DEVIL’S ADVOCATE

BY FRANCIS L. BRANNIGAN, SFPE (FELLOW)

BRANNIGAN AT FDIC 2000

As a result of one of those inexplicable errors by mysterious creatures we called “gremlins” during World War II, my presentation was not listed in the preliminary FDIC 2000 program, causing some to think that I had “shuffled off this mortal coil.” No such luck, truss promoters. I’ll be there with a brand new program.

For some time, I have been disturbed by firefighters who tell me that they had a course from my book but no instruction on Chapter 2, “Principles of Construction.” This chapter is vital to the proper understanding of the subject. Some instructors, I am told, dismiss it as too technical.

Errors in terminology by fire service personnel can cast serious doubt on otherwise good recommendations and can get them in real trouble if testifying in court. More important is the necessity of understanding the basic principles so they can analyze the hazards of a new construction material or method.

I have, therefore, arranged to give a seven-hour illustrated program (two 3_1/2-hour sessions) on Chapter 2 of Building Construction for the Fire Service, Third Edition, at FDIC 2000 on the mornings of March 1 and 2.

I am not an engineer who has simplified the complex topic of building construction but a firefighter who has learned the principles (but not the mathematics necessary for building) by self-study and tutoring. I will pass on what I have learned over the years, and what I am still learning, in the program. Class attendees will benefit from reading Chapter 2 as preparation for the classes.

THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE

When a person is proposed for sainthood, the Catholic church used to appoint an individual who came to be referred to as the “devil’s advocate.” His job is to dig up even the slightest bit of information that might cast doubt on the candidate’s character. I think a fire chief who proposes a standard operating procedure (SOP) that might have serious repercussions needs a devil’s advocate to attack the recommended policy. Here, I will be the devil’s advocate.

I recently read an article in which a fire chief proposed an SOP on two in/two out that provides that no rescue attempt be made until six firefighters are on-scene and the incident commander (IC) authorizes it. No mention is made of an exception for situations in which persons are known to be in peril.

What will the fire department’s position be when victims are heard screaming for help and citizens, unhampered by Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rules, rush in and make a rescue or die attempting one while firefighters are complying with their SOP? All this would be recorded on a neighbor’s camcorder.

There will be an uproar. The chief cites OSHA rules. OSHA cites its exception. The city and the chief personally are sued. The fire department and the fire service nationally get a black eye. Don’t doubt that it will make the Today show and, on his evening news show, Tom Brokaw will intone, “Firefighters are everybody’s good guys, risking their lives to save others-but maybe not anymore ….”

Let’s try another scenario. Suppose some firefighter complains to OSHA about making a rescue without two in/two out. OSHA conducts its required investigation and possibly fines the fire department. The chief talks to a couple of influential friends. Suddenly, a fund drive is announced to pay the fine. That also makes the news. This time, however, the fire department comes off looking good, and the publicity might lead to a congressional investigation.

What will happen if a firefighter disobeys the SOP, makes a rescue, and is disciplined or fired? Napoleon, so the story goes, gave a medal to, and then shot, an officer who disobeyed an order with very successful results. But a fire chief isn’t Napoleon.

George Santayana told us that those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. Some years ago, a midwestern fire chief very active in fire service circles had a problem with ambulance service. People who lived in an area that had a subscription ambulance service were calling for his free ambulance service because they didn’t want to pay the subscription. This was unfair to the taxpayers supporting the fire department. When an ambulance was called to the subscription area for a woman with a serious health problem, the chief stopped it on the apron. The woman died. There was public outrage. His SOP rebuttals fell on deaf ears. His wife and children were abused, and the very taxpayers whose interests he thought he was protecting hounded him out of his job. One fire service leader very familiar with the case was disgusted with the fire chiefs who failed to rally to his side despite his long service to the profession.

DISMISS THE RIT?

An SOP provides for dismissing the rapid intervention team (RIT) when respiratory protection is no longer required at a fire. Some departments totally dispense with breathing apparatus when overhauling. This can be a mistake. Many smoldering materials, such as pressure-treated wood, can emit significant quantities of toxic gases. The RIT should not be automatically released. A number of fatal collapses have occurred during overhauling.

A case in point is presented in “Don’t Be a Victim of the ‘Routine’ Fire,” by Bob Moran¹ Several members of the Englewood (NJ) Fire Department were incapacitated by CO poisoning when they removed their SCBAs when overhauling a basement fire. Fortunately, they recognized the symptoms and got out just in time.

TENSILE IMPACT LOAD PULLS DOWN PARAPET: UPDATE

We generally think of impact loads as being delivered in a downward direction. But a hard, sudden pull can also be an impact load. This story is from WNYF²

At a fire in a taxpayer (strip mall), the pressed steel (often called “tin”) ceiling was electrically energized. All personnel were withdrawn until the power company arrived to cut the power. The power feed was a heavy cable over a long distance to a masthead, a pipe attached to the building’s parapet. When the cable was cut, the heavy cable dropped, placing a substantial impact load on the pipe. It overturned and brought the parapet down with it. Fortunately, the electrical condition had caused the area to be cleared. Such masonry parapets are somewhat precariously erected on steel I-beams. Parapet collapses have killed many firefighters.

