“I WOULD DO THE SAME THING AGAIN”
FRANCIS L. BRANNIGAN
SFPE (FELLOW)
The Lake Worth Tragedy. Since we have family in Fort Worth, Texas, and I have lectured in that area in the past and will again in September, I felt the recent tragedy in which three firefighters died when a church roof collapsed in Lake Worth. I wrote a letter to the Fort Worth Star Telegram, which was never published. It expressed my thoughts on this and similar tragedies. I always ask myself the question “Could the incident commander honestly tell the family `the loss was truly justified`?” The main points covered in my letter follow.
Granbury, Texas, is not very far from Lake Worth, but there is a life-saving difference. Recently, Captain Scott Cook of the Granbury Fire Department led his firefighters into a burning building. Cook was carrying a $20,000 thermal imaging device, which registers heat. Cook directed it up at the overhead area and recognized raging fire above. He backed his crew out; in a few minutes, the roof collapsed.
As a 57-year veteran of all phases of fire protection, I can sympathize deeply with the chief of the Lake Forth Worth department; however, his published statement “I would do the same thing again” is simply not acceptable.
In the news reports, there is no mention at all of the fire department`s ever having studied this building in advance of a fire to determine its construction and estimate what might happen during a fire. First reports indicated that the roof was supported on trusses. For many years, it has been known that trussed structures, because of their construction, are firefighter killers; many fire departments are wary of them. Unfortunately, many believe that sawn joists are very much more reliable than trusses and can be depended on to give ample warning of impending failure. This is simply not true!
Gravity Resistance System. At all times, gravity is trying to pull down the structure. The builder put together a Gravity Resistance System (GRS). The fire attacks the GRS. Past experience is no adequate judge of how long the system will resist gravity in a building in which the structure–as distinguished from the contents–is burning.
Training is partially to blame. I am of the opinion that part of the responsibility for such disasters lies in the way firefighters are trained. Firefighters are enveloped in protective armor and are trained to fight real, but trifling, fires or, worse, Hollywood-style gas fires that can be killed at the touch of a button. The emphasis is on taking the punishment and “putting the wet stuff on the red stuff.”
The fire involves only contents. The training building is designed not to collapse and doesn`t have any places from which hidden fire can spring out on the unwary. The modest fire will not flash over or develop a backdraft and in no case requires more than a small hoseline.
Training firefighters in realistic situations is very hazardous. Fatalities and serious injuries have resulted when the hazard of a fiberboard interior was not recognized in an “available” building and when a foam plastic couch was ignited in a school bus chassis. In an excellent Los Angeles City Fire Department training film, the chief notes that despite experience and precautions, an officer was seriously injured in making the film. Firefighters need training that brings to their level of awareness the fact that the building is the firefighter`s enemy up to the level of “putting the wet stuff on the red stuff.”
This requires reading, studying, reviewing tapes and slides of building conditions, and preplanning or familiarization inspections of major buildings. There was no mention in the press reports that the fire department had ever looked at this building from what I think should be the firefighter`s perspective: “The building is your enemy; know your enemy.”
My heart has gone out to the families of fallen firefighters since my first “splendid funeral” at St. Patrick`s Cathedral in New York City in 1932. Six New York City firefighters were killed instantly in the basement of the opulent Ritz Tower Hotel, which had spared no expense in design, except for the installation of a sprinkler system in a paint storeroom in the basement.
WATER DAMAGE
After any fire, there is often much talk about “water damage.” Often the implication is that this is somehow the fault of the fire department. We should not let this go unchallenged when the facts indicate otherwise. “There is no water damage at a total loss.” The mere mention of water damage indicates that property was saved.
A little history. Fog nozzles were not used to any extent before World War II. The Navy`s use of fog nozzles sent many veterans into the fire service as enthusiastic proponents of the use of water fog. The Navy Fire Fighting Schools taught not only direct attack on the fire with handheld hose streams but also the indirect attack into large voids by dropping hoselines into the area to create a steam cloud that would extinguish an oil fire in the school`s engine room structure. If the first attempt did not succeed, we shut down and let the fire build up and heat up the steel more. In the second shot, the steam cloud was adequate.
At Fort McHenry in Baltimore, the Coast Guard established a Fire Fighting School for merchant seamen. Merchant ships did not have anywhere near the number of men available to fight fires as the Navy did, and cargo holds were huge, undivided voids, so the indirect attack from topside was a very useful approach.
Lloyd Layman, who directed this great school, popularized the indirect attack in the fire service after the war. As an outgrowth, there was great interest in determining exactly how many gallons of water it would take to extinguish a fire in a given cubic volume. Some enthusiasts advanced the concept that “if there is any water left on the floor when you are done, you used too much.”
