“ODOR OF SMOKE”
BY FRANK C. MONTAGNA
We commonly respond to calls involving an odor of smoke. A call might be from a man returning from work to his house or apartment who smells a slight odor of wood smoke or it might be from a mother alone at home with her baby who wakes in the middle of the night and notices a slight haze in her apartment. These scenarios may not seem to be life-threatening, but they could be. If you respond to the call, give only a cursory look for the cause of the odor, and leave finding nothing, you may be setting the scene for disaster.
The slight odor of wood smoke the man smells might be seeping into the open window in his apartment from a smoldering rubbish fire in the street. On the other hand, the smoke could be coming from a wooden beam that has been charred and is smoldering as a result of a faulty electrical fixture. The smoke, contained by a covering of gypsum board, might be detectable only as a slight odor. The haze the mother sees could be caused by a faulty steam valve on her radiator or a defective chimney that is spewing carbon monoxide-laden smoke into her apartment.
In one instance, the caller, with a little initiative, can find the cause of the “smoke” and solve the problem. Even if no action is taken, no harm will result. In the other instance, taking no action could prove deadly. In any case, we can`t expect civilians to decide which is which. Typically, we respond to a greater number of unnecessary calls than ones that could have serious consequences.
SOME COMMON CAUSES OF SMOKE ODOR
Once on the scene, how do we determine which is which? The answer to that question is simple: Locate the source of the odor. Our problem is that finding the source of the odor may not be simple. The myriad of possible sources of smoke present a major obstacle in determining the cause of an “odor of smoke.”
Because “food on the stove” often is the cause of an alarm, a good place to start searching for a smoke odor is the caller`s stove, oven, and microwave. Any number of items can be inadvertently left in or on the stove. We are all familiar with the odor of burnt food or of a pot burning on the stove. Our educated noses usually can identify these odors before we enter the house, but how well would we do at recognizing the odor created by a piece of clothing or sneakers left to dry in the oven and forgotten? How about the hairbrush left on the stove and melted by the heat from one of the burners, or the toy heated in a micro-wave oven by a child? Could you recognize these odors? Would you associate the smell of burning paper with the charred remains of a paper towel left too close to a stove-top burner?
Another possibility involving a stove is the neighbor who burned a late-night snack and won`t admit to it. The odor from this “food on the stove” might have wafted into the calling party`s open window. Could you track down this odor? Would you try?
A discarded cigarette in a plastic waste-paper basket might have melted some of the plastic, giving off an odor. This can happen in spite of the fact that no one in the house admits to smoking. People will lie to avoid embarrassment.
I recall an incident in which, after making an extensive search of a private house for an obvious odor of smoke, a firefighter looked into the tub and saw an ashtray, some burned matches, and a cigarette butt. Having found the source of the odor, he pointed it out to the owner of the house. The homeowner promptly chastised his 15-year-old daughter, who swore she didn`t know anything about it. Whenever the source of the odor is not obvious, check garbage pails, wastepaper baskets, tubs, sinks, and toilets for clues.
Children, after starting a fire while playing with matches, have been known to panic and hide the fire with blankets or place the smoldering material under a mattress or in a closet. Having set the stage for a later disaster, they will swear they don`t know the cause of the smoke. The fear of punishment is more real to them than the danger presented by the smoldering material.
Makeshift repairs of a gas flue pipe with duct tape may cause an odor of smoke as the tape becomes decomposed by the hot flue pipe.
A teenager using drugs might cause the smoke odor; don`t expect a confession, however.
A newspaper stuffed between ceiling joists and covered over with a plaster ceiling might be ignited years later by a short in a faulty wire. You would smell the telltale odor of burning paper. Would you think to look for it inside the ceiling?
SEARCHING FOR THE CAUSE
Okay, so there are many possible causes of smoke odors. What do we do when we respond to a call for an odor of smoke?
For such response, we must be both firefighters and detectives. As firefighters, we have noses that have been “educated” by encounters with many different kinds of burning materials. We must use our educated nose to discover the cause of the odor. We also must be detectives and piece together bits of information, interrogate the caller, and use the process of elimination to find the cause of the smoke. When responding to such calls, do the following:
First, take a sniff. Do you smell anything? Can you identify the smell? Can you locate the area in which the smell is strong-est? If you answer no to these questions, ask the caller when and where he first encountered the odor, and start your search there.
Occasionally, we will be called for an odor that has been present for days, even weeks, and which can be traced to mold in a damp basement or to an odor coming from a commercial occupancy in the building. Often the “odor of smoke” is actually an odor of something other than smoke. The problem might be no more than an ongoing tenant-landlord dispute.
Ask the occupant if he still smells the odor. Sometimes, by the time we arrive, the odor has dissipated and try as we will, we cannot detect its source.
Check to see if all the lights work. A nonworking light fixture may be the cause of the odor. If the light is fluorescent, the odor might result from an overheated ballast. This might be evidenced by a nonworking or flickering light or by smoke stains on or around the fixture. A sure test is to touch the ballast, which normally is warm. An overheating ballast will be hot. A faulty ballast in a ground-floor candy store can create a smoke condition in the apartment above it. In a commercial occupancy with numerous ballasts, using a thermal imaging camera will find the overheating fixture quickly.
