FOUR FIRE FATALITIES
BY FRANCIS L. BRANNIGAN, SFPE
For years, I have been preaching the concept “The building is the firefighter`s enemy–know your enemy.” Several recent fatalities can be attributed to the inherent hazards of buildings. The purpose of this column is not to assess blame but to provide information in the hope that similar tragedies may be averted. In both of the incidents discussed below, adequate prefire planning and hazard analysis might have prevented the tragedies.
I suggest you read the complete official reports; more factors than just building construction were involved in these incidents. Read the facts, discuss them, and ask the hard question: Could our department suffer the same fatalities?
The reports, “Floor Collapse Claims Two Firefighters” (Pittston, Pa., March 15, 1993) and “Wood Truss Roof Collapse Claims Two Firefighters” (Memphis, Tenn., December 26, 1992), were prepared for FEMA by J. Gordon Routley of Tridata Corporation and are available from the USFA National Fire Data Center, 16825 S. Seton Avenue, Emmitsburg, MD 21727.
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INCIDENT ONE
The fire building was one of a group of four similar buildings about 100 years old and, as is typical of such buildings, had been altered and realtered over the years. The standard 25-foot span of brick and wood-joisted buildings was provided by 3 ¥ 10 wood joists. The fire building was about 140 feet deep. There was a street floor, a cellar, and a subcellar. Neither the cellar nor the subcellar was accessible from the interior: this meant 140 feet deep, one way out, interior areas. None of this information was available to the incident commander because no prefire plan was available.
The power supply to the Vision Center on the first floor was run, in conduit, along the bottom of the first-floor joists. It appears that the wiring overheated and slowly destroyed at least one floor joist. Smoke from the basement may have vented through an old chimney flue.
The alarm was reported about midnight. Arriving firefighters found lazy gray smoke coming from eaves over the storefronts. (The expression “light smoke showing” too often has been the first report of what turned out to be a disaster.) “What you see ain`t necessarily what you`ve got.”1
The initial entry was made into the store adjacent to the store that turned out to be the fire building. A line was stretched through that store down the stairs to the pizza parlor and out the back of the building–a length of 140 feet. No fire was found.
About a half hour after arrival, heavy smoke was noted coming from the side of the next building. The door was forced, and the front windows were vented.
The two firefighter victims advanced a line into the building. The backup line found a hole in the floor; the hoseline extended into the hole, and nothing was seen of the missing firefighters. The fire conditions deteriorated rapidly, forcing evacuation. The fire extended to all four structures.
This is only a bare-bones summary, dealing primarily with building construction.
COMMENTS
My comments are not new. I sincerely wish the fire service would seriously examine the negative teaching provided in hot fire training. The training takes place in structures designed not to collapse. The fire is in contents only, or might be an imitation gas fire. There is no threat of collapse and no hidden fire. The emphasis is “putting the wet stuff on the red stuff”; an equal amount of emphasis is not placed on hidden fire and collapse possibilities. The hose team is always successful; there are no impossible problems.
Real life is different. If a localized fire in contents is not found in a very short time, command must think “hidden fire gnawing away at the structure like a cancer.” I continue to recommend that the dispatch be to a “building fire,” but if command determines that the fire is in the structure, “structural fire” should be announced. All then are placed on notice that the situation is radically different.
If smoke persists and continues to increase and the source is not identified as contents, it is a sure bet that you have a dangerous hidden fire.
Some years ago, four Philadelphia firefighters died searching for fire in a restaurant. The tile floor on top of wood joists concealed the heat below. The smoke from the burning joists was venting through a hole in the basement wall into a vacant barbecue restaurant next door and out the barbecue stack. The floor collapsed a substantial time after arrival.
The stories of many disasters seem to include the same sort of mental paralysis with which Civil War commanders were afflicted: persisting in the same failing tactics even though they are not working.
The colorful City of New York (NY) Fire Department Deputy Chief Hughie Halligan (whose name is on the tool), fighting an unbeatable cellar fire, exclaimed, “Let`s get this fire up on the first floor and fight it on OUR terms.” Sounds funny until you think about it, but we need to recognize when the fire has the upper hand and must stop throwing bodies at it.
There is also the philosophical and ethical question of how much risk is justified to save buildings that have outlived their usefulness. I have no pat answer, but I can only quote City of New York (NY) Fire Department Chief Vincent Dunn, speaking on his Fire Engineering tapes: “After the occupants are removed, no building is worth a firefighter`s life.” I should point out that he did not get the decorations he wears from writing books.
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INCIDENT TWO
The fire building was a wood frame, brick-veneered lightweight truss roof church. The fire apparently was started by a burglar. It extended through the wall voids to the roof void. The to-be-expected early partial failure of the gypsum ceiling gave further access to the truss void.2
Flames were reported showing “through the roof” on arrival. Units were inside fighting fire in the “attic.” Within only a few minutes of the first unit`s arrival, the truss roof suddenly fell, trapping two firefighters. They were suffering from severe burns but conscious when removed; they died in the hospital.
COMMENTS
This double fatality is very similar to one that occurred in Orange County, Florida, in 1989.3
I can`t understand what would lead firefighters to believe they can operate under a burning truss roof. The report mentions that some fire departments use a 20-minute rule, meaning that after 20 unsuccessful minutes of firefighting, it is time to get out. But, what 20 minutes? How many minutes were consumed before the attack started? In the case of lightweight trusses, there is zero time. Tests by Battalion Chief (retired) John Mittendorf of the Los Angeles (CA) Fire Department and others indicated clearly that the life of lightweight trusses in a typical fire can be in the three-to-five-minute range, from the time of ignition.4 There have been a number of hairbreadth escapes from truss failures.
The report states that a firefighter was sent to the aerial to evaluate the roof. He reported it unsafe to operate on. Inexplicably, this did not cause command to reason, “If it is unsafe to be on, it is unsafe to be under.” Can you think of a case where it is unsafe to operate on a roof because of fear of collapse, but safe to operate under it?
Perhaps the term “lightweight” is deceiving; the term is only relative to “heavy” trusses. So much wood buried the first firefighter removed in this incident that it required 20 minutes of desperate work.
Whatever slight merits a gypsum ceiling may have in retarding the extension of fire to the attic, any ceiling becomes a menace to firefighters when the fire originates or extends above the ceiling because it hides the fire.
In the absence of specific prefire planning, it would be well to assume that trusses were used in the construction of any wide-span building built over the past 30 years. Experience with apartment house triangular truss roofs is not necessarily valid. The many partitions of the top-floor apartments may intercept much of the falling roof. This limited protection is absent when there is a clear span as in a church or commercial building.
A final note: Read the references to the use of positive-pressure ventilation (PPV) at this fire. I claim no expertise in PPV, but I would hesitate to use PPV when the fire is hidden from hose streams but still can receive the benefit of the additional oxygen. n
Endnotes
l. For a discussion of the hazards of void spaces, see Building Construction for the Fire Service, Third Edition, Francis L. Brannigan, published by the National Fire Protection Association, 185-191.
2. There is no such thing as a “rated fire resistive ceiling” on a triangular trussed roof. See Building Construction for the Fire Service, 230.
3. See “Orange County Fatal Fire,” Fire Engineering, July 1989, 31.
4. Building Construction for the Fire Service, 541.
FRANCIS L. BRANNIGAN, SFPE, a 52-year veteran of the fire service, began his fire service career as a naval firefighting officer in World War II. He`s best known for his seminars and writing on firefighter safety and for his book Building Construction for the Fire Service, Third Edition, published by the National Fire Protection Association. Branningan is an editorial advisory board member of Fire Engineering.
