Basement Fire on Chestnut

Same time as the carfire last nite, around 2 AM, we get called out to reports of an "air conditioner on fire." Fire, being one of the keywords I look for in a dispatch, got me revved up. We had a pretty full boat and every one was throwing elbows to get their shit on in the truck. Captain looked back and said he's taking the first line, and 2 guys yelled they're with him on the first line. I then yelled that me, John and Jack are on the second line.

We pulled up first due, got off and unreeled our backup line off the officer's side perfectly. Unreeling it 100% is one of our deficiencies as a company, because sometimes people get too hyped up at a fire, unreel it half way or 3/4 and just run to the door, but last nite was better.

I saw the first team go in, so my team masked up and followed them in with a smooth boor. Visibility was still pretty good so I didn't go on air right away. I saw an air conditioner unit on fire, and extension up into the wall and some of the cieling above it. I gave a few short bursts over the first team, just enough to hit the fire a bit but not enough to wet them because I know how much this pisses me off when people give me a douching because they're trigger happy.

Our big guy, Jeff, went on a rampage taking walls and cielings with his gloved hands. I guess he couldn't wait for a tool, and he started punching and pulling the sheetrock like it was tissue paper. He's a big guy and real aggressive when he's pumped up, so we sat and watched the show, laughing from time to time. My backup guy was sent into another room to do a search and we got called to bring a line upstairs for extension.

Going upstairs, we found heavy smoke condition but no visible flame. We opened up much of the walls and ceiling, moving the ton of furniture and clothing out of our way in the process. Jeez they had a ton of piles of clothes in the place.

All in all we did a text-book stop with no fuck-ups that I can remember.

Car from Fort Knox

Around 2 AM we get called out to a carfire at a local used car dealership. I know those cars to sit very close to eachother, so I pictured 2 or 3 cars involved by the time we get there. I was wrong, it was only 1. It took our captain a minute or so to cut the fence using bolt cutters to let us in. There were 5 of us, and as I mentioned in the past posts, carfires to firemen are like chum to sharks. JK immediately jumps on the first nozzle, which he's known to do at every single fire we ever get, and I grab the second. It took a few mins to get water, and the fire wasn't too crazy, mostly in the right front wheel well, extending into the engine.

I took a halligan and walked around to the driver side window and took the window down in one swift motion, then reached in and opened the door. I tried the hood release after catching some water in the face from the hose team on the other side, and the hood release was obviously burnt out. I closed the door and the gruelling task of opening a hood without a saw began.

When I was a probie I attended an extrication class behind the local Boys & Girls club using some donated cars. My friend Jack and I, joining at the same time, usually attended all the same training and paired up as often as possible. Since the drill was a free-for-all anyway, Jack and I decided to try to get into the trunk of a car using only a halligan and ax. We pried, pulled, smashed, whacked and bent the shit out of the trunk for 15 minutes before giving up. The pin and catch inside is just too strong for standard tools.

Back to the car fire last nite, we tried the Rabbit tool, which is a handheld spreader that operates like a car-jack, the front release (which was burnt away), halligans, axes...etc. We tried everything before finally I gained access to, what ended up being 3 pins under the front lip of the car with a long set of bolt-cutters.

Annoying as it was, we did a pretty good job at gaining access using nothing but the tools we had to work with.

Car Fire at DMV - and the audience goes wild

I got lucky and stayed home yesterday because the heat went out and I needed a plumber. In staying home, around noontime we got dispatched to a "truck fire" at Motor Vehicles. I pictured in my head a big box truck sailing. We had a pretty small crew, 2 old timers, 1 probie, myself and the Captain's dad Artie, who's as bad-ass as they come. For a car fire, where you'll be operating max of 2 lines, a small crew is preferred, to me anyway - less complication, less cluster-fucking. I had my mask sitting on my head until I could finally see flames. It ended up being a small Honda.

I jumped out, stretched a line off the front, waited for water and started hitting it. There was no water pressure to start with, which annoyed me as water came pissing out the smooth-bore. When pressure finally came, I put out the fire and shut down when a truckie came with his favorite toy and cut the hood open. I called to another truckie to take the back window so I can see if there were any flames in the rear, being that it was a 2-door.

Everything went ultra-smooth, and I got complimented by the officer of Truck company later on a "very smooth, calm and text-book" job. We had a huge audience, a line 3 wide and probably 10 cars deep all waiting to pull in for their car inspections. That was pretty cool, never put out a fire in front of such a large audience. Musta been a pretty cool sight for them as well, even though most of them would prob rather get their inspection done and get back to life as usual.

The funniest part of the fire came when the owner of the car walked back to the remains, stuck his upper body into the back seat and pulled out his charred / melted basketball. I guess to some, priorities are obvious. "Fuck the car, get the ball!!!!"

2 car fires in 3 days - nice.

