPP AND WILLIAM LEE
We tend to think of homes as safe places, and they generally are until a serious fire develops in them. Then, even the safest home can become a deathtrap for firefighters. Construction characteristics—balloon, lightweight, or truss—have built-in hazards with which we are all familiar. The electricity, gas, fuel oil, or propane used to heat the homes pose obvious hazards. Hazardous materials, gasoline for lawn mowers, propane for the gas grill, powder for sporting firearms—things we use safely every day—become firefighter killers in the basement and garage under a fire load. A house may not contain the large quantities of hazardous materials or large-scale hazards an industrial occupancy may have, but a routine house fire usually pre-sents more than enough smaller-scale hazards that can injure or kill firefighters.
At industrial occupancies, we have a mindset that expects high hazards, so we prepare for them. We use larger hoselines, depend on and use sprinkler and standpipe systems, and hope that alarm systems have activated and transmitted the alarm quickly. We tend to be a bit more prepared because of the perceived or actual hazard. But at a house fire, that fear, that respect for what could be involved in fire and hidden by the smoke, is often replaced by complacency.
FIRE DEVELOPMENT
As has been frequently reported in recent years, house fires are burning hotter and spreading more rapidly than ever before. Huge fire loads fueled by plastics, foam, and other synthetics are now found in homes. Look around your home. Plastic is everywhere. Plastic generates tremendous quantities of heat and dense flammable smoke. Additionally, in the incomplete combustion of a fire, large amounts of flammable gases are pyrolized from these products, further loading the flashover gun that suddenly burns firefighters to death.
Couple this unrecognized fuel load with better-insulated homes and energy-efficient windows, and it’s easy to see that we are facing a potential bomb the size of a house. Energy-efficient windows with two or three panes of glass keep in the heat and products of combustion and mask the fire’s location. Insulation and house wrap keep in heat and flammable gases until we arrive on-scene and open the door to either a blast furnace (flashover) or a bomb (backdraft).
UNPREDICTABILITY INCREASED
As we move through our careers, we learn about the predictability of fires. We learn through experience to predict when they will light up, resulting in danger for us. But occupants and other people may do a variety of things in their homes that can make the fire unpredictable. These actions include using accelerants, storing illegal chemicals, setting multiple fires, and fabricating and storing improvised explosives, to name a few. Unpredictability adds to the dangers on the fireground. As we have heard many times, we must always expect the unexpected, especially in a nice, safe, routine house fire. The following case histories illustrate some of the hidden hazards you may encounter in house fires.
PEOPLE-INDUCED HAZARDS
The following are examples of some of the people-induced hazards encountered by various fire departments, the majority in New York State, at what at first were thought to be “routine” house fires. You no doubt have your own challenging calls to add to this list.
 (1) Heavy fire was venting out the front door on arrival. Note the ventilated roof. (Photo by William Lee.) |
null
Suicides
Suicide in the home is a more frequent occurrence than you might imagine. On May 8, 2003, at 0607 hours, the Highland Falls (NY) Fire Department was dispatched to a well-involved house fire. The neighbor who reported that the house was on fire said three or four explosions had preceded the fire.
Police officers were the first to arrive on the scene and were able to drag a male victim, who was at the window, out of the window (on the left side of the porch) to safety. The victim was burned but survived. The fire department made an excellent aggressive interior attack, supported by ventilation efforts (photo 1). The fire was knocked down quickly and confined to the building of origin. No firefighters were killed or injured. Why are you reading about this routine house fire? Because it was anything but routine and an excellent example of how hazards could endanger you at house fires.
The male occupant allegedly set the fire in a suicide attempt. He reportedly was despondent over numerous personal problems and turned on the gas in the kitchen. When he thought enough gas was present, he launched large pyrotechnic devices (Roman candles) toward the kitchen (photo 2). A pyrotechnic technician by trade, he had access to a variety of these celebratory devices. The first devices caused the original explosions reported by the neighbor who called in the alarm. It is still undetermined how large and what type the devices were, but there were reports of several very loud explosions. At least one of these devices was ignited during the engine company’s advance, causing a fair degree of surprise among the attack team.
The gas ignited, and part of the house caught fire. Only some of the fireworks functioned properly. The occupant reportedly is doing well and is now residing in a treatment facility and receiving the assistance he needs.
Highland Falls Fire Chief Andy Saylor said they had no warning that large-scale pyrotechnics were involved and that they did not know if others were in the house. He added that they relied on the department’s standard operating procedures until they were able to sort things out after the fire suppression operation. “The basics almost always work on the fireground, and this is another great example of it. We made an aggressive interior fire attack, supported by ventilation, and were rapidly able to control the incident. Only later, did we learn how dangerous this fire could have been for our members,” he explained.
In another instance, an elderly woman apparently set eight fires in her home before she was overcome and died in her bedroom. Multiple simultaneous fires in a structure can result in surprisingly rapid fire growth and subsequent collapse.
