By Raul A. Angulo
Do your firefighters prefire at EMS calls? Preincident surveys or “prefires” are usually reserved for large commercial buildings, hospitals, factories, and other complex buildings with unusual structural features or high life hazards. Though commercial and industrial fires are dangerous, many of these structures are sprinklered and have automatic fire detection systems. We typically do not prefire single-family residential occupancies, but perhaps we should. The majority of fires, rescues, injuries, and fatalities occur at single-family residences or multiple-family occupancies, hence these may in fact be the most dangerous buildings we respond to.
- Preincident Planning for Special Events
- Are You Preplanning Your Buildings?
- Preincident Size-Up Practices
- Construction Concerns: Preincident Plans
Residential house fires are one of the more dangerous fires we fight because many newer homes have an open floor plan. In such cases, except for the bedrooms, there is no compartmentation, and the common areas are wide open, allowing for heat, smoke, and flames to travel freely throughout the structure, often without any fire detection or extinguishing systems. The majority of R3, single-family occupancies do not have sprinkler systems. Though many fire service organizations are proponents of residential sprinkler requirements, the politically strong building and construction lobbyists resist it. Just check your own residence. How fast would a fire spread in your house? Could your family become easily trapped? Do you close the bedroom doors at night? Is there an open stairwell to the second floor? The fact of the matter is that residential construction isn’t built to suit firefighters. Houses are built to sell. Buyers like the “great room” and open concepts. They like everything to flow around the kitchen and the family room. Unfortunately, so will the fire.
One of the deadliest case studies in fire behavior is the Keokuk (IA) fire. On December 22, 1999, this house fire resulted in the deaths of three children and three firefighters. The fire began on the first floor and quickly spread to the second floor, trapping one adult and four children. The adult and one child were able to escape the flames through a window, but the other children didn’t make it. Two died in the hospital after being rescued and the last child, a seven-year-old female, died at the top of the stairs in the hallway. But note where the firefighters died. One firefighter died in the first-floor living room. The second firefighter died in the upstairs master bedroom, and the third firefighter died next to the little girl on the second-floor hallway at the top of the stairs. When you look at the pictures of the structure from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) report, the fire doesn’t look much worse than a training fire. It wasn’t even a grounder. It was your typical bread-and-butter house fire and yet it claimed six lives! Why?
Many firefighters fail to recognize how dangerous residential fires really are. They go in with a false sense of security thinking, “It’s just a routine house fire.” Exercising extreme caution is usually reserved for commercial fires. Yet when flames directly involve lightweight trusses and floor joists, residential roofs and floors can collapse without warning in as early as two to five minutes! Don’t let your firefighters fall into that trap. Fire Department of New York Battalion Chief (Ret.) Frank Montagna says, “There is no such thing as a routine fire.” (Responding to Routine Emergencies, Fire Engineering Books) So, if this type of fire is the most dangerous, why don’t your firefighters prefire them? Well, they certainly have the opportunity to do so—every time they respond to a house on an EMS call, except they’re providing first aid. Typically, firefighters are not a prefire mindset, but every EMS incident is an opportunity to plan for a fire.
According to the NFPA, about 76% of the calls we respond to are EMS. Day in and day out, we are entering the most dangerous buildings in our districts. Sometimes we visit the same house two or three times a week! What’s the usual response when the bell hits and that familiar “frequent flyer” address comes in? Most likely we take a deep breath, disguise our irritation, smile, and greet the patient—again—with our best bedside manner.
Consider this question: Do we truly get excited about EMS the way we do about fires? No. What’s the response of the oncoming shift when we tell them “We had 10 aid calls after midnight!” Usually they are not hoping for a repeat tour. Now, imagine their response if we told them “We had 10 house fires last night!” EMS is often treated like the bastard child of the fire service, however it has become our bread-and-butter call to justify fire department budgets. Today, fire and EMS are joined at the hip. We must be good at both. But let’s be honest: EMS will never compete with the thrill and excitement of fighting a fire. Isn’t that the reason we joined the fire department in the first place? We joined to fight fires!
EMS: Getting the Inside Scoop
One way to get a fresh perspective towards EMS calls in your fire department is to suggest that company officers take the opportunity to prefire the residence. Most basic life support calls have some down time after the patient has been transported. The officer can ask a family member if they can look around to preplan. They are usually more than happy to accommodate this request. In fact, they are genuinely often appreciative that their fire department is willing to show concern for their personal safety and for protecting their property. If the company officer is smooth, this EMS call can end on a positive note with a friendly home fire safety survey. It’s great for public relations, but the real benefit is for your firefighters. They have a convenient opportunity to become familiar with another house in their district. The officer must use common sense. Cardiac advanced life support or violent trauma calls are not the times to ask family members who are emotionally upset if they can look around and prefire the residence. However, the company can discretely take in vital information of their surroundings without anyone noticing and discuss it after returning to quarters.
Many homes are hidden from view for privacy by fences, hedges, and other protective landscaping. The only opportunity to discover that these residences even exist may be when you respond to an aid call. Some homes have long, narrow driveways or other construction features that will be tight for engine apparatus and impossible for trucks. Other homes may have steep, pitched roofs that can only be accessed by aerial ladder. If the ladder truck can’t make it down the driveway, crews must consider employing several ground ladders and alternative ventilation methods. Maybe split lays will be required for water supply, as well as extended lengths of attack lines to reach the basement, top-floor bedrooms, and the attic.
