Residence Fires: Starting in the Cellar

Residence Fires: Starting in the Cellar

Paul McFadden’s Volunteers Corner

One of the least appealing tasks a firefighter ever faces is to go underground to extinguish a fire. The transmission “Be advised: The fire is reported in the cellar” often makes the adrenaline flow just a bit faster.

Because most of us live in areas where private dwellings dominate the structural population, I will confine my remarks to cellar fires in single-family occupancies.

As with all fires, size-up is going to be the first and most important step you’ll take. The rules of firefighting— locate, confine, and extinguish—are satisfied much more easily when the fire shows itself. Cellar fires don’t! They hide until it’s almost too late for an aggressive attack. For this reason, the firefighter must be able to recognize the telltale signs of a cellar fire and put fire experience and knowledge to work as fast as possible.

Down the stairs

Cellars in private dwellings can be divided into three categories. The first is the cellar with only one means of entrance and egress, the interior stairs. Next is the cellar with only an exterior entrance. Last is the cellar with both interior and exterior staircases.

These stairways may or may not constitute a problem, but one thing is for sure: They must be found and identified. The location of these stairs can’t be overemphasized. An aggressive attack on a cellar fire depends on quickly descending the staircase.

An interior stairway is usually found in one of three places. In a newer, multistory building, it’s likely to be directly behind the stairway leading to the second floor; in a single-story, ranch-type house, it will be in the kitchen; and in an older, Victorian-style home, it will be located close to the back door.

Another clue is the way the doors open. Interior cellar doors open toward you, just like closet doors. This means the door isn’t recessed into the jamb and the hinges will most likely be exposed (unless they’re flushmounted).

Exterior doors will also be one of three general types: the open stairway with an exterior door at the bottom; the stairway that has a door at the bottom and a sloped metal or wood shed over the top; or the open stairway located at the rear of an attached garage.

Elaborate decorations (expensive outdoor lighting, foot mats, doorbells, and the like) on an exterior entrance may be indicators that the cellar is being used as an apartment, legally or illegally. Such embellishments should be reported to the incident commander. But on illegal apartments, exterior indicators may be missing because the owmer is trying to hide the extra housing unit from official detection.

A few years ago, when the economy was in recession, many people in my local area converted cellars into apartments to help pay the bills. The town looked the other way because it would rather have illegal residences than vacant homes. Even though times are better, many of the illegal apartments are still around for the extra cash they promise. Experience and knowledge of your town will be your greatest asset in this area.

Because private dwellings aren’t subject to official inspections, cellars are also used as cottage-industry factories. I know of one guy with a full machine shop in his cellar. And to cite one of the worst cases, a neighboring town had a cellar fire and found the owner had an electroplating plant in his house, complete with open vats of acid and makeshift electrical hookups.

Determining that a fire within a structure is indeed in the cellar can be both difficult and dangerous. Indicators are high heat and heavy smoke— but no visible flame—on the first floor. If this condition exists, you must find the cellar door and very carefully open it, having a charged line at the ready.

Mistakes

Once it’s determined that the fire is down there, you must call for a backup line to be brought to the entrance door. If at all possible, the charged line must be taken to the bottom of the stairs as rapidly as possible. The biggest mistakes made at this type of operation are having the nozzle man stop halfway and not having enough hose ready for him to reach the bottom. Remember, it’s as though you’re going down a chimney. Get down as fast as you can! The second line stays at the top of the stairs to protect your exit, should that become necessary.

Once at the bottom, you can proceed with extinguishment as you would do on any other floor: Turn a straight stream on the ceiling and advance toward the fire.

Exterior entrances make your job easier. Venting is to the outer air and you are able to position your hand line at the floor level before opening the door. However, you must remember two things: You still have to don your facepiece before forcing entry; the well fills with hot smoke very fast. And have a line in position for immediate use and stay as low as possible.

In a future Volunteers’ Corner, we’ll discuss venting, searching, and overhauling cellar areas.

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