FIRE FOCUS
Featuring the Photography of Ron Jeffers
Jersey City, New Jersey. March 1991. Multiplealarm fire in three two-story, wood-frame, occupied dwellings.
Porch roofs on attached or unattached private dwellings of two or more stories give some relief to the responsibilities of the outside vent, enter, and search team of the truck. The objective is to vent, then enter, then search. Here we have fire on the top floor—the bedroom area. One ladder with access to the porch roof gives the firefighter a platform to work off. You can “make doorways” out of the bedroom windows and get in and back out of each room from the platform. To realize the importance of the porch roof, look at the additional problems you’d encounter if the objective was the same but the fire was in either one of the exposure buildings.
The “critique.” If you read the texts, they’ll tell you that a critique is conducted “informally— as soon as possible, after the units return to the station, after the apparatus is readied for return to fire duty.” This is too late. You missed the moment and even may have missed the truth — and certainly you have missed the value. The best (most valuable) critique is conducted as soon as the fire operation breaks down enough to allow the fire team to gather in the street. Then and only then can the members who need to actually “see” what is being talked about go to the location and see for themselves.
The qualities that must be present are trust in one another, belief that the remarks and data gathering will make the “next one” more efficient, and belief that there are no mistakes —only lessons.
The critique should be run by the company officer and should address the following questions: What did you see and think on arrival? What did you do? How did it work out? Did you have any trouble? What would you do next time? How did your actions influence the goals of those assigned to other positions? The firefighters must have enough confidence and belief in the “system” to open up here and give input.
The major lesson here is “Steal the moment before the moment is stolen from you!”
New York, New York. February 1991. Fire in a five-story mixed occupancy of ordinary construction. (Photo above)
Union City, New Jersey. March 1991. General alarm. Three four-story occupied brick apartments. Fire extended through common cockloft and left 53 people homeless. (Photo right)
Operations on fire escapes, whether truck or engine functions, represent one of the dangerous areas on the fireground. Fire escapes are not only flimsy but extremely poorly maintained —especially in the rear of the building where they are not seen and criticized by neighbors.
There are four danger areas of structure failure. The first is the drop ladder. Is it in its top tracks? Are you sure before you “drop” it? Those out of their guides fly outward toward the firefighters once the
Hook holding up the vertical ladder is released.
The second is how it is held onto the building and the type of construction holding it up. Frame buildings let their fire escapes go faster than do masonry.
Third, are the steps ascending from balcony to balcony? Are they held firmly in place or have they rusted loose or will they fail under the weight of firefighters? Remember, if you fall through one tread you can drop at least one whole story to the next set of stairs or even lower.
The fourth is the gooseneck ladder. It’s vertical and against the building face. A firefighter climbing it puts tremendous outward strain on the few bolts holding the top of the ladder onto the roof. Test it first, climb close to the ladder (more vertical than horizontal stress), and if in doubt consider climbing between the ladder and the building. I know it sounds stupid, but it works and you’ll be safe (use your imagination on this one).
Bayonne, New Jersey. December 1991. Two-alarm fire gutted a full city block of oneand two-story brick mixedoccupancy commercial buildings. Shift to defensive operation, and fire fought using at least four special-called additional pumpers to supply a large-caliber stream exterior attack.
The “big guns” go to work, respecting the eventuality of collapse. If you look into the structure, you can see evidence of partial and local collapse of ceilings.
The holding action by the mounted deck gun allows the ladder to be as aggressive as possible in its defensive operations. It hits first low at the windowsill —driving fire into oblivion as it tears into the cockloft space to darken down. Moving next to the center of the window, it tears at the partitions hiding fire in the center portions. Finally it hits the upper portions of the window to extinguish lower portions of fire in contents and flooring before moving to the next window.
Remember, this is aggressive defensive firefighting when collapse is not an immediate danger. How do you move to the next window? Do you pound at the bricks between openings or do you coordinate your move by leaving the stream in the original opening while you position yourself for the next, and only then quickly moving the device so as not to punish the bricks on the weakest wall of the structure —the one with the most openings?
It’s worth mentioning again here: If collapse is evident, this bucket is too close. Remember, at collapse-probable operations, never have more bricks above your bucket than the bucket is distanced from the building!
North Bergen, New Jersey. September 1991. Generalalarm fire involved a two-story commercial building and extended into at least two two-story dwellings. Ammunition went off in exposure #2 from the heat of the fire.
Fire photos are only a split second in time: They depict only what you see or think you see (more important for our purposes). We know from the description above that three fire buildings are feeding this one. But for now forget it. You are the roof team ascending to what looks here like a top-floor fire. What is on and in your mind? What are you going to attempt to do?
Well, open the roof, of course. And then, because the fire is defined as top-floor, prepare to cut it open.
Where is the fire? If it were toward the front half, you’d probably have a heavier smoke condition at the window areas. So you’ve already divided the building in half and you haven’t left the street. Your secondary objective, cutting the roof, will have the rear portion as its goal — accounting for safety, of course.
What is that small peak construction? It could be the original plan or it could be a rain roof installed before the new siding was placed as retrofit. Rain roofs are cocklofts over cocklofts. Being in place, they have accounted for many firefighter deaths over the years—Waldbaum’s supermarket in Brooklyn, New York, for example. The primary problem they cause is ineffective vertical ventilation—especially for top-floor fires. Remember, cutting the roof is only half the job. Once the hole is cut, the ceiling to the fire compartment must be pushed down. Vertical venting is providing a vertical opening from outside — down into the fire compartment itself. With rain roofs, that means cutting a hole in the first roof and actually getting down into the hold and cutting a second hole in the original roof.
