The following is commentary about the call by the on duty Batallion Chief Gene Large:


After reviewing the video and then discussing actions taken with those present the following observations were made:

The smoke conditions made a rapid change in a very short period of about 10-20 seconds prior to the initial crew entering the building.

The initial crew did not recognize this due to their close proximity to the front door and focusing on the clear visibility close to the floor. After going on air, bleeding the line and safety checking each other (which only took seconds) none of the crew took the time to either step back and/or look up to verify the conditions above them.

As is usual for incidents in our area there is usually a shortage of companies and command staff during at least the first couple of minutes on scene. This incident also took place on a weekend so there were no (40 hr) senior officers immediately available. This helped confirm the need to make sure we have command officers on shift at all times.

During this incident the incident command officer got focused on individual crew assignments face to face while doing a walk around of the scene. He was also distracted by interaction with the hysterical home owner and addressing the dogs trapped in the back yard with the rescue crew. In so doing he missed some of the signs of the rapidly changing fire/smoke conditions which are so important to recognize.

This also compromised the incident commander’s radio communications so other on scene and incoming crews could not hear assignments as they were given.

Some of these conditions were obscured by the above mentioned items blocking the view from the street. This shows how important it is to have someone be it the incident commander, the operations officer or the safety officer (depending on the availability of personnel) to maintain some distance with an unobstructed view of the scene to watch for changing conditions or other hazards.

It was observed that the front door and the lower half of one of three large windows to the side of the door were open upon arrival. A couple of the upper window panes had been partially broken out by bricks thrown by the occupant. Ventilation could have been greatly enhanced by clearing all of these windows completely prior to entry. At the very least this would have helped vent some of the super heated gasses and smoke and possibly even allowed for the vent point ignition to take place prior to crew entry rendering the environment much safer for the interior crews to work. Proper ventilation prior to entry cannot be overemphasized. There is no such thing as too much ventilation once the crews are ready for entry.

While we are discussing ventilation another point of discussion was the proper timing of ventilation. Quite possibly the rescue crew clearing all the windows in the rear a little to soon before the entry crew was ready to enter the building through the front allowed the fire to intensify before entry. This again brings out the fact that timing is an intricate part of the ventilation process. Communication between ventilation crew and the entry crew is crucial.

It appears that there was no water flow prior too entry and little to no water flow after entry. Either one of these tactics would have sufficiently cooled the gasses and most likely prevented them from lighting off. If the change in conditions would have been recognized prior to entry the introduction of water from outside most likely would have been ordered by the company officer prior to entry. Once the crews were inside, due to the heat conditions orders were given to open the nozzle by both the company officer and the firefighter behind the nozzle man. The nozzle man reportedly briefly and partially opened the nozzle while directing it straight ahead or in a downward direction. Obviously the rapid changing conditions caught this crew off guard and what they thought was a “routine” kitchen fire (that we all felt comfortable with letting a relatively inexperienced firefighter handle the nozzle) turned out to be a much more intense fire. This brought on the discussion of where to put the experience level on the hand line. This particular crew had the least experienced (2 year) firefighter on the nozzle backed up by an 18 year veteran followed by the company officer (captain). There was much discussion about who controls the nozzle and where the company officer should be on the line and again I don’t believe there is a right or wrong way to do this only that different situations require different levels of experience so make sure you know your crews capabilities and sit down and discuss what works for your crews in a variety of different situations. Our consensus on our shift is from now on with similar conditions and staffing we will have the most experienced firefighter on the nozzle to control the fire, the company officer will be behind the nozzle man to direct the operation and the least experienced fire fighter will be behind the company officer handling/feeding hose and assisting with search and rescue under the direction of the company officer.

If there is one mistake made that if corrected would have prevented the firefighters from being burnt it was there posture/position when they entered the front door. If you slow down the video you can see that the nozzle man walks in the front door standing up, his back up is initially standing however he kneels down as he enters the doorway and the company officer is crouched down feeding line. Based on the burn patterns of the objects inside the structure after the fire you can see that there are several paper and cardboard objects below waist level that sustained little or no fire damage. Had they been crawling instead of standing up they would not have been exposed to the extreme heat that ignited their gear. Again I feel that the smoke conditions and relative good visibility just a minute before they entered lulled them into a false sense of interior conditions.

In conclusion I feel that this was typical of our everyday bread and butter structure fires that just happened to have a chain of events that lined up just right that day to cause the rapid change of conditions that resulted in two firefighters being injured. While their injuries were relatively minor any injury is too much and these could have just as easily been much more severe. If you were to change any one of the events or actions that took place that day you would have changed the results and we would all have come out giving high fives and saying what a great job. This being said I still want to commend the crew for a job well done and express how proud I am of their actions when things turned sour and especially for allowing everyone the opportunity to witness what happened that day in the hopes that we can all learn something from both what was done right and what may have been done better. Most of all we hope that lessons learned from this incident will help us be better prepared for that next “run of the mill structure fire” we all know is just around the corner.