Car Fire at the Little League Field

I had just walked in from Pub 46 and taken the dog out when the tones came in. Immediately I looked at the clock and grabbed my coat, being that anything coming in at 2:15 AM was definitely a firecall. The dispatch seemed anxious and claimed there were multiple calls of a car "fully engulfed." My captain had just said earlier that he feels there's gonna be a fire tonight. He has the best record of any of us as far as predicting these things so I made sure to get to HQ fast.

We pushed out quickly and got masked up in the cab. Usually I don't like putting on a mask until I know I'll need it, but car fires are like a feeding frenzy - if you don't get off the engine and grab a hoseline immediately, someone else will beat you to it. They aren't dangerous and job openings are limited - usually to just 2 hose teams of 2 and maybe someone with a saw or tool.

Brian, one of our newest rookies, jumped on the nozzle and I backed him up. We got water pretty slow and the second line went into operation by the time water started pumping to ours. Our handline was pretty kinked up so I stepped back to unkink it, caught my foot on a curb and went right down on my ass. I was embarrassed for all of 1 second before getting up, flaking the line out and getting back to my backup position before someone else could.

I helped steer Brian closer to the other hoseteam so we didn't oppose lines, being that at this time a second car had already caught fire. The first truck was sailing pretty good and a lot of flame was licking out from the engine, prompting a truckie to come with the circular saw and cut the hood open. I had Brian put water on the hood before swinging around to get the nozzle inside some windows to put out the rest of the interior. At this point, a mixture of smoke and steam was so great that visibility neared zero for a few mins. My mask for some reason was pissing out air on the side, so I quickly removed a glove and pulled the right strap to tighten it, which solved the problem.

I feel bad for the owner of the second car because it caught on fire from the first car and had just enough damage to probably total it. Even the windshield was melted to the dashboard, which looked pretty cool actually.In the end, the first truck was burnt up bad, had the interior completely burned away and even the steering wheel was completely gone, nothing left. All we saw was a mess of wires where one's knees would be in the front, and the metal inserts of the seat headrests.

Word is a neighbor heard a pop and when they looked out the window they saw the first truck catching on fire and someone in a black sweatshirt running away. Who knows.

6:00 AM Freeze-a-thon

At 6:00 AM we get toned out for a "fire in the trailer court." Usually I don't respond to firecalls after 5:00 AM unless it's an actual fire, since I have to wake up at 7:30 for work, it's not worth the lack of sleep to put batteries in some old lady's Carbon Monoxide detector. I was sleeping in shorts and a tshirt, and in a mad rush I ran out of the house wearing that, plus shoes and a jacket. Little did I know it was only 11 degrees out. I'm shaking and speeding my way down to the firehouse. Of course, it ended up being nothing. The caller smelt smoke, which was diesel smoke from a truck next door. I want to smack people like that in the face so hard. It's early in the AM, we're flying like maniacs in our cars, there could be anything from drunks to business men on the roads or walking to cars. One day someone's gonna get killed on the way to a bullshit call because the caller said "fire" when in reality it was burnt popcorn.

Bottom line - I feel fire prevention should advise people how to call in a fire when we do fire prevention week every year. It's always geared towards the children, but it seems the adults need some counceling as well.

DUI MVA

I was sound asleep when we got paged out for an accident involving a possible "ejection." I've never heard them say that word over the pager before so I knew it would be something good. We had a decent small crew and got to Route 80 pretty quick. Hackensack was already finishing up their extrication which indicated they had been on seen already before we got toned out.

Upon closer inspection it was a silver Jeep Commander and the windshield was forced out to a point, indicating someone definitely slammed their head or body up against it with enough force for it to separate from the dashboard at the base where they meet. We stood around waiting for some work but I mentioned we should step back and give Hackensack some space.

The only time I did anything was when the Hackensack guys pulled out the hydrollic spreaders just to pop the hood, when I stepped up and got my hand under it and was able to feel and release the hatch. Sometimes people are quick to pull out the destructive tools without trying easier, obvious methods first - something Lance taught me a long time ago, god rest his soul. He was good at taking young guys under his wing and showing them how to keep their cool and not overlook obvoius things on the fire scene.

The rear of the truck had blood on it and a pool of blood on the ground and the side rear door had been removed or extrication purposes. As far as I know, there was only one victim who was dead, and I watched as they carried his limp body away on a board. That's the second fatality I've seen in an MVA in a year.

I was published in Firehouse Magazine!

There has been an ongoing issue in Firehouse Magazine when it comes to seatbelts in the cabs of fire engines and trucks. It's so damn hard to put seatbelts on when you already have the thick bunker gear and airpack on, nevermind the excitement which makes it easy to forget even the best intentioned.

I wrote Firehouse an article about my idea. All Scott Pak's, and other SCBA, are held in the jumpseat by a round bracket that makes it easy for firemen to lean forward and pop the pack out once it's strapped on their arms and waste. Yes, I say the pack is already strapped on. So why, might one ask, are we looking towards yet a 4th belt to pass over a firefighter's body, to act as restraint?


