Additional insights to firefighting challenges
Francis L. Brannigan, SFPE
Port Republic, Maryland
I wish to add comments to several excellent articles that appeared in the March issue of Fire Engineering.
“Odor of Smoke” by Frank C. Montagna. By coincidence, as I was reading this article, a fire in a fraternity house at the University of Florida was announced over the television. The house mother had smelled smoke, found nothing, and had gone back to bed. A frat member, hearing the smoke detector, went upstairs to “disable” it. Seeing smoke, he evacuated the building. There was a raging fire in the attic–another case supporting my recommendation for detectors in attics of dwellings. Raging fire overhead can go undetected.
Some years ago, a sump pump overheated in a high school during evening classes. The principal immediately sounded the fire alarm, and 2,000 students, mostly adults, evacuated. A huge crowd gathered. When the source was found, some [person] got on the radio and informed the dispatcher, “Smoke scare–unnecessary alarm.” The message was repeated over the radios of the dozen pieces of apparatus present, giving several thousand citizens [the impression] that the fire department is not to be bothered until flames are coming out the roof.
Smoke may be friendly or unfriendly; it is the fire department`s job to make the diagnosis. We don`t abuse the person whose chest pains turn out to be gas instead of a heart attack.
Get rid of the term “unnecessary alarm.” Nothing we do is unnecessary. There are fires and malicious false alarms; all other calls are emergencies. A citizen was in some type of trouble, and we handled the problem–whether a high-angle rescue or the smell of smoke. It will certainly look better on the annual report. Does any other department report any part of its work as unnecessary?
“Pyrolysis Danger in Housing Development” by Randall D. Larson. Many years ago, there was a fire in the wooden flooring on one of the floors of New York`s high-rise federal office building. One of the fire service`s greats, Chief Fire Marshal Thomas P. Brophy, said it was due to pyrolysis caused by a steam line laid close to the wooden stringers set in concrete on which the wooden floor was laid. Officials, who were thinking of some mysterious type of sabotage, scoffed but finally opened up the floor above, as Brophy had suggested. The same condition was found there and on a number of other floors.
Rescue Company: “Tools and Equipment for Specialized Rescue” by Ray Downey. I would add the following to the section on cutting concrete: Never, never cut a tendon in tensioned concrete. It cannot be cut with bolt cutters, so beware of any call to cut “cables” with a torch. Cutting such a cable could cause a disaster. The Prestressed Concrete Institute and the American Institute of Architects have rejected the request of the Demolition Contractors Association to permanently mark such buildings. For further information on the generally unrecognized hazard of this very different tensioned concrete, see “Cutting Tensioned Concrete” on page 359 of my book Building Construction for the Fire Service, Third Edition.
