BY DAVID TRAIFOROS
On Tuesday, June 5, 2008, at 1937 hours, the Franklin Park (IL) Police and Fire 911 Center received several telephone calls reporting a building on fire on the 2900 block of Commerce Street. Fire and EMS companies along with automatic-aid equipment responded. The companies en route could already see a large column of smoke in the sky; the shift commander, on seeing the volume of smoke, requested a mutual-aid box alarm assignment. The building was not unoccupied by workers; the last occupant was leaving when he saw smoke issuing from the adjacent tenant space and called the fire department.
The unsprinklered 600- × 250-foot building was a one-story brick structure with a bar joist roof and was approximately 20 years old. The building incorporated brick load-bearing walls. It was equipped with a local alarm system, which was not monitored off-site. The structure was a multiple-tenant occupancy, subdivided by partition walls into six spaces. The fire began in a tenant space in the middle of the building, the third unit from the left when facing the building.
At 1939 hours, Engine 3 arrived on scene in Sector A, reporting that the fire building was a single-story, block-long brick warehouse with multiple occupancies under one roof; heavy smoke was showing from the roof, and fire was visible within one occupancy. The officer also reported to the incident commander (IC) seeing a National Fire Protection Association 704, Standard System for the Identification of the Hazards of Materials for Emergency Response, placard on the building. The placard indicated the following ratings: health hazard 1 (Slightly toxic); flammability hazard 3 (Serious, toxic; avoid inhalation or skin contact); and reactivity hazard 2 (Moderate; unstable, may react with water).
As the Engine 3 officer performed size-up, he ordered his company to stretch a 2½-inch handline that reduced to 1¾ inches (a 1¾-inch line instead of a 2½-inch attack line was stretched because of staffing constraints) and secure a water supply, so his crew could begin extinguishment on the interior of the building’s center tenant space, where there was heavy visible fire.
On arrival in Sector A seconds after Engine 3, Engine 1 members also secured a water supply and stretched an unstaffed monitor (which was charged once the interior team had left the building) into the front window of the same occupancy, where there was some visible fire. The fire had already started venting from the roof at this point and was starting to blow out of a front window.
Automatic-aid companies from Leyden and River Grove performed the same procedures as they arrived at the rear of the building in Sector C.
As chief of department, I arrived on-scene about five minutes after the initial dispatch and assumed command from the initial IC. I noticed that fire was coming from the roof, but it was not too visible through the heavy smoke, so I ordered all interior companies to immediately evacuate the building and sounded a second alarm (photo 1). Companies had already started to access the roof for ventilation (our department SOPs allow for ventilation of bar joist roofs) and reported fire through the roof over the middle of the building.
(1) Photo by author. |
Shortly after I had ensured that all companies were withdrawn from the interior sector, and as I was conducting a personnel accountability report (PAR), the middle portion of the building’s roof collapsed. There was also a partial wall collapse in Sector C.
The priority now was to organize a defensive operation to contain extension and protect on-scene members. Ladder companies arriving on-scene were assigned to positions on the building’s Sector A and C sides. Arriving engine companies sought water supplies to feed the aerials’ master streams (photo 2). The area had few or no hydrants because of spacing, dead-end streets, and railroad crossings. The fire venting through the roof ignited the rubber roofing material. The fire intensified; the flames were about 50 feet high, and the smoke could be seen for 25 miles.
(2) Photo by Charles Leiser. |
As companies arrived on-scene, I established command using the incident command system. The Operations division would provide command with a reconnaissance report and information concerning the resources needed. Operations assigned companies on the exterior of the fire building and established multiple rapid intervention teams (RITs) in Sectors A and C, assigned multiple safety officers, and established accountability. The staging area, one block west of the fire building, by this time had been emptied, so the incident was escalated to a third alarm for more personnel.
Since this was the first hot and humid day of the year, crews became exhausted as they positioned equipment and deployed large-diameter hose (LDH) for long distances in seeking and securing water supplies. At one point, a Northlake engine had to drop more than 1,000 feet of LDH across railroad tracks and travel down several streets to find a water supply. This area has several railroad crossings. The Canadian National Railway was notified to stop all rail traffic in the area until the fire department said it could be resumed.
