Newly Created Department Provides Full Services at Fire
A $500,000 fire involving townhouse units, garage facilities and autos occurred just 12 days after the Orange County, Fla., Fire Department was created last Oct. 1. Before the fire was extinguished, the new department organized available resources well enough to provide a wide range of supplementary services, including questioning witnesses, documenting ignition factors, meeting with the press, setting up a relief center for displaced residents, and beginning to inventory and store salvaged property for residents who were still at work or out of town.
The scene of the fire was the Carlton Arms Apartments at Semoran Blvd. and Aloma Ave., in an unincorporated area of the county near Orlando and Winter Park. Fire protection, however, is the responsibility of the Orange County Fire Department, with mutual aid from departments in those adjacent towns and in Seminole County.
Began as auto fire
A fire in the engine compartment of an auto in the garage facility serving the apartment complex quickly spread to the auto interior, then to the roof of the 167-foot-long, undivided wood-frame garage. The flames then jumped 30 feet to one section of the apartment complex containing 12 townhouse units. This two-story, ordinary construction building measured 192 X 45 feet.
The fire was caused by the ignition of leaking gasoline which spewed throughout the engine compartment. Ignition was attributed to normal arcing which accompanies the cranking function of a spark-operated internal combustion engine. Raw gasoline was exposed because the carburetor was missing from the engine. Either the carburetor had been stolen or was removed for some maintenance procedure. However, the owner could not recall contracting for the removal of the carburetor for any reason.
Delayed alarm
Interviews indicated that the owner, an elderly lady, went to the garage shortly after 9 a.m., inserted the key into the ignition and tried to start the engine. Black smoke immediately issued from the engine compartment. The owner, who could not move quickly because of disabilities, left the garage and headed for her apartment on the second level to call for help. Shortly after she left the scene, employees and tenants of the complex were alerted to the fire by the auto horn which became grounded. The fire by this time had worked its way into the passenger compartment and was licking at the roof rafters and ridgeboard of the long garage.
Attempts to control the blaze with hand extinguishers proved futile. Calls were put into the apartment complex office to determine whether the fire had been reported or not. Simultaneously more residents of the complex began to become aware of the fire. It was at this time that the telephone switchboard at the fire alarm office began to light up with multiple calls.
There were initial complaints from citizens that fire department response was slow. A response time of up to 30 minutes was claimed by some. However, fire department dispatch tapes indicated that the alarm was received in Orange County Dispatch at 9:23 a.m. The first-due apparatus, Engine 63, arrived on the scene at approximately 9:28. Investigation into the basis for these claims showed that apparently the fire had burned for some time before being reported to the fire department. Time estimates indicate that perhaps the delay was from eight to 15 minutes.
Engine 63 and Rescue 63 responded from their quarters and saw that a large smoke column had already climbed into the bright morning sky. Mitch Floyd, newly appointed chief of communications, had been doing some work at Station 63. The activity and the pointing of the crew members as they left quarters drew his attention. Floyd had previously been a chief officer in fire suppression. He jumped into his vehicle and followed the apparatus to the scene, asking fire dispatch how far away the District 3 chief, John Bowman, was. When Floyd determined that Bowman was farther away, he assumed command. Upon arrival, he immediately struck a second alarm. Eventually the fire was commanded by Deputy Chief Doug Bressler and Assistant Chief of Operations Don Harkins, assisted by District Chiefs 3 and 4.
Protect exposures
The volume of fire completely overwhelmed the resources of the first-due apparatus. These units attacked the main body of the fire in an attempt to accomplish a bit of a knockdown and reduce the building thermal column and radiant heat buildup. Second-due Engine 64 was ordered to approach from the opposite side of the fire from Engine 63 and attempt to cut off the fire spread. Aerial ladder equipment from the cities of Orlando and Winter Park provided service to the east and west of the townhouse and garage units. Advancement of hand lines into the west part of the townhouse unit was made difficult because of a park-like maze arrangement to the west of the entrances. There was no easy or immediate access to the roof or entrances of the townhouse units by preconnected hand lines because apparatus could not readily approach.
Even as the fire was being extinguished, the fire loss management bureau of the Orange County Fire Department, headed by Captain Ed Jones of District 1, had started investigation into the ignition factor and product ignited. Jones assigned Lieutenant Inspector Micheltree to the detail of pinning down the cause. Immediate calls were put out to the Orange County Sheriffs Office for technical assistance. Likewise, the Florida Fire Marshal’s Office was notified. A task force approach is used for fires of suspicious origin or large fires.
Simultaneously, Jones established an interrogation/interview area in a recreation room near the fireground. Any witnesses or persons having any information concerning the fire were brought to this room for debriefing. Sheriffs Office investigators, with notary power, provided skilled interrogators and an orderly chain of evidence, should the latter be required at a later date. Before the fire was extinguished and overhaul accomplished, the team of investigators had established the ignition factor, the product ignited, and documented the chain of events with photographs and written documentation.
Relief center
Residents who had become displaced were attended to by EMS Chief Frank Montez de Ocao. In another nearby recreation room, he established a relief center in cooperation with the local American Red Cross. Relatives and friends who arrived on the scene after hearing media reports were referred to this center.
A security area was established on the west side of the fire structure. Jones put Lieutenant Inspector Bob Elliott and District 1 office secretary Linda Lockwood in charge of inventory and disposal of salvaged personal property. As overhaul was accomplished in a section of the building, a police officer and fire officer would accompany the occupant, after proper identification, into the safe areas of the building to arrange for salvage. Undamaged furniture and personal effects were placed in orderly arrangements on the lawn within a roped-off secure area. Thousands of dollars of jewelry and cash were carefully located and inventoried under police and fire supervision.
Absent residents
The overhaul and salvage operation was complicated by the fact that some of the townhouse occupants were at work when the fire started. It was also determined that some had left town early for a long weekend. This complicated the security problem for property undamaged by fire but in apartments damaged and open to the elements.
Jones arranged for these items to be carefully inventoried, tagged and loaded into pickup trucks. The items were then taken to another large storage room in the complex where they were secured out of the elements. The threat of rain increased later in the day. Relief combat fire fighters, recruits brought in from the fire academy and members of the fire loss management bureau worked with apartment complex employees in attending to the salvage.
At the height of the fire, media personnel began to filter onto the scene. The role of the public information officer for the fire department was assumed by James Fitzgerald, fire department project coordinator.
The salvage problem points up the need to arrange for the debriefing of witnesses, relief for the fire victims and reasonable salvage of personal property. Security and order must be maintained when dealing with this property.
Twelve townhouses and 11 autos (including a reconditioned vintage Corvette) were destroyed or heavily damaged by the fire, and 20 persons were left homeless. One fire fighter was overcome by smoke and heat; another was treated for minor burns.