Violence-Related Fires
As we all know, house fires with people trapped tend to make us take extreme chances to save a life, frequently at the cost of our own. In such a case, an emotionally out of control person can very easily lead to a firefighter death. Here are a few real-life case histories.
- Three people died in a suspected arson fire in an illegal rooming house. The landlord had evicted the tenants 72 hours before. The fire was under investigation amid unsubstantiated reports that the evictions may have been linked to the fire.1
Occupants may have emotional ties to political, national, ethnic, or religious causes and manufacture or store incendiary or explosive devices.
- In Suffern, New York, in 1994, a male presented at a local emergency room with a severed right hand he claimed was the result of an accident while working on his car. Reportedly, a one-half-inch square jagged piece of green metal appeared to be wrapped in a piece of his flesh. On investigation, this turned out to be a fragment from a hand grenade that detonated at an undetermined location. Was this stored in his home? What was his plan for using it?2
We often are dispatched to house fires of sinister origin.
- Molotov cocktails were thrown into two houses in Ramapo, New York. One went through the window and broke on the kitchen floor. The second one landed outside near a window of another home on the other side of town. Neither ignited. Flammable liquid devices will cause the fire to develop more rapidly than we expect.3
Many fires are related to drinking.
- A Nyack, New York, male apartment building resident was accused of starting a fire while drunk. The fire seriously burned his 78-year-old mother and led to the evacuation of 50 people. Three firefighters put their lives in extreme danger to rescue the woman; they were injured.4
null
Pets
Even the friendliest Labrador retriever can become a vicious attack dog when you enter a house in your gear and SCBA. And then there are the extreme cases reported by local newspapers, such as the following.
- A lion and a tiger were among 74 animals found roaming a house in Upstate New York. Undercover investigators reported a black bear had been at the house earlier in the week. According to an Associated Press report, the basement of the 11/2-story house was home to the lion and the tiger, 12 to 15 miniature pot-bellied pigs, some monkeys, and a wallaby. Two limousines found on the premises had been adapted to accommodate cages for the animals.5
- A local science teacher was living in a single-family dwelling with cobras, wildcats, a Gila monster, alligators, foxes, copperheads, boas, wolves, vipers, black widows, pit bulls, a miniature horse, emus, crocodiles U and one chair. All this in a single-family dwelling!
- Blauvelt, New York, firefighters responded to a fully involved house fire. Operating in a defensive mode, the firefighters extinguished the fire. When the homeowner returned, his concern was for his three-foot pet alligator, which was found alive and well in the crawl space under the remainder of his house.
- The Hillcrest (NY) Fire Department recently responded to a well-involved house fire. During the search operation, they found a large, unconscious cat the size of an adult lynx. The cat was brought outside, where it began to regain consciousness and became less than friendly. Quick-thinking firefighters found a cage for the aggressive feline quite rapidly.
People become very close to their pets and often call them “their babies.”
- A Fire Department of New York firefighter was severely burned trying to save a woman’s cat trapped in a sixth-floor apartment. This occupant told first-due firefighters her “baby” was inside. A tower ladder rescued the burning firefighter from a ledge.6
Always ask, “What type of baby is missing?”
Holiday Decorations
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a fire prevention video that shows how fast a natural Christmas tree can turn deadly. The tree in the video was a scotch pine that had been cut three weeks before NIST’s test burn. The tree was placed in a fully furnished living room and ignited with one match. The rapidity of the fire’s development was astonishing; it produced a flashover so intense that the carpet in the room was burning in 31 seconds. Highly flammable holiday decorations and exits blocked by presents or trees create dangerous conditions for occupants and firefighters conducting a search. In contrast, a fresh-cut tree that had its trunk kept in water would not even ignite.
- A house fire destroyed two porch sukkahs. These are temporary shelters placed outside the home, often on a deck or patio; are decorated with paper and lightweight decorations; and are lighted with candles during the Jewish holiday of Sukkoth. Sukkahs also have roofs of leafy boughs or wicker-like material. Twelve occupants were in the house at the time of the fire; two firefighters were injured.
Businesses in Homes
Home-run businesses can pose serious dangers for responding firefighters.
- After a fire department in California had extinguished a residential fire, the fire chief arrived on-scene and walked through the building to assess the damage and ensure complete extinguishment. He became dizzy and ill while on his way back to quarters, and his aide took him to the hospital. The haz-mat team was called to the scene and found partial glass containers of liquid sodium cyanide. The chief subsequently was air evacuated to a hyperbaric chamber for lifesaving treatment. He had inhaled near-lethal doses of cyanide from the home jewelry and precious metal-refining business run illegally from the home.7
- Eight firefighters and a civilian were injured in a residential fire as a result of the presence of a dozen 55-gallon drums of chemicals that included epoxy resins, acetone, benzene, and toluene in the attached garage. The toxic industrial chemicals were used in a family-owned seamless floor-covering business.
