Five Separate Fires Found But Arson Is Not Suspected
It was 18 degrees below zero last Jan. 4 when the Elbridge, N.Y., Fire Department responded to a call on a furnace problem in a mobile home. Soon separate fires would be discovered in five units in the same area. Fortunately there was little wind and no snow falling during the day-long operation.
Elbridge is a small community on the western edge of Onondaga County, 10 miles east of Auburn, in central New York State. At 7:11 a.m., the Onondaga County Control Center alerted the Jordan and Mottvilie Fire Departments under a planned automatic mutual-aid program with Elbridge.
The alarm was in the Champion Mobile Home Park, one of the town’s newest parks, on the east side of the fire district. There are about 85 trailers in the complex, with an estimated occupancy of 250 persons. Four of the Elbridge Fire Department’s 50 members live in this park.
Roger Shalala, one of these men, heard the alarm on his home alert radio and saw smoke showing on two trailers just up the street. He instructed his wife, Linda, to telephone fire control and report a working fire. Assistant Chief Louis Taylor arrived on the scene and also reported a working fire.
Separate fires found
In a matter of seconds three other widely separate trailers became involved in fire. It was apparent that there was a major problem, and efforts had to be made to keep the park from becoming totally involved in fire.
Fire fighters assisted three persons from their burning trailers. Other families had evacuated, most in their night clothes. Smoke detectors alerted most of the families to the fires. “We had a lot of smoke detectors going,” said one park resident. “If it was not for the detectors,” a second resident said, “probably six people would have died.”
A cal! was made to the New York State Gas and Electric Company to turn off the electricity in the area. The utility, using remotely controlled switches, deactivated the grid containing the troubled park. Area residences, of course, also lost electricity. This was a critical problem on a subzero morning. A local utility line crew arrived and isolated the park’s electric service from the grid, then had the power restored to the rest of the grid. Power was off to all homes for about one hour, but electricity remained off in the park for about eight hours.
Kerosene fuel
The park has an underground master fuel system, instead of each trailer having its own fuel storage tank. Kerosene is fed to each trailer from the park’s 10,000-gallon storage tank.
A command post was set up by Elbridge Captain Fred “Flash” Gorham in the rescue truck.
“Flash was my right-hand man and half of my left,” Taylor said. “A command post should not be occupied by any more people than necessary,” Taylor added.
Background chatter and distractions were kept to a minimum. There were just three men at the post in addition to Gorham: Deputy Fire Coordinators Richard Beach, Clark Motondo and Owen Haney.
With five fires in different parts of the park, the mutual-aid companies needed further assistance. Plainville, Memphis, Camillus, Skaneateles, Weedport, Marcellus and Lysander were requested to send additional men and equipment to the scene. Water had to be hauled from hydrants in the village, 3 miles away. In spite of the extremely cold weather, there were no serious problems with the equipment. There were no injuries from the fires or the fire fighting.
The individual fireground sectors were handled by the officers of the different fire departments. Fire fighters work better with their own men and equipment, commented Taylor.
The park’s layout is ideal for apparatus placement, command post operation, staging areas for apparatus, and ambulance holding areas. The roads are wide (for a trailer park) and they double back into a two-way entrance driveway.
Residents evacuated
Taylor made the difficult decision to evacuate the park entirely. This was made for the safety of the residents and the fire fighters.
The New York State Police and two off-duty state troopers assisted. The school district sent two school buses for the residents. Some also left the park in their own cars. However, the command post knew where everybody went. A ribbon was used to mark each evacuated trailer. Names or social security numbers of the evacuees were kept at the command post, along with their destination. This information was also used for security when people returned during the day to get some belongings. Some of the evacuees went to the elementary school in the village, and some went to the homes of friends or relatives. Persons from burned-out trailers went to the fire station.
The American Red Cross sent out the area disaster team. They were ready to house the victims in local motels, but this action was not needed.
The 20 members of the Elbridge Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary, as a matter of policy, go to the Fire station on all working fires. They were ready to receive the victims. Other local auxiliaries assisted in this massive effort, sending food and coffee to the scene. They also had a hot meal ready when their fire fighters returned. The Elbridge auxiliary coordinated all the meals served at the school. School employees responded to the evacuation center and donated their time. The town government picked up the tab for the food and beverages purchased.
Each unit checked
While actual fire extinguishment was being carried out by the various departments, a trailer-by-trailer inspection schedule was set up. A team from Elbridge turned off the individual electric power feeds to each trailer, and also noted the conditions found in each unit. A check-off sheet was kept at the command post. About a dozen trailers were found to have furnaces overloaded with kerosene, including Shalala’s, at lot 41.
Power was restored to the park (about 3 p.m.) one unit at a time as park employees relighted each furnace. A team of fire fighters with portable extinguishers was standing by at each activation.
Residents were allowed back into the park about 5 p.m. Due to the extreme cold and loss of electricity, about 20 trailers had frozen water supply lines. Park personnel repaired the damaged lines.
The Onondaga County Cause and Origin Team was called to the scene. When Investigators Mike App and John Perkins saw the magnitude and complexity of the investigation, they summoned other members of the team. Interviews and preliminary investigations were started that afternoon. As a matter of policy, a preliminary report was filed with the district attorney’s office. The D.A. reviews cases on a daily basis. He gave top priority to this case and assigned Investigator John English to concentrate on this matter.
