Suburban Firefighting: Gopher Houses

By Jerry Knapp

A few nights ago my suburban fire department went to what looked like a house fire. It was a 2 ½-story, wood frame dwelling, about 20 feet by 40 feet, located in a residential area. There was heavy fire in a kitchen in the rear of the house. We applied our standard house fire tactics and almost killed our captain. We removed him from the house unconscious and barely breathing.

The purpose of this column is to give you a wake up call to fires in “gopher houses,” structures with legal or illegal compartmentation that are usually home to numerous people. We will not be able to cover this subject exhaustively in this short space, but this article should stimulate you to look at your own standard operating procedures for these dangerous fires. The frightening part is this: despite performing all the correct tactics we were one step away from disaster on several counts.

STANDARD HOUSE FIRE TACTICS

That night, we used standard private dwelling tactics. The problem was, this was not a private dwelling, it was a “gopher house;” It had a very full apartment on the first floor, single room occupancies on the second floor and an “apartment” on the third floor. Like the dwelling places of gophers, every little existing space (and some newly created spaces) were legally (or illegally) occupied in the house. Based on a reliable report (which turned out to be completely false), at around 2300 hours search teams entered the front door and made a direct entry to the second floor. The hoseline was ordered to the rear of the building because there was direct access to the fire from there. The truck was a bit late getting on the scene and laddered the building with ground ladders. Overhead wires made aerial use impossible.

The captain in the search team ran out of air on the second floor in a tough smoke condition. He did all the right things: high search for a window, moved along the walls, etc. Unable to find a window, he called a Mayday. Completely out of air, he removed his face piece. Luckily, a firefighter with a thermal imaging camera (TIC) was nearby, heard the Mayday, and quickly spotted him. With the assistance of other firefighters, the firefighter with the TIC removed the now unconscious firefighter down the stairs and out of the building. He made a full and rapid recovery but there were more than a few terror filled minutes at this incident. Did he possibly make a minor mistake or two? Sure. But this gopher house turned that small mistake—which any of us could make—into an almost fatal mistake.

The side window in the room where the captain was caught was covered with drywall, probably to conceal the single-room occupancy (SRO) from neighbors. He could not bail out the window because he could not find it! A second window in the room was moved to the corner of the room in a location you would never expect to find a window. Illegal penetrations to allow heat to flow upstairs allowed smoke to rapidly fill the upper floors. A few minutes later, fire would have been racing up these same openings.

GOPHER HOUSE

The house was converted into an apartment on the first floor, with two single room occupancies on the second floor and an apartment in the attic. Like gophers, people–lots of people–occupied every little cubby hole in the house. Here are just a few of the fire problems with these houses.

1. Many upstairs doors were locked. This provides no area of refuge for searching firefighters if they cannot quickly force the door(s) to the SROs. Firefighters may get trapped and killed in the upstairs hallways.

2. The first floor apartment. Because the apartment was so small and several people lived it it, there was lots of stuff to burn—and all that stuff made searching difficult. There was very little floor space.

3. Heating. To allow heat to drift to areas like the attic, holes may be cut in floors or walls as a cheap way to make the house habitable. These illegal modifications allowed a thick smoke condition to develop on the upper floors. It obviously is a great route for rapid vertical fire spread.

4. Balloon frame construction. Often these gopher houses are in older homes that maybe balloon construction with the obvious additional existing hazards of rapid fire spread.

TACTICAL CHANGES

Here are just a few thoughts to consider to improve your safety and effectiveness.

1. Get the line to the fire by the surest and most direct route. This may not be the front door because normally open hallways and access through the house may have been closed off for the security of apartments and SROs. In the case described above, if the line had entered the front door when we forced the fire-room door, it could have easily caused a flashover of the charged second floor, trapping and killing firefighters conducting the search.

2. Consider getting your second line to protect the stairway if firefighters have gone up the interior stairs.

3. Consider using Vent, Enter, Search. This puts you in an area of refuge at the start of your search. Closing the door to this room will buy you considerable safety and time. After your search of that room, you can then open the door and decide if fire conditions will allow you to search an adjacent room.

4. Consider the use of TICs for second floor teams as these members are in the most danger.

These are just a few thoughts on gopher houses. A word of caution—the tactical changes suggested here should not be considered to be applied to all fires in these type occupancies. They are however a tool for you to consider to use when appropriate based on a thorough size-up and based on sound fireground judgment. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy or tactic. These occupancies often have numerous death traps for firefighters especially if we use “normal” house fire tactics. These illegal occupancies require more thought, size up, and caution than almost any other fire we are called to.