ON FIRE | by MICHAEL N. CIAMPO
Row-frame dwellings have been around for hundreds of years. By now, these tinderboxes are dried-out hulls of lumber that will create a ferocious and rapidly traveling fire. These types of dwellings exist all across America, from the big cities to the small towns. Some may just be single-family homes, while others can house one apartment per floor, two apartments per floor, or even be cut up into single-room occupancies (SROs). Some may also have a commercial occupancy with heavy fire loads on the ground floor. They can vary in height from two stories to multiple stories; their width may be narrow, from 15 to 20 feet, and their depth can be 30 to 60 feet.
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Numerous styles of architecture may be found, with some featuring large tin cornices, cupolas, fire escapes, wooden gutters, one-story setbacks, and air and light shafts between the buildings. These various sized and shaped (square, rectangle, diamond) shafts may not be protected by any parapet on the roof. Firefighters must use caution when operating in periods of low visibility. In the past, members have fallen into these unprotected openings and been injured.
They all share one common feature: the common cockloft. That’s the area above the top-floor ceiling space that is a lumberyard of wood running over all the dwellings in the row. In some areas, brick nogging may have been placed into the dwelling walls or cockloft to prevent fire travel. Unfortunately, over time, the nogging’s mortar joints have disintegrated and allowed the fire to spread.
Incident 1
Responding to a report of a light fixture on fire in a third-floor apartment is a common run for many of us, but when we know it’s the top floor of a row frame, things can be quite different. Pulling into the block, we noticed that numerous buildings already had smoke pushing from their cornices. The signal for a working fire was transmitted, even without seeing visible fire, because of the potential of fire spread in these structures.
As the engine stretched a dry line to the front of the building, members stood fast until the truck gave an interior report of the fire conditions in the structure. There have been times before in which the calling party had smoke issuing into his home but the fire’s origin was in a different dwelling in the rows.
When the truck reached the top floor, paint was already blistering off the ceiling in the middle of the room where the ceiling fan light fixture was located. Before the hook penetrated the ceiling, members quickly lifted the mattress and stood it to the side of the room. Doing so prevents the falling and smoldering lath or embers from the wood structural members from igniting the mattress. As the members did that, the officer quickly opened the top dresser drawer and swept items into it to protect them.
Knowing the fire was already well-advanced in the ceiling, the members didn’t open up the immediate fire area. They went to the outside walls of the dwelling and poked inspection holes to see if the fire was already into the exposures.
Seeing the fire was already in the two adjacent buildings, the incident commander transmitted the second alarm. Hearing the situation unfold on the radio, the engine officer relayed back to the chauffeur to send a firefighter to the top floor with the bent-tip nozzle.
As the truck began opening up the fire room ceiling with the hoseline in place, they spotted another telltale sign of these old buildings: blue and green flames mixed in with the orange above their heads. With their luck, the building had old black pipe gas lines powering the light fixtures, which were the original means of providing light into these structures. Now, the need to shut down the gas meter had to be a top priority. When encountering this situation, we must realize that the gas meter may not be located in the basement any longer. If the building has been renovated or broken up into multiple occupancies, the gas meter may be in the apartment or even on an outside wall of the building. It may take a few minutes to gain access and locate it, but it must be shut down to limit the ferocity of the fire in the cockloft. The gas meter was quickly shut down and the hoselines stretched to the original fire building and two adjacent exposures, knocking the fire down before it took over the entire block.
Incident 2
Pulling out of quarters and seeing a plume of smoke in the sky as you begin your response can give you a pretty good idea that you’re going to work. Depending on the area you’re responding to in your alarm district, you may be able to determine what type of structure you’ll encounter. However, when large structures are built on both sides of row frames, you can expect to run into some other problems. Sure, taller brick structures built on both sides of some row frames seems like a natural fire block, but what about extension into these buildings through the windows?
Arriving on scene, we found fire was fiercely blowing out the cornices of three buildings in a short row of three-story row-frame dwellings situated between two five-story multiple dwellings. Hoselines were quickly stretched into the frames, while a deck pipe flowed water into the cockloft in an attempt to knock down the bulk of the fire and limit its spread. Unfortunately, it was a windy night, and the fire entered the taller exposure on one side. Now, multiple alarm companies had to stretch into the exposure to knock down the extension in numerous apartments. It took a while for units to open up and overhaul multiple areas in all the dwellings to ensure there wasn’t any hidden extension. The row was lost, but the brick survived.
MICHAEL N. CIAMPO is a 37-year veteran of the fire service and a lieutenant in the Fire Department of New York. Previously, he served with the District of Columbia Fire Department. He has a bachelor’s degree in fire science from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. He is the lead instructor for the FDIC International Truck Essentials H.O.T. program. He wrote the Ladders and Ventilation chapters for Fire Engineering’s Handbook for Firefighter I and II (Fire Engineering, 2009) and the Bread and Butter Portable Ladders DVD and is featured in “Training Minutes” truck company videos.