One serious problem largely overlooked was that a firefighting technique that could give excellent results in a closed uninhabited void could be quite unsuitable, even deadly, for an area occupied by victims or firefighters.
In recent years, there has been a substantial movement back to smooth-bore nozzles. I`ll leave the rest of this discussion to others who are closer to the business end of a hoseline than I am.
WATER DAMAGE “PHOBIA”
Scientists are born with a fear of “water damage.” It seemed to me that those I encountered had the gut feeling that firefighters used water because they didn`t know any better. At the fire in the Princeton University Cyclotron in 1950 (essentially a fire in transformer oil), men who were geniuses in the physical sciences attempted to “inert” a huge void, which was open to the atmosphere, with CO2 extinguishers gathered up from all over the University. The Ph.D.s outnumbered the Btus, but it took a fire chief with no degree, who came 60 miles, to put out the fire.
Perhaps some of the situations I cite here will help you overcome unreasoned fears.
At a university under contract to the Atomic Energy Commission, the scientists were so concerned about excess water in case of fire that they had a major fire protection engineering firm design a system with the water flow designed down to the Btu content. This produced a requirement for 18-inch heads. The system had to be provided with Navy-type strainers to catch and flush particles that would clog such tiny orifices.1 There was no appreciation of the fact that fire loads only increase in any functioning organization. There was no rule limiting the increase in fire load. My comment was, “It isn`t a sprinkler system. It`s a tinkler system. It will only annoy the fire.”
In nuclear situations, another fear reinforced the basic dislike of water. Water is a reflector and moderator of neutrons, thus it can play a part in nuclear chain reactions. A gentleman came into my office to show me a hazard label for “birdcages” (see illustration below) used to ship fissile material (material capable of a spontaneous self-sustaining nuclear reaction). The label read “In case of fire, use no water.” I asked him if the package could be rained on or fall overboard. I already knew the answer. “No problem,” he replied. “Absolutely no hazard; however, firemen with those big hoses could pile up the containers and water moderate and reflect the neutrons, possibly causing a `criticality accident` (an unintended nuclear chain reaction).”
“Do you mean a bunch of firemen could accidentally build a nuclear reactor?” I asked.
“That`s right,” he said enthusiastically.
“Then how come it costs so much to do it on purpose?” I retorted.
The label idea was dropped.
At another research laboratory, the fire department stopped a fire at a plywood wall. If the fire would have breached the wall, enough radioactive material would have been dispersed to contaminate the lab out of business. Meetings were called to discuss all sorts of restrictions on research. I said, “Your business is research. You are cutting your throats. If you will properly sprinkler the buildings and keep out any explosives that could disable the system, you can have fires, but the damage will be limited.” Suddenly inspired, I shouted, “Automatic sprinklers give academic freedom.” They all stood up and cheered, and were converted.
Computer people were just as bad. In the early 1960s, some alteration work was being done on a big bank of IBM computers in the basement of the Pentagon. There was a low-density combustible fiber drop ceiling. A hot temporary lightbulb ignited the ceiling. A guard saw this happen and used the CO2 extinguisher, which was the only type provided for fear of water damage. In cases like this, CO2 does no damage, particularly to the fire. The fire roared merrily on, creating a major disaster. All the computers went to the dump, and the concrete concourse of the Pentagon collapsed into the basement.
In the early days of computers, sprinklers were absolutely forbidden. The Atomic Energy Commission provided an ENIAC (15,000 vacuum tubes) to the New York University Mathematics Department. It was housed on the first floor of a nearby building that appeared to be a duplicate of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire building. New York University was to take over the entire high-rise building over the years; in the meantime, the floors above were to be occupied by tenant factories of an industry described by insurance interests as a “high moral hazard.” I could envision a multialarm fire on an upper floor. I had the floor above the computer waterproofed and scuppers installed to drain any accumulation of water.2
In later years, all Atomic Energy Commission computer installations were fully sprinklered. The opposition was squelched by a movie I made with my friend and AEC`s top computer protection expert Don Keigher, SFPE (Fellow), later awarded the Lamb Medal by the National Fire Protection Association. Step by step, the movie disposed of the users` fears. A key part of the picture was footage of flame bathing a sprinkler head for 90 seconds (which seem like forever) before it popped. This disposed of their fear of accidental operation. We showed that water-damaged units could be recovered whereas fire-damaged units were junk. The movie was also used by major insurance interests.
Sprinkler heads were installed inside scientific machinery at Los Alamos National Laboratory because of the profusion of combustible tubing.