Some years ago, New York City firefighters were operating at a furniture store that had been a nickelodeon. There was a short cantilevered canopy. When the interior support failed, the canopy pulled down the entire parapet. Six firefighters died; one of them was a substantial distance from the initial failure.

I have photos of a fully involved theater fire. The area was cleared. When the marquee came down, it pulled many feet of the parapet with it.

The WNYF article also notes that the operator of an aerial ladder had received an electric shock when moving the truck to make room for a tower ladder and had not reported it. Any indication that electricity is out of control should be reported to command immediately. In an excellent WNYF article, Deputy Chief Vincent Dunn (ret.) stresses the necessity of feeding hazard information upward to the IC. He cannot see everything or know all circumstances.&sup3

ANOTHER ESCAPE FROM DEATH BY ELECTRICITY

In New York City, a wall collapse draped charged electrical wires over a tower ladder. Firefighters in the bucket assumed the “Attention position,” touching nothing. The operator jumped from the rig, thus providing no path to ground. Stepping off has been fatal. Rescue Company 5 cut the wires.

Do you have a fallen wire drill for your firefighters? All should be trained; any firefighter might be assigned to ride the bucket.⁴ In the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), despite our excellent safety record, we suffered a number of electrocutions. Almost all involved contact between cranes and overhead wires.

MORE ON ELECTRICAL HAZARDS: UPDATE

Be sure to study the excellent article “Electrical Hazards Warrant Firefighter Vigilance” by Metro-Dade Fire Department Captain Bill Gustin.⁵ He delineates many nonobvious ways in which electricity can start fires and seriously endanger firefighters. Any “slight” indication of electrical malfunction is cause for concern.

When I joined the AEC in 1949, a personnel type was preparing fire instructions. One item was “Turn out the lights.” I asked, “Why?” “Electricity is dangerous,” was the answer. He was really surprised when I told him that the electricity was still in the walls. When I told him that firefighters would probably turn on the lights, he asked, “What for?”

A CHURCH FIRE LESSON: UPDATE

“Landmark Church Lost to Fire” by Char McLear in the May/June 1999 issue of the NFPA Journal⁶ provides a number of useful lessons.

Like so many churches, the main sanctuary was directly connected to the school and office facilities without the installation of any fire barriers. Literally all the eggs are in one basket. I have often pointed out that “light smoke showing” is usually the prelude to a serious situation. The following is quoted from the article: “Reaching the second floor, they noted that the smoke was still extremely light and that there was no heat …. In the last room they checked, a storage room located directly over the south door, the crew discovered black smoke pushing in a narrow stream from the strike hole in the door jamb.

“Alarmed by the smoke, which was apparently pressurized in the walls, the firefighters immediately turned to leave the building and found themselves immersed in floor-to-ceiling black smoke. Fortunately, they remained oriented and were able to feel their way to the stairway. They had been on the second floor for about 45 seconds.”

In years past, before the prevalence of plastic contents, the sudden development of a great volume of heavy black smoke was generally an accurate presignal of a backdraft. Black smoke today may simply be coming from plastics. In this case, it was a presignal. Two backdrafts occurred; they were violent enough to blow down 1,400 pounds of wire lath and plaster ceiling and push firefighters down the stairs and out the door.

The article reports that the fire was started by a heat gun workers were using to strip paint from the exterior of a stained glass window. A generation ago, I wrote the newsletter “The Burning Question” for the National Catholic Welfare Council and other church groups. Its focus was church and school fire safety. I once wrote that redecorating a church had the same loss potential as a skilled arsonist’s attempt to burn the church. This provoked a most indignant letter from a church decorator who had never had a fire in 25 years of doing this work. Within a year, a major fire occurred in one of the churches he was redecorating.

The fact is that any construction work or redecoration of an existing building can create significant hazards. These hazards have been responsible for major fire losses.

By coincidence, the September/October issue of the NFPA Journal tells the story of an Illinois church destroyed because a heat gun used to remove old paint had been left plugged in and sitting on scaffolding.⁷ The fire penetrated the siding and moved through all the interconnected voids of the balloon-frame church. This hazardous condition forced an evacuation, and the fire destroyed the church.

There was no mention of a preplan in the “Landmark Church” article. Such a survey would have shown the interconnections and the potential for disastrous spread. I believe that such a scenario should be shared with the property’s management. In the short term, it is doubtful whether any physical improvements could have been made, but the management would have become aware of the necessity for being super cautious about the causes of fire.

It would be worthwhile to ask during the survey if any construction or restoration work is contemplated. Fire departments should be alert to newspaper articles about the projected renovation of a major building. Such work should be preceded by a conference among the management, the fire department, and the contractor in which potential hazards are uncovered and precautions outlined before the contract is finalized. Once the contract is finalized, any changes the fire department wants will be costly extras.

