Fire Story: February 19, 2007 Options

[Sherry Smith]

Fire Story: February 19, 2007

Monday, February 19 proved to be a busy day (as usual) for us. We have a new crew member at our station and he is learning how to drive the engine and use the water pump. We spent most of the morning drilling (in between making sick calls). We got back around 1300 and were “re-fueling” (eating) when a call came in for a fire alarm at an apartment complex outside our own district. On our way to the fire, it was apparent because of several calls from the complex that we were dealing with a pretty big “working fire”. As we approached the complex, you could see the thick, black smoke from the entrance. School was letting out and many of the fascinated children were running towards the smoke. We arrived on scene and were assigned to a “back up line” that quickly turned into an entry line. There was fire shooting from the roof as we made entry into the upper floor apartments. We had to go in and “pull ceiling” which exposed a large amount of fire over our heads. Unfortunately, there was too much fire for our handlines so we were pulled out and large master streams were applied to put out the fire (this is called a defensive attack). Our crew was then assigned to set up a master stream between the apartment that was on fire and one adjacent to it. The winds were very strong that day and there was a big risk of exposure fires. As we got the stream set up we were told that the wall we were near was getting ready to fall. As soon as we moved our stream back, BOOM! The wall fell. Bricks were everywhere. No one was hurt in this fire but unfortunately about 8 units were destroyed causing about $150,000 worth of damage. Here are a couple of pics of my crew after the wall fell.