Cellar Fire Wrap-Up
DEPARTMENTS
Volunteers Comer
In my last column [July 1987], we reached the point of mechanically venting the cellar with power fans. These fans can be placed in the cellar windows, in the window above the flooring you’ve cut out, or—after the fire is out—blowing in either direction at the top of the interior stairs. Fill the open areas around the fan housing; this will increase the fan’s efficiency by reducing the churning effect. Tarps work well, or you can use the sheets and blankets off the beds in the fire building.
Another good source of mechanical ventilation (the movement of air by other than natural means) is a variablestream nozzle. Use one to direct a fog pattern out the window, and conditions will clear rapidly.
One word of caution about mechanical venting methods, though: Although they clear the area, they’ll also fan a fire that’s smoldering; take care not to cause reignition.
Even when the main section or fire area has been vented, the many smaller rooms a cellar might be broken intosuch as a laundry room, workshop, and large pantrv—will hold great quantities of carbon monoxide. You can’t see CO, but it will drop you like a sack of potatoes. Because firefighters tend to remove the facepieces of their self-contained breathing apparatus as soon as visibility starts to return, if you’re an officer, you must make sure vour people wear their SCBA during every cellar fire. Be extra attentive when conditions start getting better.
The complete search that a cellar fire requires is also a bit out of the ordinary. In an upper-floor fire, not only can you follow the line, but if conditions deteriorate, you can escape through windows or easilv breached walls or down ladders or escape ropes.
In a cellar, by contrast, venting is minimized and the search is normally restricted to a one-sided attack, one that’s mounted from behind the protection of an advancing hose line. Going off this line can get you into a lot of trouble, so use a tag line or lines, especially if you suspect the cellar contains an apartment or makeshift bedrooms. One person (preferably an officer) should be assigned to stay with the hose line to alert the search team to any problems that might occur before extinguishment.
There are still more twists to a cellar fire when it’s time to overhaul. For example, smoldering debris can’t simply be thrown out a window; you have to carry it upstairs. Consider using the owner’s garbage cans to ease the job.
An unfinished cellar will be a labyrinth of unpatterned storage, containing unwanted combustibles, mattresses, and every hazardous material associated with home ownership, such as propane, gasoline, pesticides, acids, and chlorine. Be on the lookout for spills and hissing sounds. And keep in mind that smoldering mattresses tend to “light up” when moved. For this reason, a cellar fire is one time you should roll and tie the mattress before trying to remove it.
In a finished or partially finished basement, suspended ceiling tiles and light fixtures may fall “suddenly” during overhaul. Direct a hose stream on the ceiling to drop all loose fixtures before you operate under them.
Whether open or not, the ceiling beams, underside of the flooring, and staircase will have to be examined carefully, because they’ve been exposed to a very hot fire. There may be smoldering embers hidden on top of the beams or on the underside of the stairs, and if not found, they’ll cause the fire to rekindle a few hours later.
Before going under a bathroom for overhaul (the waste and water pipes are your clues to the location), check the area for stability. Bathrooms, per square foot, are the heaviest rooms in a house. They have tile set in cement (called mud) on the floor. Tubs, toilets, and sinks are all located in a very small room. The bathroom is also the wettest room, and the supporting beams may be weakened by dry rot. The rules are: If it’s not necessary to operate directly under the bathroom, don’t! And if a longer tool can do the job, use it!
Other heavy objects on the main floor, such as waterbeds and large appliances, might be overloading the floor-and-joist assembly away from the bathroom. Members operating upstairs must relay the location of such items to the members operating below. Again, these areas should be checked for stability and even shored up, if necessary.
There’s one more problem with cellars which has just recently reared its ugly head—wooden 1 beams. They’re made of two-by-fours with a piece of plywood creating the web, and they replace the three two-by-eights that are normally used as support beams.
The engineers who specify I beams say they’ve removed “fat.” I say they’ve made our job more dangerous than necessary. It’s totally unreasonable to ask a firefighter to enter the cellar of a building constructed using this ultracheap method.
Check new construction in your district and make a list of these buildings. If one of them has a cellar fire, forget everything you know that’s otherwise correct, and stick the line through the window!
