BY JAKE RIXNER
On December 7, 2002, a three-alarm building fire in Richmond, Virginia, reinforced basic firefighting lessons for seasoned veterans and taught new firefighters lessons in courage and endurance.
At 0422 hours, a male caller reported trashcans on fire at the rear of the building at 320 West Grace Street and fire extending into the basement. The alarm was transmitted at 0422.51 hours, sending Quint Companies 6, 5, 12, 1, 18; Rescue Company 2; and Battalion Fire Chief 1 into the cold dark streets.
At 0424 hours, another fire alarm was transmitted for a building fire approximately 20 blocks north of the Grace Street fire. The fact that there were two fires and that one company was out of service because of a lack of personnel caused some unusual box assignments and some hazardous responses in that apparatus were approaching intersections from different directions.
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Quint 6 arrived on-scene at 0428 hours and reported trashcans on fire on side 3 with extension into the basement (see photo 1). The balance of the assignment arrived within the next two minutes, and all hands quickly went to work on the occupied four-story multiple dwelling.
Rescue 2 was caught on Monroe Street when Company 5 followed it into the block; Company 6 came in from the opposite direction. This placed the rescue in front of side 2 of the building. Quint 18 ran a 11/2-inch 350-foot line to the rear of the building and met Quint 12 and Rescue 2. All three companies forced entry and advanced two 11/2-inch handlines down the stairs. Conditions were good in the public hallway; the doors to the fire rooms were shut.
A firefighter from Rescue 2 forced the door to the boiler room, and conditions quickly deteriorated. Handlines were advanced into the boiler room, and two rooms of fire were rapidly knocked down. The balance of the assignment was busy conducting a primary search and evacuating the four-story building. A bank of fire-damaged electric meters and a very large gas-fired boiler with plenty of pipes and electrical conduits overhead hindered normal overhaul operations in the fire rooms. It appeared as though the fire was under control until units searching the second floor approximately 10 minutes later reported fire in the walls. For the second time that night, the battle was on.
The fire building was constructed in 1913 as a four-story brick and joist, type III apartment building. It was 150 feet 2 60 feet (see photo 2) with 12-foot plaster and lath ceilings that were later lowered to eight feet in the apartments and 10 feet in the public hallways. The lower ceilings were a combination of acoustical tile and gypsum board.
Handlines were advanced to the second floor, and individual quint companies had to perform engine company operations and the physically demanding tasks of opening up walls and ceilings (truck work). The fire was concentrated in a pipe shaft behind the kitchen and the bathrooms in apartments E and F (see Figure 1 inset). As companies operating on the second floor were gaining control, fire was reported on the third and fourth floors in the same apartments. The captain of Engine 5 assumed the interior sector and requested multiple lines to floors 3 and 4.
SCENE DETERIORATING
Battalion Chief Robert Creecy was the incident commander and was receiving numerous requests and reports on fire spread within the structure. He was assigning companies to work in what seemed to be a deteriorating scene.
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Some companies were exiting the building for their third air cylinder and were rapidly becoming exhausted; Creecy struck the second alarm at 0507 hours. This brought Quint Companies 14, 17, and 11 and Rescue 1 to the scene. Additional attack lines were placed in service, and company officers were issuing good reports to Creecy on progress and structural stability.
Creecy was considering withdrawing the crews about 30 minutes into the incident, but after receiving “good feedback” from the lieutenant in Rescue 2, the captain on Quint 12, and the lieutenant on Quint 18, Creecy believed the crews were starting to get a handle on the fire. The building was built with solid masonry load-bearing walls and true dimensional lumber.
Early in the incident, there had been some confusion about floor numbers (see photo 3). The first attack group had been calling the initial fire floor the basement. When fire was reported on the second floor, Creecy thought he was sending assistance to what was in fact the third floor. The outside appearance was of a “French” basement (partly below grade) with three floors above. The apartments on the lowest floor were numbered 1a, 1b, and so on. Each floor above was numbered in the same fashion: 2a, 2b, up through 4a, 4b, and so on. This confusion was quickly cleared up through good communications by the interior sector captain on Quint 5.