Illegal Businesses
Drug smugglers have been moving their operations to affluent, secluded suburban areas. A recent news report cited raids on two houses in Westchester County, New York. The buildings were headquarters for large drug-trafficking and money-laundering organizations linked to Colombian drug cartels. Huge quantities of cocaine were found in the ceiling.
The increasing presence of illegal drug labs in homes poses hazards for firefighters. Some signs that a drug lab may be present, according to International Association of Fire Fighters training literature, include the following: blacked-out or covered windows; odors similar to ether, solvents, or urine or that are sweet, pungent, or bitter; abnormal glassware such as laboratory-type flasks, beakers, and the like; vacuum pumps and rubber hoses; marked or unmarked chemical containers, flasks, or bottles; heat sources such as mantles, oil baths, hot plates, or crock pots with unusual modifications, stirring, or agitating apparatus; filters; funnels; distillation apparatus; coffee filters that do not appear to have coffee grounds in them; and unusual or extensive drainage systems. Fires in these structures will be fast moving; flames will be intense and of different colors. Smoke may be present.8
Occupants of these structures generally are dangerous criminals and often use booby traps to protect the labs and the drugs and money within the structure. These traps, intended to injure or kill people entering the structure, may include sabotaged stairs and fire escapes, razor wire on the fire escape, and piano wire across stairs (possibly electrified). Windows may be barred or electrified. Floorboards may have been removed, needles may have been glued to the floor, and razor-wire traps may have been installed between floor joists. Firefighters entering through a window may be met with spring-loaded boards studded with nails, a bear trap, razor wire, or a chemical set that will spill on the intruder. Smoky hallways may have fish hooks hanging on a nearly invisible monofilament line strung across the hall or trip wires connected to a number of deadly devices. Vicious pit bulls may also be present; they may have had their voice boxes and nails removed to silence their approach. Refrigerators may be rigged with grenade-type devices that will explode when the door is opened.9
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Following are some guidelines for protecting yourself on the fireground:
- Keep in mind that the fireground is completely uncontrolled and a very dangerous place. You must always be thinking about what might be there to harm or kill you and must have a plan for minimizing these hazards.
- Look for clues of hazards from the time of your first size-up until you leave the scene. Recently, we responded to a house fire where the occupant had written on her own sidewalk slurs about local politicians and banks. We should have suspected that this might be a clue that something was not right and that this may not be a routine house fire. As it turned out, the occupant, motivated by a foreclosure notice, had set multiple arson fires inside the house.
- If you suspect you are in a house in which there is illegal drug activity or that the building may be booby trapped, don’t let curiosity kill you. Leave doors closed unless there is a pressing need to open them. Stand back, and use a rope or a hook to open the doors, windows, and so on. Expect that deadly devices may be waiting to injure or kill you. Retreat if possible.
- Apply your basic standard operating procedures—for example, tap on the floor with a tool before entering through a window to determine if the floor is sound or potentially hazardous booby traps are present in the area.
- Carry the right tools. A pair of wire cutters may save your life if you become entangled in the wires generally present in the ceiling of an apartment hallway or that may come down during an attic fire. Homes today have wires for cable TV, electric service, computers, sound systems, HVAC systems, and various other controls.
- It is essential that you have preincident intelligence of the fire building or area.
The best defense against unseen hazards is a good size-up and constant situational awareness. Our brain is our most dependable and valuable piece of personal protective equipment. We must continually, aggressively, and actively look for all potential hazards at residential fires, especially during the suppression operation. Once the hazards are recognized, the protective actions that should be taken usually are obvious.
Endnotes
1. “Probe eyes link between evictions, fatal arson fire,” Journal News, Nyack, NY; March 10, 1989.
2. “Ex cop arrested on bomb charge,” Journal News, July 23, 1994.
3. “Molotov Cocktail Incidents Probed,” Journal News, May 2003.
4. “Son reckless in fire that burns mother, police say,” Journal News, Dec. 21, 1988.
5. “Lion, Tiger among 74 animals found roaming Syracuse home,” Times Herald Record, Newburgh, NY, April 2001.
6. AP, Journal News, Nov. 1984.
7. Speaking of Fire, International Fire Service Training Association, Summer 1987.
8. “Training for Hazardous Materials Response: Clandestine Drug Operations,” IAFF, 1995.
9. Mike Rowley, CPT Training Unit, WNYF, first issue, 1991. (1)
JERRY KNAPP is a training officer at the Rockland County Fire Training Center, Pomona, New York and a 28-year veteran firefighter/EMT with the West Haverstraw (NY) Fire Department. He has an associate’s degree in fire protection technology, is a former paramedic, and is the emergency management officer at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York.
WILLIAM LEE is a certified Level 1 and 2 New York State fire investigator and a member of the Orange County (NY) Arson Task Force. He is currently the code enforcement official for the Village of Cornwall on Hudson, New York. He retired from the West Point (NY) Fire Department, where he served for 24 years.
