Reluctance to Open Up Can Lose Block of Stores
features
DICK SYLVIA
The Volunteers Corner
Reluctance to open roofs and ceilings when there is a fire in one of several stores in a one-story building can lead to the loss of the entire building.
Such one-story, multiple mercantile occupancy buildings are found throughout the nation and may be known under a variety of names. Today they are often known as shopping centers—a number of stores in a single building with direct outside access front and rear. Sometimes they have an anchor store on one or both ends. In other cases, they are included in the connecting web between anchor stores in an enclosed shopping mall. In this case, the customer entrances border both sides of a roofed mall, or passageway. Years ago, a single building containing several stores side by side was known as a taxpayer building.
From a fire fighting standpoint, all these buildings have the same hazards in common. Nearly all of them have a flat roof. But whether they have a flat roof or gable roof, there is a space of 1 to 3, or slightly more, feet between the roof and the ceiling in the stores that is known as a cockloft. Usually, fire walls are lacking, or if they are present, they separate several stores. If fire walls exist, the parapets are only a foot or a foot and a half high.
When fire enters a cockloft, it begins to spread under the roof and if it remains unchecked, it can drop down into stores beyond the store of the fire origin. In the beginning, there may be little or no visible evidence of flames in the cockloft and a quick look at the ceiling of a store next to the burning store may lead to the erroneous conclusion that there is no fire in the cockloft.
Initial attack: The initial attack in such shopping centers or taxpayers must consist of three basic operations. The roof must be opened over the fire, a stream must be put into the blazing store, and ceilings must be pulled two stores from the fire store on each side of that store.
Obviously, if a quick attack with a 50 to 100-gpm line can darken down the fire, then the fire does not call for the full treatment just mentioned. At the other end of the scale is the store that is fully involved in fire. When the first-in officer faces this condition, there should be no doubt in his mind that all the options mentioned have to be used.
The fire that causes trouble—and can lead to the loss of the building—is the one between the two extremes. It is the fire that has not obviously gotten into the cockloft or gone through the roof, and yet it cannot be darkened down with a brief application of water from a single small hand line. This is where the officer in charge has to have the guts to order the roof opened and ceilings pulled. He must order these actions when there is the
least doubt that fire has entered the cockloft or he may lose more than the first store and possibly the entire building.
Once fire has entered the cockloft, there is little, time left to contain it. Only drastic action can save the situation. A good rule for shopping center and taxpayer fires and cocklofts is: When in doubt, open it up.
Opening ceilings: An immediate opening in the roof over the fire will slow or even halt the mushrooming of fire in the cockloft. If the fire has vented itself by the time the first company arrives, this is good news. Men who otherwise would have to open up the roof can pull ceilings. Whatever you do, never put an aerial stream—or even a hand line— into the roof opening. That is the same as closing the roof opening and buying back the troubles the roof opening eliminated.
Sometimes the fire in the cockloft has run low on oxygen and is in the smoldering stage by the time the first-in company arrives. This is a potential backdraft situation and when fire fighters then pull a ceiling, they may become involved in a backdraft. Opening up the roof minimizes this possibility.
The reason ceilings should be pulled two stores away from the fire store is because you have to get ahead of a fire in a cockloft (as well as anywhere else) or you are going to lose the building. Too frequently, fire fighters who have pulled ceilings in stores adjacent to the fire store have found that the cockloft fire has already passed beyond the opening. It is better to find no fire two stores away and work back to the adjacent stores.
Use of hose streams: Charged lines must be on hand while pulling ceilings. If there is no fire overhead, but there is fire in the cockloft between the opening and the store of origin, then the line at hand can be used to drive the fire back toward the roof opening over the fire store.
When you know there is fire in the cockloft, you also can cut off its spread and even extinguish it by putting a cellar pipe through the roof. Insertion of a cellar pipe requires only a small hole in the roof, which can be done rapidly with an ax. When the area of the advancing cockloft fire is greater than the diameter of the cellar pipe fog pattern, it will be necessary to use two cellar pipes or to move the cellar pipe after a brief application has knocked down a significant portion of the cockloft fire.
Trenching also can halt the advance of fire in the cockloft. This consists of opening up a 2 to 3-foot hole in the roof the entire width of the building. However, this takes time. You should use at least two power saws and have enough area ahead of the fire to make this operation feasible.
