Stronger denouncement of flawed tactics
“The Dangers of Illegally Converted Private Dwellings,” by Jerry Knapp and George Zayas of the West Haverstraw (NY) Fire Department (Fire Engineering, June 2011), used a January 14, 2011, fire as an example without any mention of dangerous flaws in the strategic and tactical decisions made that nearly caused a firefighter fatality. To describe such an operation without any criticism is a disservice to your readers who trust a rigorous peer review process, which would flag mistakes and thus protect them from repeating the same fundamental errors.
The authors state: “Before the (first) line was stretched and operating, reliable neighbors reported people in the house.” Why, therefore, as performed at this fire, would a chief officer order the initial line stretched to the C side of the building in an attempt to extinguish the main body of fire at the first floor while also allowing two members from the primary search and rescue team to enter the front door and go above the fire by the interior stairs, without the protection of a charged hoseline and opposite the hoseline being used at the rear of the balloon-frame building? Sound tactics call for directing the first hoseline through the front door to protect potential occupants using the interior stairs to flee the building. This positioning would also guard firefighters going above the fire for search and rescue.
The focus on extinguishing the main body of fire at the rear led to dangerous consequences for firefighters inside the building. Additionally—without the authors’ or Fire Engineering comments—the two members searching above the fire in an area “fully charged with smoke down to the floor,” decide to split up to speed the search of multiple rooms. This is another tactic that violates the basic tenet of searching in pairs, the “buddy system,” to enhance safety.
Running low on air and encountering boarded-up windows are not uncommon on the fireground. These two factors were not the major reasons the captain transmitted a Mayday and became unconscious. A review of this fire operation should raise key questions as to why firefighting fundamentals were not followed—namely, why the captain was performing a search alone in an immediately dangerous to life and health environment, above the fire, opposite the attack line, and without the protection of a charged hoseline.
Instead of a required analysis of what actually went wrong, the reader is provided with an alternative scenario: “Had the line come through the front door and had this door been forced, it could have led to instant vertical fire spread to the upper floors, probably causing a flashover in the charged upper floors, trapping and killing the three firefighters searching.” Given the critiques I have presented, there is no reasonable possibility that ordering the first hoseline through the front door at this fire would have been the wrong decision.
The authors mention the Watts Street fire but only partly disclose what was learned. What was learned/reinforced from Watts Street (three-story, nonfireproof, multiple dwelling, one apartment per floor, fire on the first floor) is the importance of a charged hoseline (through the front door, protecting the interior stairs) ready and in position to attack the fire before venting the fire apartment front windows and forcing open the door to the fire apartment while members are using the interior stairs to search the floors above. We also realized (as noted by the authors) how important it is to control the door of the fire apartment during forcible entry operations.
The job of firefighting is getting more dangerous—not less. Time-proven strategic and tactical procedures must be employed to protect life, our number one priority. This includes the lives of firefighters. The authors’ claim that it was “sheer coincidence” (additional firefighter with a thermal imaging camera) that saved the life of the captain motivated me to write this letter. The lack of critical commentary on what decisions and actions led to the near fatality and what steps should have been taken may be responsible for these tactics reoccurring. Luck—not established firefighting principles—allowed this captain to survive a series of strategic and tactical errors on the fireground.
Ronald R. Spadafora
Assistant Chief
Department of New York
Jerry Knapp and George Zayas respond: We thank Chief Ronald Spadafora for his comments. This kind of frank and honest discussion is good for the American fire service and can only lead to safer fireground operations and reduced firefighter injuries in the future. As we discuss this fire scenario with other fire service leaders, we now understand converted private dwellings are a nationwide problem that will impact firefighters for years to come. Inspections in our town alone have shown that a huge percentage of what once were private dwellings (PDs) are now illegally modified and occupied structures.
The main point of the article was to highlight the issue that despite the best strategy, tactics, and skills of members, the numerous (actually limitless) dangers that these buildings present to firefighters may still result in firefighter injuries or deaths. Hazards include the following: the exterior size-up that conceals the actual occupancy; numerous locked doors that deny areas of refuge to firefighters; huge fire loads resulting from delayed hoseline advancement, slower search operations, a greater number of occupants with their furniture/belongings, and a lack of proper storage causing bicycles, flammable liquids, and other potentially hazardous items to be kept in already inadequate hallways; sabotage of fire stopping; exceptionally small rooms; fully occupied basements and attics; covered windows that conceal occupancies; illegal processes that may be run from the building; and any other modification that occurs to occupants/landlords.
We will address the concerns in the order in which Chief Spadafora presented them:
• The criticism of the operation was imbedded in the article and apparent to us, as evidenced by the fact that we shared our experience resulting in a member’s being injured. We described the operation because it was a strategy that any other fire department in the United States might have chosen. On our arrival, the fire was contained to the rear kitchen. The interior door of the kitchen leading to the middle of the home and the interior stairs was closed. Initial size-up revealed a limited one-room fire, which was best accessed through the rear door.
The chief officer, who is also a career FDNY firefighter, after careful size-up, determined that the best fire suppression strategy was to apply water directly to the fire in the most direct and quickest manner. There was an unobstructed route up the driveway to the fire—into the rear yard, through the exterior door, to the fire. The other option was to enter from the front porch, force the front door, push down the narrow hallway (the fire resistive plaster was covered with a combustible wood surface), force the interior kitchen door, and attack the fire. If this strategy was selected and there was a delay of water, fire would have raced up the interior stairs, and we would very likely have had our own tragic version of Black Sunday. Three members were searching the second floor. The larger issue here is that regardless of what strategy you choose, you cannot actually determine the best strategy until the fire is extinguished. After you see the unique conditions created by illegal conversions, it is only then that you are able to evaluate the strategy and tactics you chose. Firefighters routinely operate without complete information on the fire building in a normal PD. We must understand that in a converted PD, there is much more we will not know. Strategic and tactical decisions have to be made regardless. Sometimes they will be right, and sometimes they will be wrong.