The fire building had six occupancies with multiple doors in each unit that required forcing to gain entry (photo 3).
(3) Photo by Steve Redick. |
Companies operated 2½-inch handlines on the roof above the building’s Sector D side near the building’s only fire wall. They used the skylights above the fourth occupancy and stopped the spread of fire from the fifth and sixth occupancies. Companies using handlines in the second occupancy stopped the spread of fire to the first occupancy. A fourth alarm was requested for additional personnel.
WATER SUPPLY AND HAZMAT ISSUES
Companies operating at the scene noticed a decrease in water pressure and fire flow in the system, which should have been able to handle the flow applied to the fire. Long lead-outs and few hydrants made heavy demands on the water supply.
The six occupancies were as follows: (1) a warehouse storing miscellaneous machinery, (2) a business office, (3) a supplier of mixed commodities (the origin of the fire), (4) an occupancy containing 150 cubical general storage lockers, (5) a warehouse storing 25 antique and classic racing cars, and (6) a two-story general business office building.
The bulk of material stored in the third occupancy was about 50,000 pounds of a chemical called Oxi-Chem (sodium percarbonate), an enzyme used to break down human waste found in portable toilets and septic tanks. It activates with water and generates heat. As water was applied to this product, the fire produced a great deal of heat and flames, and the roof collapsed above this general area. We requested a hazardous materials team to respond, but most of the on-duty hazmat team members were already involved in fighting the fire. So we requested a mutual-aid response for a hazmat team from another area not involved in the fire through our Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS). On arrival, the hazmat team monitored water runoff and performed air sampling.
Since the roof had collapsed and it was difficult for companies to reach the fire, Command requested the Public Works Department to respond to the scene with a front loader. We used this equipment to breach the front of the building in Sector A at the third occupancy to access the burning material and to apply master streams for extinguishment. It was copious amounts of water that extinguished this fire. Every year, our department trains with Public Works Department front loader operators in building demolition and other areas. When called to an incident scene, the operators receive an SCBA; they had already been trained in their use during the joint training.
After this operation was completed, ventilation improved as did fire visibility, making it easier to direct the master streams to the base of the fire (photos 4, 5).
(4) Photos by Corinne Kowalski. |
(5) |
The front loader went to sector C and took down the rest of the partially collapsed wall. It then pulled apart the pile of burning material inside the building and brought it outside, where firefighters extinguished it.
In Illinois, MABAS allows us to obtain mutual-aid resources simply by making a radio call. Since a number of companies from several towns had their apparatus and personnel tied up for hours at this incident, a task force was requested to protect those towns while their fire personnel worked at this extended operation.
Four engines, two ladders, one squad, three chief officers, and two ambulances responded to our area to provide coverage in the event of another incident. Later, the task force responded to the fire scene to relieve companies and perform additional overhaul.
LESSONS LEARNED
- As with any incident, communication continues to be an issue. In an incident review, it was noted that when assigning alphabetic sectors (i.e., side C), radio communications concerning these sectors should use the phonetic alphabet (e.g., Charlie, Delta) in dispatches instead of just the letters (C, D).
- You cannot function without your mutual-aid personnel. Meet and train with them regularly. This will result in a better working relationship.
- When appropriate, use a front loader or similar heavy equipment for easier, safer entry into fire structures. Annually, we train Public Works employees in building demolition and other aspects of working with the fire department. Sending firefighters into dangerous occupancies to pull apart piles of burning material can be a wasteful use of personnel and time and also can lead to injuries.
- Get out and preplan the buildings in your district. Occupancies and their contents are always changing; occupants and owners do not necessarily share this information with you. No material safety data sheets were submitted by the tenant under SARA Title III. We were unaware of the particular commodity involved in the fire. Our department requires all occupancies to have an NFPA 704 placard in the front and rear of the building to inform responders of potential hazards in the occupancy. The occupancy with the hazardous materials also had other hazardous materials mixed with food items and paper goods.
DAVID TRAIFOROS, a 36-year fire service veteran, is chief of the Franklin Park (IL) Fire Department, where he has risen through the ranks. He served as the department training officer and is a regional training officer. He is a board member of the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS) Division 20, which serves Chicago’s near western suburbs. He was Illinois’ “Instructor of the Year 2005.”