In a temperature of 20°, the poorly dressed occupants watched from a vacant lot across the street as the smoke worsened. Despite managing a dynamic interior operation, Command requested that a city bus be brought to the scene so the displaced occupants could keep warm and administrative personnel could use it as a rehab sector.
Quint 18 was pulling the ceiling in the kitchen of Apartment 3F when the lieutenant observed the smoke condition wors-ening and starting to move rapidly under pressure in the bathroom adjacent to the kitchen. He called for the nozzle to come to the bathroom doorway when the smoke lit up. The fire gases and the introduction of oxygen by way of the newly pulled ceiling in the kitchen caused a small smoke explosion. Fire enveloped the firefighter on the nozzle and the officer for a brief time but was beaten back by the hose stream.
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As the bathroom fire was being knocked down, the officer observed fire above a fluorescent light fixture in the public hallway. For the first time, the fire was out of the pipe shaft and running the concealed space above the drop ceiling in the public hallway. The line was repositioned, and the nozzle firefighter was instructed to use hoseline pressure to hydraulically remove the drop ceiling to determine how far the fire had spread. This was done, and a 10- 2 10-foot area of fire was extinguished. Command was informed of the fire’s extension into the hallway; companies operating on other floors were asked to check for the same type of extension.
THIRD ALARM
A third alarm was struck at 0521 hours, to relieve companies that had been actively fighting fire for almost an hour. This brought Quints 13, 15, and 20 and Rescue 3 to the scene. Third-alarm companies relieved crews on existing hoselines, and the spent firefighters were told to go to the rehab sector. Even though most units had spent the air in four cylinders, the firefighters were reluctant to give up after coming so close to winning this tough battle. Company officers had to order many firefighters into rehab.
Quint 11 and Rescue 1 stopped the top-floor shaft fire and the fire in the cockloft area under the flat buildup roof. Quint 11 advanced another line up a congested stairway to the top floor to aid units operating there. They were able to stop the cockloft fire through sheer bull work and old-fashioned tough interior firefighting.
Assistant Chief Alvin Mosby arrived at 0530 hours and consulted with Creecy. Mosby knew the fire building well, since he had been in the fire prevention division in the 1970s and had inspected the building many times. Mosby knew the building was well-built with true 2- 2 12-inch floor joists. This information allowed firefighters to engage in interior firefighting operations that lasted for an hour and 30 minutes.
The fire was finally declared under control at 0642 hours. As the sun rose over the city, tired companies picked up frozen hoselines from the street and returned from a hard night’s work.
- Trash fires next to buildings sometimes set the building on fire. Fires in basements sometimes set the trash outside the window on fire.
- Dispatch incident information should be used as general information: Firefighters should keep open minds relative to what to expect on arrival on the scene.
- Rescue companies and other support apparatus must be careful not to block the street in front of the fire building. This blocks placement of aerial apparatus.
- It is important to identify floors accurately and verify floor numbers. What we had been calling the basement was numbered #1 floor on apartment doors.
- Quints have limited space for attack lines; therefore, adjustments must be made. Lines more than 200 feet had to be pieced together. This takes time and delays starting the water.
- Check pipe chases and shafts with thermal imaging cameras. During this incident, more than 10 minutes had elapsed from initial fire knockdown until the discovery of fire extension into the shaft.
- Fire departments using quint apparatus must assign someone to throw ground ladders and do other truck tasks. Not one single ground ladder was placed at this fire.
- Do not advance more than two handlines up any one staircase. Once the third line is up the stairs, advancing any line forward becomes a problem.
- Preincident knowledge of the building is important. Knowing the building construction features directly relates to firefighter safety with regard to time spent inside the fire building.
- Twenty minutes and out isn’t the rule on all fire buildings.
- Concealed spaces allow fire travel and provide a place for explosive gases to accumulate.
- The more void spaces in a building, the more truck work is needed to expose these areas to access and suppress the fire.
LESSONS LEARNED
JAKE RIXNER, a 24-year veteran of the fire service, is a member of Kentland 33 in Prince George’s County, Maryland and is an instructor at FDIC.
