MORE ON “WEIRD” FIRES
RANDOM THOUGHTS
Last month we “fell in” on cellar fires; this month I want to share some additional comments on these and other types of fires no one talks about.
Cellar fires in private dwellings (remember. we handled the oil burner and are now talking about structural fire) fall into two categories, based on building construction: platform construction and the dreadful balloon construction.
Entrance to the cellar is most efficient, productive, and protective from the interior of the first floor. Our goal is to protect the interior stair to the living floor of the onestory dwelling and the open interior killer stairs to the upper floor(s) of multistory private dwellings. Get down the stairs to the cellar floor as rapidly as possible after si/.eup.
The two-or-more-story private dwelling has an additional risk factor that almost all multiple dwellings do not have. The stair to the second floor is usually directly over the one to the basement; and, it is generally unprotected wood directly exposed to the heat and flame trying to extend up and out of the cellar stair shaft. If interior attack is possible, get the ventilation support you need and plenty of relief forces.
The fire/life problem multiplies when the conditions found prevent us from descending to the cellar floor. Here we still must protect the occupancy from the cellar door on the inside while the firelight momentarily shifts to outside attack, at least to knock down the heavy heat and flames. The rest of our team is searching horizontally in onestory, and above the stair shaft in secondfloor bedrooms of larger private dwellings. Without this aggressive charged line in position. this effort may be too dangerous to undertake.
Remember, what we are talking about here is a minimum of three immediate handlinesinside and down the cellar stair it possible, a backup line for all the reasons you can surmise, and a third charged line atthe-ready located just outside for any shift in strategy and for vertical extension should any be reported. Commitment of this standby line mandates that another be stretched and manned immediately—no catch-up here, either.
As I said, balloon construction is a nightmare. These old. dried lumberyards contain hundreds of vertical voids that extend directly from the cellar to the attic space. Products of combustion can enter any of them and rapidly extend to that or any other space. Openings in walls on any floor become a flue for flame and its related extension to that space. At a “good,” well-involved cellar fire, extension to the attic (at the least) is assured.
Tactical problems and the firefighters needed all at once to overcome them are manyfold. Interior flrefight demands at least two lines to the stair opening on the first floor, an additional line for every occupied floor in the structure, and a line for the attic. The roof must be opened immediately—at the ridgepole of the highest attainable gable.
Note: Roof operations may be delayed in platform constmcted peak roof dwellings but not in balloon construction! Interior search and fire extension are your guess—fire can break out almost anywhere and be roaring within any wall. There are sometimes narrow secondary and third staircases, some that skip living floors (such as old servants’ stairs). Many walls and ceilings must be opened and examined. Heavy fire in cellars of these buildings usually requires the transmission of additional alarms or mutual aid early, if not right away!
Cellar fires in multiple dwellings also fall into construction categories, depending on how responsive the building and fire codes are in your area. The concern for fire safety in these structures forced changes in the way they were built in the 1920s and 1930s. (Prewar we will call “old law” and post-World War I we will call “new law” for the purposes of our discussion.)
Old law usually has combustible flooring throughout and an interior cellar entrance under the stair to the second floor, as well as some sort of exterior entrance from the front and. in some cases, from the rear also. Herein lies the key to firefight decision making and life protection and removal. As always, get a handline into the first-floor public hall: irrespective of fire conditions in the cellar. here is where the first line must go if we are to call ourselves professional lifesavers. The door to the cellar almost always must be forced. If conditions allow, descend and operate while ventilation efforts on the outside of the cellar and at the roof level improve those conditions. If unable to descend, close the forced door and protect the interior of the first floor and the staircase. The line is the most important lifesaving tool on the foreground for the trapped public above and for the firefighters fighting a path to them.
The interior stair protected, stretch lines and enter the cellar from the exterior entrances. Often two lines in tandem will be needed because of the amount of fire and the many fire splits that storage in these areas creates. A fourth line may be stretched to a second exterior cellar entrance; but its operation must be controlled by command, and it should never oppose the interior attack line(s).
Because of construction features in older America, a fourth line should be ready to be stretched to the top floor. Service shafts (dumbwaiters) terminate open at the cellar location, and fire can rapidly extend to and mushroom in cockloft spaces and in the topfloor apartments. (More on dumbwaiter fires later.)
New law construction facilitates this operation. There are no interior cellar stairs—all entrances to this space are from outside (there may be as many as three or four). A second plus is that the first-floor flooring is noncombustible and generally of good integrity. Here the first attack lines are stretched to the interior cellar from the exterior entrances, generally at grade level on the sides and rear of these structures. The exterior entrance from the front is usually down a half-flight of stairs from the sidewalk. Good preplan, experience, and command/communications will dictate the best position of initial operations.
The nightmare of cellar fires can be overcome by all the basics of firefighting gained after many years of experience with these structures, but no one said they would be easy!