What if the SCBA's harness was actually held to that bracket? Then yes, the firefighter too would be held in restraint to the seat. Problem is, we need to get up and out, and we need to do this fast. So the easy suggestion I had was to position a quick-release button or lever right between your legs on the seat. When activated, just like a seatbelt, the SCBA's bracket would release from the seat and the Firefighter could stand up and fight another day.

Thanks to firehouse for posting this idea of mine and I hope I've inspired someone to maybe take it a step further and get it into production.

Glad I could amuse

It's been slow lately, so when we got paged out to a fire alarm at Felician college, I decided to have a little fun. We arrived and walked downstairs and followed the sound of flowing water and horrible sound until we found the source - a broken sprinkler head deep in a utility room. We had to crawl under ducts and through vertical beams until we could reach the area where the water was just pissing out. My captain immediately joked that one of us should go and try to chock it (technique used to wedge a doorstop or two in the open area to block the sprinkler's orifice.)

As I mentioned, times are slow so I volunteered. I stripped my gear of anything I didn't want to get wet, including my mask and pack, but kept my jacket on in a futile attempt to protect my clothing. So minutes later, there I was standing under a sieve of water flowing probably like 40 gallons a minute onto my head, face and hands, while I tried to jam a chock in something I couldn't even see, and barely felt with my frozen finger tips. The water was damn cold and at this point just shooting me square in the face, causing me to drop my shield down.

We stood back after I got it semi-chocked and saw there was a red wire gate covering the sprinkler head which was why I couldn't get the chock in there. All in all, the attempt was pointless but at least everyone got a good laugh about it all, even me. I stopped laughing when I walked outside into the 30 degree weather though haha.

Pallette fire - contant ave

Here's another fire blog. It was a Saturday night around 2:00 AM. The tones came through reporting a caller who saw flames. Whenever I hear flames, its a much better bet than someone reporting smoke or fire. Fire can mean very different things to different people, from a cigarette smoldering to a warehouse burning. However, flames universally means the bright red things.

Anyhow, we were short manned which usually means a much tighter, smoother operation. Huge flames were visible from blocks away. John and I came off and stretched a handline. What we saw was a van fully involved, a dumpster on fire, and a huge pallet stack leaning on a building on fire. John was on the nozzle but I immediately told him to forget the van and dumpster and lets just go after the pallettes since they were up against the exposure.

AJ, my Capt, came along and had us sweep more to the side so we can get a direct shot at the pallettes. Soon a tire blew out, making us all jump, and as we got really close, another tire blew out, probably about 10 feet from us, sounding like a shotgun. AJ brought us right between the dumpster fire and the van, so it got nice and toasty, and at one point we had 0 visibility and john was just blasting away with the handline. I remember having my hand on the back of his bottle so i could stay with him, while the other hand was pulling the line.

It took a good minute or minute and a half to get the pallettes under control before we turned to the van. The van was pretty well involved, with flames shooting out from under it, but we took that down eventually also.

Later I took the line and climbed on top of the stack to wet down the palletes from above and from the exposure side, since flames and embers were still visible as per the crew on the roof.

This was a really cool fire to fight because the situation was safe enough to walk pretty much right into the fire, with the dumpster to the left and van to the right. Visibility was horrible with the smoke, but we did a text-book stop. We protected the exposures first, then turned to the van, then to the harmless dumpster. Everyone was safe and no one got hurt.

Oh I did get yelled at for taking a ladder down on its beam by one of the truckies though.

Car fire on Albert St.

I was sick and went home from work early. I had promised myself not to get up for any fire calls, but around 7:30 PM a report of an "explosion" came through. Now usually explosion can mean anything from a pop / fizzle from a tv to a transformer going out, but rarely does it mean fire. I went anyway.

It ended up being in the trailer courts, and upon pulling around the bend, the smoke was obvious. John K.  already had his mask on in the engine, which i thought was a little rediculous ( i busted his balls for it later. ) I haven't been on a long time, but rarely agree with putting a mask on in the engine. It takes under 20 seconds to don a mask / helmet and tie in to the regulator, so to run off the engine blinded by a fogging mask seems unnecessary to me. I'd rather don at the front door and take the extra ten seconds.

Anyway, I thought it was a fire in a trailer, which got me a little nervous since I know how tight, messy and crammed they can be, let alone the minefield of things to get snagged on. It ended up being a car fire in between two trailers, so we had 2 exposures to keep cool while working on the fire.

To begin with we had way too many firemen around. Later, pictures revealed like 8 guys on a hoseline. Dangerous if something were to go wrong - let alone embarrassing after the fact. AJ took the saw to the front hood, which made an awesome shower of sparks that covered a few of us, making for some good photo ops.

Fire knocked down in minutes, both trailers unharmed.