ALTERATION HAZARDS

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We learned about this hazard in 1946 at Navy Norfolk when we found a contractor who was replacing a collapsed fire wall supplying gasoline by gravity to his air compressor from a 55-gallon drum erected on a high wooden stand within the building. The building, a huge warehouse, was filled with $70 million (1947 dollars) of war reserve critical equipment. General Motors learned about alteration-related fire hazards in 1953 when a minor contractor’s cutting torch started a fire that destroyed the company’s Livonia, Michigan, transmission plant. There have been many more such cases.

We should expand our inspections from just reporting existing hazards to include an appraisal of potential future hazards. I have photographed serious hazards created by sprinkler contractors who were retrofitting sprinkler systems.

A plywood wall separated a large-scale construction operation with all its hazards from the maternity wing of an unsprinklered major university hospital. The only precaution visible was a sign that read “Pardon our dust.”

At the Los Angeles Interstate Bank high-rise fire, a firefighter found the standpipe out of service because retrofitted sprinklers were being connected to it.

An AEC plant suffered severe multiple casualties when the workers were permitted to grind down welds on the top of a tank when a manhole was open. Sparks ignited the flammable and caustic contents. Eighty-seven people were injured. Some injuries were aggravated when personnel on-scene allowed victims to remain in the caustic solution because of the general instruction that victims should not be moved until first aid personnel arrived.

WELL DONE!

This was written some months ago and was mislaid in my computer. It is still valid.

In 1988, six Kansas City (MO) firefighters died in an incendiary fire and explosion at a construction site. Recently, five people were convicted and sentenced to life without parole for setting the fire to conceal thefts from the site.

I don’t know any of the details, but I am sure that some unsung dedicated public servants spent long hours of official and personal time building a most difficult case-i.e., arson/murder-and convincing the court of the heinous nature of the crime⁸

In our national mania to deny guilt, far too many are willing to say, “They (arsonists) didn’t mean to kill anybody-just to burn the building-and they are truly sorry.” One of our “best films,” Save the Tiger, starring Jack Lemmon, paints a sympathetic story of a failing businessman who resorts to arson to save his business. One of the lines was, “The torch guarantees nobody will get hurt.”

Many years ago, I addressed a chief’s convention at a Catskill Mountain (NY) resort. The entertainment that night was a comedian who told one commercial arson joke after another, such as, “Congratulations! I heard you had a successful fire” and “Shhh! The fire is tomorrow night.” The fire chiefs laughed uproariously. I was disgusted. Thomas P. Brophy, chief fire marshal of New York City, a consummate psychologist, trained me in arson detection and prosecution. He saw arsonists as creatures who are devoid of any redeeming features. I absorbed his point of view and added to that category smart-aleck teenagers who make bombs for “fun.”

In 1953, I was monitoring the radio transmissions of the Fire Department of New York-Manhattan. In a phenomenally calm voice, the 7th Battalion aide reported, “We have the fifth, sixth, and seventh floors of a loft⁹ building fully involved. By orders of Chief XXX, transmit a second alarm.”

The Police Safe and Loft Squad, which specialized in commercial burglaries, was involved in the trial of a gang of known burglars who had been hired to burn a loft. They decided to keep the arrests to themselves and did not notify the fire marshal. They watched the burglars carry cans of gasoline into the building and spread the gasoline around the floor. They then collared the arsonists in the hallway. One of the arsonists asked if he could get his coat. Wanting to destroy the evidence, he threw a match, causing a massive explosion that killed an arsonist and a detective. Brophy would have bagged the arsonists as soon as they brought in the gasoline and would have been satisfied with a conviction of attempted arson.

The owner was convicted of arson/murder and sentenced to die. The great crime fighter-turned-governor, Thomas E. Dewey, commuted the sentence on the basis that “He hadn’t intended for anybody to die.” THE BUILDING IS YOUR ENEMY. KNOW YOUR ENEMY.

Endnotes

1. “Don’t Be a Victim of the ‘Routine’ Fire,” Bob Moran, Fire Engineering, Oct. 1999, 99.

2. “What Brought the Parapet Wall Down This Time?” F. J. Miala, WNYF, 4:1999, 12.

3. “Reporting Life-Threatening and Life-Saving Information on the Fireground,” Vincent Dunn, WNYF, 2: 1999.

4. “A Dangerous Combination-Overhead Wires and the Tower Ladder,” Charles R. Bleich, WNYF, 2: 1999.

5. “Electrical Hazards Warrant Firefighter Vigilance,” Bill Gustin, Fire Engineering, Oct. 1999, 69.

6. “Landmark Church Lost to Fire,” Char McLear, NFPA JournaI, May/June 1999, 102.

7. “Heat Gun Ignites Church Walls,” From Our Files, Kenneth J. Tremblay, NFPA Journal, Sept./Oct. 1999, 19.

8. If you can supply the names of the investigators, I will be delighted to mention them in this column.

9. In New York City, a “loft” building is one in which space is rented to tenant manufacturers or other commercial operations.

FRANCIS L. BRANNIGAN SFPE (Fellow), the 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.