FIRE IN A QUEEN ANNE
BY BOB PRESSLER
Every town has one of those old homes on the main drag–a cross between Gone with the Wind and the Addams Family.
Commonly known as Victorians or Queen Annes, these houses present one of the toughest fire problems that an incident commander will face in a private dwelling.
Photo 1. Heavy fire shows from the first and second floors of the rear porch of this 123-year-old home. Smoke shows out the side windows as the fire rapidly spreads to the upper floors. The fact that this home was built on a hillside made the home 212 stories in the front but at least 312 stories in the rear. From ground level to the attic area in the rear was more than 40 feet. This made operations in the rear extremely difficult.
Photo 2. From the front, heavy smoke is seen pushing from both the second-floor windows as well as the windows in the tower or cupola. The first-arriving companies are on the scene and are starting to go to work. The engine company is stretching handlines while the truck company is laddering the building with portable ladders. As IC, where are your priorities? What facts do you know about the building and the fire?
First, examine the fire building. You know the house is one of the oldest in the town and has all the fire protection deficiencies common to these structures, including probable balloon framing as well as open pipe chases that most likely run unimpeded from the basement to the attic. Fires that originate in the basements of these homes will normally extend to the attic area via these two recesses.
Another avenue of fire travel is the open staircases. Many of these homes had two staircases, a main one in front and a second one in the rear for the maid or servants. Sometimes this rear stairway will run from the first floor right to the third floor or attic.
Frequently, these stairways are finished in wood. Any fire that enters the stairwell at the lower level is basically entering a wooden chimney.
Another common construction feature is a large room with high ceilings. The high ceilings can sometimes make heat conditions within the rooms hard to judge.
Attics, if finished for use as living areas, will have void spaces above the ceiling area and behind the walls. This space behind the framed-out walls is commonly referred to as a knee wall. Any fire extending upward via the outside walls into the attic area frequently will spread into this hidden space. Companies operating in the attic area will be subjected to high heat and heavy smoke conditions as they search for this hidden fire on the top floor.
Other areas of the home may also have undergone substantial renovations over the years, giving the fire more avenues to spread unchecked. Originally built as single-family homes, many of these houses were changed into two- or multiple-family dwellings. The age and features of the home, coupled with the heavy fire condition, make this a very hard fight to win.
At first glance, from the front of the building, the main body of fire appears to be on the second floor. As companies gain access to the fire building, they encounter smoke and heat at the first-floor level. The color and volume of smoke showing at the upper levels indicate a serious, rapidly spreading fire. If your initial response is somewhat light in personnel, now is the time to call for additional companies. Fires in these buildings require extensive personnel to chase and expose the fire as it spreads upward through the numerous voids.
Fires in these homes also require an adjustment in your ventilation practices. In most house fires, horizontal ventilation is the first choice. By removing glass from the fire building, you increase visibility, reduce heat and smoke conditions, and generally increase the survival time for any trapped occupants. Vertical ventilation is often an afterthought unless the fire is located in the attic or finished area in a peaked-roof building or the fire is in a flat-roof structure. But, because of the numerous vertical avenues for fire spread, you should perform vertical ventilation as soon as possible. Open the roof at the highest point and over the rapidly extending fire. If the exact location of the fire is not evident, place the ventilation hole near the main staircase so that the effects of the opening improve conditions in the stairs. This will help the companies as they advance to the top floor.
Take care when operating on the roofs of these buildings. Many originally had cedar shingles on just furring strips as a roof deck. During renovations, they were frequently removed and replaced with plywood or boards. Occasionally, the original roof system may have survived in some places, resulting in a less-than-safe area in which to operate. If possible, ventilation crews should work from the safety of an aerial or tower ladder platform.
Photo 3. Fire is now visible above the roof at the rear of the building. Whether it is from the top of the rear porches or has burned through the roof in the rear is not easy to determine. Smoke generation from the second floor at the front of the house has slowed down, or it is just drawing toward where the fire is now venting. The smoke starting to push through the shingles at the front of the roof indicates that the fire has now spread into the attic and has a good hold in this area. If the fires on the lower levels have not at least been contained, the fire has won! The fire that has recently entered the attic will spread unchecked throughout this large, undivided area, without sufficient topside ventilation to prevent its horizontal advance. The fire on the lower levels will prevent placing companies (if the additional help has arrived on the fireground) on the second and third floors. Without these companies in place to expose the fire in the void spaces, the fire will continue to spread unchecked until the entire building becomes involved.
Like many fires in these older homes, this fire destroyed most of the interior of this building. These fires require a rapid re-sponse of sufficient personnel to operate multiple handlines on several floors as well as additional personnel to provide ventilation and to operate on the interior to try to expose any hidden fire. Preplanning these blocks in your district and having these resources responding on the initial alarm, if possible, will give your department a better chance at mounting a fire attack that might just work.
BOB PRESSLER, a 23-year veteran of the fire service, recently retired as a lieutenant with Rescue Company No. 3 of the Fire Department of New York. He created and produced the videos Peaked-Roof Ventilation and SCBA Safety and Emergency Procedures for the Fire Engineering video series “Bread and Butter” Operations. Pressler has an associate`s degree in fire protection engineering from Oklahoma State University, is a frequent instructor on a wide range of fire service topics, and is a member of a volunteer department.