Feel all electrical appliances. Are they warm? Ask if they were in use when the odor was noticed. It is possible that an electrical problem has caused them to shut down after causing the odor. If an appliance is off and the complainant did not shut it off, you may have your culprit. See if it works and check it for odors.
Do any of the exposures have fireplaces? The odor could be from a faulty flue or the smoke`s not lifting properly. The smoke might be pushed in through cracks in the chimney or pulled in through an open window. This is an option even in the summer. People have been known to do stranger things than to light the fireplace in the summer.
These odors are difficult to track down–difficult, but not impossible.
You can recreate the odor.
Raise the thermostat setting. The oil burner will kick in and allow you to detect any odors resulting from the oil burner`s operation. Such causes of a smoke odor would include a defective chimney, duct tape on the gas flue pipe, and an overheated blower motor. Pay particular attention to hot-air registers. A smoke odor originating at the burner can be delivered to a remote area.
If it is summer, turn on the air-conditioner or fan. In a commercial occupancy, the source of the odor may be the cooling or heating unit located on the roof or outside in a rear or side yard. First, check the unit for excessive heat or odor. Then, turn it on and check the unit and the interior of the building again. Sniff near the supply registers.
Close all of the doors and windows and wait to see if the odor builds up. This technique might be effective in the summer when windows are open or anytime the complainant has vented the area to remove the smell. Be aware that the odor also can be dissipated by the opening and closing of doors as various members of the fire department enter and exit the building searching for the odor.
OTHER POSSIBILITIES
Something else to consider before discounting the caller`s complaint of an odor of smoke is that the aroma of smoke on your turnout gear may mask a weaker odor of smoke in the house. Removing your turnout coat or keeping all but essential personnel out of the area might enable you to detect the odor.
If the odor was evident on entry but no longer is detectable, you may want to call in a fresh nose–a firefighter who has not been inside the house yet. His olfactory sense will not have been desensitized to the odor by prolonged exposure to it. Alternatively, walk outside for a few minutes and then reenter the building. This clearing of your nose may allow you to again detect and then track down the odor.
If you detect an odor but cannot locate it, check the adjoining occupancies and nearby exterior spaces. Remember, an occupancy can have six sides, not just four. The odor could be coming up from below or down from above, not just from one of the four sides.
DANGEROUS SITUATIONS
Even after an exhaustive search, you may not find the cause of the smoke odor or you may detect an odor but be unable to locate its source. Here is where your educated nose becomes crucial. Is the odor one of burning wood? If it is, look again. It is dangerous to walk away from the odor of burning wood.
At one incident, there was an intermittent wood odor in the basement of a store in a strip mall. Because the odor was unmistakably one of burning wood, we expanded our search until we found the cause: an illegal wood workshop in a basement, five occupancies down from the complainant`s store. Every time the woodworker cut a piece of wood with his power saw, the odor of burning wood entered his open ceiling and traveled along the joists to the complainant`s basement. Here we could smell, but not locate, the source of the odor. In this case, the cause of the odor proved to be harmless; but because the odor was one of wood burning, we persisted until we found the cause.
Another odor you should not readily walk away from is an electrical odor. Wires can run anywhere in the building. If you have an electrical odor and can`t find the source, again consider the thermal imaging camera. It can show hidden wires that are overheating or burning.
If you have not found the source of an odor and you are ready to leave, ask yourself, Am I leaving anyone in danger? The lives of the infant and mother may be in your hands. If you have exhausted all possibilities and the odor has dissipated, you can leave. If the odor persists and it is identified as smoke, keep looking.
Sometimes no cause is found for a reported odor. In these cases, if the odor has dissipated and you`ve tried all the options and waited a reasonable time for it to recur, tell the occupant that you can find no cause for the odor. Instruct him that he should not hesitate to call you back if he should notice it again. Don`t make him feel as if he has wasted your time. If you do, he may not call you back and may suffer dire consequences as a result.
There is no prescribed time for searching for the cause of an odor of smoke. That decision is made on the spot. The time spent should not be influenced by the time of day, the weather, or the fact that a meal is waiting back at the fire station. The safety of the caller must be your only concern.
Some calls come from deranged people and have no merit. Others, as in the tenant-landlord dispute, are bogus. In other cases, the causes may be harmless. You must decide which is which at each call and act accordingly. When you tell the caller there is no danger and then leave, you must feel confident with that decision. If you are wrong, you will have to deal with the consequences. n
FRANK C. MONTAGNA, a 24-year veteran of the fire service, is a battalion chief with the City of New York (NY) Fire Department. He has been an instructor at the FDNY Probationary Firefighters School, the officer in command of the FDNY Chauffeur Training School, and an adjunct lecturer at John Jay College in New York City. He is a member of the FDNY Fire Chief`s Association. Montagna has a bachelor`s degree in fire science and currently is lecturing on firefighting-related topics.