• We absolutely agree that directing the first hoseline through the front door to protect potential occupants using the interior stairs to flee the building is the correct tactic if this were not a converted PD. We cited an example later in the article relayed to us by Tom Labelle, the director of the New York State Association of Fire Chiefs, of a second-floor fire in a converted (upstairs and downstairs apartments) farmhouse in which the interior stairs were closed off by a wall, making the fire inaccessible to the first line.
At converted PDs, we have to make a choice between using standard time-proven tactics (i.e., through the front door) or whether it would be better to get the fire knocked down immediately by a more direct route to the fire. Assume there is a standard floor plan that may lead you to use an ineffective strategy. The reality is that we will not know until the firefight is over. Sadly, we operate on incomplete information and must adjust our tactics and strategy accordingly on the fly.
As cited in the article, Captain Bill Gustin from Miami-Dade (FL) Fire Rescue responds to countless fires in these types of structures and has proven that there are times when the nontime-honored strategy, taking the most direct route to the fire, is the right choice. What we wanted the reader to take away from this article is that it is a judgment call, and you will not know if it is right until it’s over, when you can visualize the building.
Although we mentioned it only once in the article, a second hoseline was stretched through the front door soon after the first line was taken to the quickest route to the main body of fire. On arrival at the front door and first-floor hallway, firefighters saw no fire and made the correct decision, to go to the second floor.
The focus on extinguishing the main body of fire at the rear is not what led to dangerous consequence for firefighters inside the building. Fire was not driven beyond the room of origin; it was rapidly extinguished. As pictured in the article, the transom over the closed interior kitchen door was penetrated by approximately 40 one-inch holes. This was a very creative way to provide security and allow heat to flow upstairs. The products of combustion from the kitchen fire filled the upstairs with smoke through these holes in what once was a fire resistive wall.
Again, the main point of this article is that even if you do all the right things (in converted PDs), the outcome may be bad. The firefighter upstairs called a Mayday and immediately initiated the search for a window. The old window had been replaced with an energy-efficient window and then was covered with gypsum board to hide the single-room occupancy. Another original window had been moved to the corner of the room. When questioned, the captain said he did not even look/feel for a window there because he would not expect it to be in the corner of the room. Clearly, it was the combined illegal modifications to the building, not the strategy, that resulted in the near miss.
• The reason the captain and a firefighter entered the building to search alone in an immediately dangerous to life and health environment above the fire, opposite the attack line, and without the protection of a charged hoseline was that a reliable neighbor reported that persons were trapped.
When they reached the second floor, they intentionally split up to speed the search operation. Not all fire departments are staffed as generously as the FDNY. As they entered the building, they saw the line being stretched to the rear and assumed water would be on the fire. We agree that taking a charged line during the search operation makes it a much safer operation. It also slows the search drastically. The fact that this was a one-room fire that appeared to be contained to the room of origin made this search strategy seem a reasonable and a manageable risk when considering the possible gains.
• Regarding the statement “Given the critiques I have presented, there is no reasonable possibility that ordering the first hoseline through the front door at this fire would have been the wrong decision,” we don’t see a question of right or wrong here. The purpose of the article was to share what we did, right or wrong, to share the outcome (and other possible outcomes), and to make the readers consider what their departments would do and the consequences of that decision.
If the line went in the front door and was unable to reach the main body of fire, the fire would continue to burn and spread through the balloon-frame building, resulting in additional hazards to everyone on scene. It was a conscious choice based on the best information possible to directly attack the fire in the quickest way possible, thereby reducing the hazards to our members. How long would it take to back the line out of the hallway, out the front door, up the driveway around to the rear, and prepare for the fire attack?
• Concerning employing time-proven strategic and tactical procedures to protect life, … and the lives of firefighters, if we had used the classic, through-the-front-door strategy and one of our members were injured or killed, we would be criticized for not being able to think on our feet on the fireground, not accomplishing a proper size-up, and blindly applying a time-proven standard method or our standard operating guideline (SOG). Once again, the main point of the article was to make the reader think that the strategy for a single-family dwelling fire may not be the right one for an illegally occupied or illegally modified building that now houses numerous different hazards.
As a step to improve firefighter safety at these types of alarms, we included a comment from Lieutenant Frank Ricci suggesting more dependence on the vent-enter-search method. It was included to propose an alternative to the standard interior search and rescue plan. The article pointed out that unique hazards may need a nonstandard approach.
Interestingly, we have experienced the same lack of support from the legal system on these dangerous occupancies as FDNY has. As we are all aware, the landlord was acquitted of all wrong-doing in the Black Sunday fire. In our case, the maximum fine for the landlord is $5,000. This is a small price to pay for the collective monthly rent income derived from this converted dwelling.
Regardless of the reader’s position on the strategy and tactics used at this single-alarm fire, we hope the reader took these thoughts from the article:
- 1 Converted PDs provide new, limitless, unique, and deadly hazards to firefighters.
- 2 Time-honored house fire strategy (SOPs/SOGs) may not be appropriate because although the structure looks like a PD, it is not a PD.
- 3 The lessons learned from our experience.
- 4 Converted PDs (and other buildings) are a huge problem for firefighters and are found in every community in America.
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