English called upon various agencies for assistance. The National Fire Protection Association and the National Petroleum Institute in Washington, D.C., assisted through telephone consultations. Two local engineers and a dealer in heating systems assisted with expertise in fuel oil heating, fuel oil delivery systems, heating systems and safety controls.
The investigation at the park revealed the following information. All fires occurred in the furnace areas. Other furnaces were found to have large quantities of fuel in the base of the furnace and in the return air duct. (Most mobile home furnaces have the return air ducts and the warm air ducts running under the floor between the frame beams, and running up to the furnace.)
A common link between the troubled trailers was sought. The furnace makes were different. The fuel pumps on the burners were different brands, and the safety controls were different makes and styles. ‘Phis eliminated any common link with the furnaces.
So, the search was extended to the outside. There three common denominates were found. The first was was that electrical supply for each trailer came from a common park-wide distribution system. The second was that they all used the same fuel, kerosene. The third was that they used a common fuel distribution system.
Furnace tested
One of the furnaces involved in a fire was sent to a testing laboratory in Albany. A test was run on the electrical components of the furnace system. One theory at the time of the fires suggested an electrical “brown-out” in the area of the park. The electrical utility said that no such brown-out had happened. Testing of the furnace components in a brown-out condition showed that they functioned properly until the voltage dropped below 80 volts. Then the safety controls shut off the unit. This condition of shutdown is no different than when it is in the normal off cycle. So a possible electrical malfunction was ruled out.
The next common denominator was the fuel. Testing revealed that kerosene and only kerosene was in the park’s underground tank, standpipe and delivery system. The possibility of a more volatile substance in the system was ruled out.
The third common denominator was the park-wide fuel delivery system. Fuel is pumped from an underground storage tank into the base of an 18inch-diameter, 14-foot vertical standpipe tank. Fuel rises to a predetermined level inside the tank, causing a head that pressurizes the underground fuel delivery system at about 3 to 5 psi at the individual furnaces. Fuel flows out of the standpipe by gravity and into the distribution system.
Switches
There are three ball float switches on the outside upper part of the standpipe. The lowest is a low-level alarm switch. It rings a bell in a nearby storage shed. The middle switch is a pump activation switch. This switch energizes the pump in the underground tank when the fuel level drops in the standpipe due to demand from the park’s trailers. The top switch is a high-level cutoff switch. In order for the pump to activate, this high-level switch must be in an electrically closed condition.
An overflow pipe runs from the top of the standpipe and back to the underground storage tank. It is the same diameter as the feed line. This pipe also serves to bleed off the trapped air from the top of the standpipe when the fuel level rises. The underground tank is vented to the atmosphere.
English checked three other trailer parks in central New York that have similar fuel delivery systems. Park managers reported no trouble ever with the system. Some called it a “fail-safe” system.
Higher pressures
Tests of fuel pressure were made at various lots in the park at the furnace intake. Pressure in excess of 3 psi was found at Shalala’s residence, at lot 130 and at the remainder of the sites where there was either a fire or fuel was found in the base of the furnaces. Lot 135 (which had no problem) disclosed a partial fuel starvation. This was due to being in an elevated part of the park. The rest of the park is lower, flat and level. Other lots where no problems occurred had about 3 psi.
The testing company in Albany also checked the test furnace’s fuel system. It, and the others, rated to 10 psi. The fuel nozzles are rated to deliver .6 gallon per hour under normal operating pressure. More than a gallon of fuel was found in the bases of the troubled furnaces. At normal operating pressures the burner would have to leak for over two hours to release this quantity of fuel. The subzero temperatures all night long before the incident meant that the furnaces had little rest. A test was run on the furnace at 18 psi, and fuel poured from the burner.
One common factor that set the problem sites apart from the remaining sites is that the unaffected sites had a small pressure regulator on the individual trailer fuel hook-ups. A pressurization of the park’s fuel delivery system beyond the rated operational limits of the heating equipment could cause the situation found the day of the fires.
The theory
By the time this possibility came into view, many days had elapsed. The fuel supplier had cleaned the system and the weather had moderated.
Reviewing the weather factors just prior to the incident, the following theory was developed. The warm kerosene from the underground storage tank was placed in an unprotected steel vessel (the standpipe), buffeted by subzero temperatures. Similar to the way moisture forms on the outside of a cold drink glass on a hot day, moisture formed on the inside of the standpipe. This possibility caused the high-level cutoff switch, above the warm kerosene, to freeze in the closed position.
The moisture also extended down the overflow pipe, where it puddled in a 90-degree elbow just below the ground. The overflow pipe has a slight incline from this elbow to the final elbow into the top of the underground storage tank. The moisture froze and partially or totally blocked the return pipe. This in turn developed a system-wide overpressurization as the pump supplied fuel beyond the consumption of the park. Eventually the blockage was dislodged and the problem ceased—but not in time to prevent the disastrous fires.
Very unusual weather conditions knocked out two safety devices on the park’s fuel delivery system. The overpressurization came quickly. In the trailers that had the fires, this overpressurization came during or just before the burn cycle of the furnace. The other furnaces were either in the blower run cool-down cycle or in the off cycle. In these units fuel spilled into the base of the furnace and into the ducts.
This was one of the strangest incidents ever experienced by the more than 100 fire fighters involved, who spent a cold January Sunday in Elbridge.