What’s the fire load like? What’s stored in the basement? Is the furniture made of plastic or wood? Are there hardwood floors or carpeting? Are the walls painted gypsum board, or covered with wood paneling? Are the occupants old or young? Ambulatory or non-ambulatory? All these factors will impact the fire and initial company actions. Somebody should be taking this information in and making a mental note.
Again, use common sense and be sensitive to timing. I have found that when I ask permission and explain the challenges their house presents to firefighters, residents are more than willing to let us look around and lay hoselines (dry) right up to the front porch. If the officer is concerned whether a ladder will reach a certain window, why take the chance and hope? Instead of eyeballing and guessing, the crew should put the ladder up. The ladder can be gently placed against the house without causing any damage, thus removing any doubts. Again, most homeowners are very accommodating and gracious that your crews are even willing to take the time to ensure the personal safety of their family. (Just keep the hoses out of the flowerbeds).
Prefires take most of the guesswork out of the emergency, and shed light on the unknown factors within the structure that can throw firefighters a curve ball. It just depends on how much they’re willing to get out there and “know” their districts. Just like the “frequent flyer” patient they see on a weekly basis, they already know what to expect. The goal here is to be just as confident and deliberate when they respond to that same house for a fire. They will already know what to expect.
A Test Case
Let me end with a personal success story. We had a lady in our district we saw on a regular basis, such that everyone could immediately recognize the address on the alarm printout. Besides having a plethora of medical problems, including chronic emphysema, this lady was obese. Due to her size, we knew it would be impossible to pull her out of a fire. To make matters worse, family members were hoarders. They had a labyrinth of papers, clothes, and junk; it probably required a permit for high-piled combustible stock. You name it, they had it. An interior search would be dangerous because piles of debris would certainly fall over on top of entry teams. Finally, after years of seeing her, I decided to risk offending the family and asked if we could prefire their house. I was polite but firm, offering the prediction that a fire in their house would be difficult and dangerous to fight and would probably lead to fatalities. It was for their benefit and ours if we knew what to expect. They graciously agreed to let us look throughout the house and apologized for the mess.
My driver checked their smoke detector and discovered it was missing a battery. We carried batteries on the rig specifically for this occasion. We don’t advertise free batteries, but we’ll always replace them when they’re low, dead, or missing. We left the house convinced that if they ever had a fire, the grandmother would die and the children wouldn’t have a chance. It was just a matter of time before they had a fire in this death trap they called home.
Our Plan
The three children slept in the first-floor bedroom in the A-B corner of the house. Our obese patient (the grandmother) slept in a hospital bed in the B-C corner bedroom on floor 1. The parents of the kids slept downstairs in the basement bedroom. There was an interior stairwell from the kitchen to the basement, as well as an exterior entrance on the C side.
Knowing an interior search and rescue through the labyrinth would be extremely dangerous, our plan was to break out the large bedroom window on the A-B corner and get a line in there to protect and rescue the kids. The truck company would have the assignment of rescuing grandma by using a chainsaw to cut out the B-side of the house. They would have to go through the siding and the studs, create a ramp, and make the rescue from the exterior. The remaining two adults could be rescued from the C side, rear basement entrance. After the primary search and rescue, we would transition to a defensive strategy and let the house go.
We didn’t have to wait long. Two weeks later, shortly after midnight, the bells hit and my driver immediately yelled out the address. This time, the tones were for a structure fire. We knew where we were going and we knew what to expect. From blocks away, we could see the large column of smoke confirming a working fire. While en route, I was able to relay to the responding units our prefire plan:
“Engine 33 to responding units, this is a one-story, 30 x 50 foot, wood-framed house with a basement. The interior is extremely congested and dangerous due to excessive storage and hoarder conditions. We have known children in the first-floor bedroom, A-B corner. Engine 33 will be laying an attack line through the front window of that bedroom to effect rescue. Ladder 12, you have an elderly, nonambulatory, obese patient on floor 1, B-C corner bedroom. Access the room by making a door from the B-side exterior perimeter of the house to gain access to the occupant for rescue. Engine 28, we have two adults living in the basement. Access from the lower-level exterior entrance on the C side.”
Upon arrival, we had flames blowing out the entire first floor. I thought for sure we had fatalities. As it turned out, the adult residents approached us with the news that everyone was out of the house. The children were safe and the grandmother was transported to the hospital earlier in the week and wasn’t home at the time of the fire.
The children were alone upstairs at the time of the fire, but the kids and the parents were awakened by the same smoke detector my driver decided to check 14 days earlier. The cause of the fire was food on the stove. A pot was left on a hot burner and ignited a kitchen towel left on the stove. The house was a total loss.
This incident happened two weeks before Christmas and made for a nice public relations story for Engine Co. 33 because we replaced the battery in the smoke detector, which was responsible for saving the family’s lives. We had discussed an escape plan with the family, but no one figured it would come into play in two short weeks. No one was injured or killed. That was the best Christmas gift ever. The community rallied around the family and it made for a worthy holiday charity crusade.
But the real story was that was my crew was ready for the worst-case scenario with no surprises. We developed a preplanned strategy for rescue and fire attack and it worked! That was a great feeling. Prefiring the most dangerous building on EMS calls pays big dividends. This is a win/win strategy for the rescue of occupants and the safety of firefighters.
Raul Angulo is Captain Emeritus (Ret.) of Ladder Co. 6, Seattle (WA) Fire Department. He has more than 40 years of experience and is on the editorial advisory board for Fire Apparatus and Emergency Equipment magazine. He is the author of the new textbook Engine Company Fireground Operations 4th Edition, (Jones and Bartlett Learning) and the soon to be published Ladder Company Operations on the Fireground, and has been teaching at FDIC International since 1996.
