BROKEN HEARTS, SAME SAD HOMILY
EDITOR’S OPINION
There was a smoke condition but no fire showing on arrival. Firefighters searching for the hidden fire could feel the heavy heat coming from the drop ceiling void overhead. Smoke began to bank down over them. Their low-air bells started ringing, and they retreated from the structure—all except Firefighter John Nicosia. He never made it out. His body finally was recovered two days later from under the massive debris of roof collapse.
It was a huge fire that fully involved a large Paterson, New Jersey, commercial complex, a square city block of attached one-, three-, and four-story buildings and a fivestory former department store, subdivided and partially occupied. The complex was fully sprinklered. Although the investigation is ongoing at the time of this writing, it appears that the fire gained headway through pipe chasings and pokethroughs in the void spaces. Officials are investigating the possibility that portions of the sprinkler system were not operating at the time of the fire.
In a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, commercial high-rise, fire spread rapidly from the unsprinklered 22nd to the 29th floors while firefighting forces struggled to mount an attack despite severe water-supply problems, loss of main and backup emergency power, failure or lack of redundant fire protection features, and a storm of falling glass. Firefighters stretched large-diameter hoselines up the fire tower to create their own standpipe system. The fire raced headlong into the spray of automatic sprinklers on the 30th floor—installed by a new tenant although the city’ code did not require retrofit for commercial high-rises built before 1984—and met its match. That was not soon enough for Captain David Holcombe, Firefighter Phyllis McAllister, and Firefighter James Chappell. They died on the 28th floor after running out of air and becoming disoriented in the middle of hell. One witness of the aftermath described the fire building as an incredible scene of fire destruction, the worst he had ever seen in his 30-plus years in the fire service. As of this writing, the 38story monolith awaits partial demolition, an awesome reminder of the power of fire.
In Colorado Springs, Colorado, fire burned undetected for more than an hour in the attic space of a 12,500-squarefoot, one-story, wood-frame nursing home. When it finally broke through the ceiling, there was just not enough time for everyone to escape or be removed. Firefighters waged interior attack and rescue operations for more than an hour before switching to a defensive mode and controlling the fire. Nine residents perished. Beyond sprinkler protection in the two basement areas, as required by code, the building was not sprinklered. The living spaces and hallways were equipped with rate-of-rise heat detectors and the hallways had smoke alarms and pull stations. Both smoke and heat detection devices were monitored by the department. The voids were not a part of the system.
This is just a sampling of what has happened in just a month’s time. The count is long and tragic: Bronx, New York, Firefighter Alfred Ronaldson the fatal victim in a local collapse during fire operations in an unsprinklered, two-story taxpayer; five children and one adult dead as fire raged through four unsprinklered row houses in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania; six residents of an unsprinklered Columbus, Ohio, roominghouse cut down in an early-morning-hour flashover… the list of dead and injured would fill many pages of this magazine. The painful lessons are obvious and need no clarification.
In my mind I hear the echoes of breaking hearts that mourn the premature deaths to fire. I hear in my mind the same sad homily we’ve needed to hear time and time again. They are thin, sharp notes that carry clear across the country, irrespective of geography or demographics.
We as a nation have in our grasp the power to bring the fire death toll to the closest we may ever come to zero. Such is the power of properly designed and maintained automatic suppression systems that work in concert with adequate, functional detection systems and redundant fire protection features.
1 want to believe that we’re doing everything we can to prevent our children from dying in a choking furnace. I want to believe that someday firefighters will not have to be sacrificed in fires that burned long and hot even before the first hoseline was charged.
Chip away, slug away, make the changes. Train the public and the elected officials on the sprinkler reality just as hard as you yourself train for working in structures that burn without them.
I’m sure that the families and friends of the fallen firefighters and fallen civilians will be grateful for whatever solace they will find in your efforts.