Some museum directors are almost paranoid about sprinklers. New Orleans` historic Cabildo, where the Louisiana Purchase was signed and which was a storehouse of historic artifacts, suffered a severe fire. I have a video in which the director says: “I talked with Chief McCrossen, and he said, `You know, if you [had] had sprinklers in this building, this wouldn`t have happened.`”
“I said, `Yeah, yeah!` I was trained that sprinklers and museums didn`t mix. To me, it was a no-brainer. Everything that was damaged by water has been repaired and is back on the walls. Everything that was burned in the fire is destroyed. We`ll never get it back. I`ll take my chances with water from the sprinklers any day.”
Many librarians get very upset at the thought of sprinklers, although they have no answer except “chemicals” when asked what they expect the fire department to use in case of fire. Many are convinced books won`t burn. When insurance interests conducted demonstrations some years later showing books burning, some felt the tests were rigged.
A number of municipal libraries are now sprinklered. An architect planning a new library asked the then assistant director of the Salt Lake City Library, “What do you like most about your library?” Her reply shocked him. “It`s sprinklered.” She went on to explain that libraries are public buildings. It is almost impossible to exclude anyone. With the sprinklers in place, a disturbed person with a grievance can`t destroy the library. Libraries are very vulnerable to arson. As many as 85 percent of recent library fires were caused by arson. The library executive is our daughter Eileen Longsworth, who is now director of library services at the Salt Lake County Library. All her new libraries are sprinklered. The collections of the Library of Congress are now sprinklered.
Don Keigher, whom I mentioned earlier, would tell objectors to sprinklers on the basis of potential water damage: “Of course, you are going to take out the toilets and water fountains. They have pipes that can break and are not tested to the 200 psi required of sprinkler pipes. They also do not have the alarm feature that will give notice of any water flow.”
Movies and TV shows have created the impression that all sprinklers go off at once. Find out if this fakery is behind the objector`s opinion.3
An important function of automatic sprinklers is prewetting–that is, the soaking of exposed combustibles so that they do not ignite. Shrink-wrapped stock, particularly when the wrap is over the top, inhibits prewetting and increases property loss. Why not stop using the derogatory term “water damage” and substitute the term “prewetting”? Why not stop using the derogatory term “surround and drown” and say “improvised sprinkler system” instead? We are throwing the water in through the windows because the owner failed to provide the necessary piping.
The building is your enemy. Know your enemy.
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A “birdcage,” used to ship fissile material, is made of heavy steel sections. The fissile material is placed in the container in the center of the cage. The heavy framework would prevent two containers from getting closer together than permitted. This is an ultra precaution. The probability of a criticality accident in such transportation is zero.
Endnotes
1. Fire mains aboard ship accumulate little organisms like barnacles, which can break loose during a high flow and clog fog nozzles. A strainer was provided at each hose outlet. If the water flow was inadequate, a lever was turned, and the water passed through the “catching” side of the strainer and flushed out the debris. Ships transiting the Panama Canal pumped their fire mains continuously. The fresh water killed the salt-water organisms and cleared the mains.
2. I have always thought it strange that many sprinklered buildings were provided with scuppers to drain off the water, but no scuppers were provided in nonsprinklered buildings. What did the designers think the fire department would use to extinguish a fire? A forklift driver ruptured a sprinkler riser in one of the Navy`s huge warehouses in Norfolk. As our firefighters broomed water to the scuppers, we discovered that the floors were consistently graded up to the scuppers.
3. A college classmate told of his buddy who “held a lighter to a sprinkler head and all the sprinklers went off.” I rudely stated the facts. At our 25th reunion, he said he was an Air Force colonel en route to take command of an overseas airbase. I thought, “They will show him a deluge sprinkler system in a hangar, and he will want to look me up and punch my nose.”
Fire Protection Engineering
There is a strong national and international demand for fire protection engineers, especially those who combine solid academic training with practical fire experience. Men and women with strong backgrounds in math and science find fire protection engineering a satisfying and rewarding way to help solve the nation`s fire problem.
The University of Maryland offers the only fully accredited bachelor`s of science program in fire protection engineering in the United States. This program combines scientific understanding of fire with training in advanced fire modeling, detection, and suppression technology. Graduates of high schools in southern states as far as Texas and, possibly Delaware, are charged “in-state” tuition rates. Some students can serve as live-in members of local fire companies and save room costs while getting practical experience. As volunteer firefighters or EMTs, they are also entitled to tuition reimbursement. There is a strong market for graduates. For information, write to Steven Spivac, Department of Fire Protection Engineering, 0151 Engineering Classroom Bldg., University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-5051; (301) 405-3992, or visit them on the Internet at
Francis L. Brannigan SFPE (Fellow), recipient of Fire Engineering`s first Lifetime Achievement Award, has devoted more than half of his 57-year career to the safety of firefighters in building fires. He is well known for his lectures and videotapes and as the author of Building Construction for the
Fire Service, Third Edition, published by the National Fire Protection Association. Brannigan is an editorial advisory board member of Fire Engineering.
