John Jeniec from Fairfax (VA) Rescue Engine 433 sent in these pictures of an interesting find he and the crew discovered while operating on scene of an automotive upholstery repair garage fire. The fire building was a single story building (300’ x 50’) containing multiple occupancies constructed with masonry walls and steel bar joist. Undoubtedly. many of our areas have very similar buildings with a wide variety of different types of businesses in them.
Another crew member, Joe Tutt found something unique as he opened the roll up door of the Delta exposure (not the fire occupancy.) Look close, the occupancy owner had rigged up a system to haul and suspend a snow blower, storage box (with unknown contents), treadmill, and a sofa above the entryway using 3/8 nylon rope. All four of those heavy items are merely suspended by the rope. We all know what could have happened if the fire had extended into this occupancy. A moderate smoke condition would have obscured this, and would not take much heat to defeat the 3/8 rope and bring this down on one of us. These buildings are just like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna’ get. Keep your eyes open out there!
Are you kidding? What in the lord’s name was this stuff doing hanging above the entryway? Was he doing this to make extra floor space, or had the owner actually booby-trapped his storage locker?
Wow. I sure hope there was some corrected action taken right quick. Can’t belive anyone thinks thats a good idea..
I don’t think it’s bobby-trapped. I think his business expanded and he needed to increase floor space. Though I still wouldn’t rule it out.
This photo increases the importance of venting early and properly. If we don’t get rid of that high smoke layer, we’d never see this until it was too late.
John
You can’t make stuff like this up!
Stay safe out there…
TC
Yep, they really don’t care about us at all.
We ran accross something similar to this on a run a few months ago. We pulled the meter, grabbed a rubber glove Used a leave blower to vent from the back…I caught it all on my helmet cam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
John and Joe, Thanks for the information; your contribution may have indirectly saved a life! I’ll pass this along to the guys at #30. We would have been first due truck but we were on the other side of Beautiful Downtown Merrifield fighting a fire in an attached garage. I’m glad Truck #3 caught some work though! Great job!
Other than the obvious, another area of concern is how much more “straw” can be added before we break the camel’s back? With the additional live load placed specifically on the one bar joist, how much is too much, especially given the snow storms that we have had this season? This may not apply to a situation involving fire as I would expect the rope to burn through beforehand, but the roof is not designed to hold the amount of weight that it is under normal circumstances.
Great find! Thanks for passing this “catch” on to all of us.
I hate to be the only one saying this, with smoke pushing out of there, looking up won’t do you much good.
I see the snow blower, but where did they store the leaf blower?
It’s usually up there too, but the FD borrowed it for RV training.
Finally! I’ve been telling guys for years that the treadmill would kill ya!
Thats what great about this site. I was looking for ways to make more room in my garage when I saw these pics. Thanks!!
What no safe or anvil?
The anvil and safe are in the ACME warehouse.
They’re in the box!
that’s effin crazy.
Has anyone tried to do a follow up with the owner to see just what the reasoning was behind it.
Would look very strange when viewed through a thermal imager….
We have a import repair shop about two blocks from the station. The owner loves his Volkswagens. Across the trusses in his shop he has 2x4s supporting VW beetle blocks. About 15 of them. MAGNESIUM beetle blocks.
Ouch!
Looks like a nice new snow blower. lol. Wouldn’t be so nice if the rope failed.
Really though, it is an eye openner for what people will do, not caring about what might happen in the event of a fire. I too, would like to know if the local fire prevention or building department made the owner take those things down.
@ Bulldawg. What do you mean by pulling the meter and grabbing a rubber glove? And venting with the leaf blower? Did I miss something? It just seemed kind of awkward to me, wondering if you could explain…
Just a long running string of jokes about previous posts. Look at some of the older ones about putting webbing in a glove and live fire training with a leaf blower, I’ll bet you’ll have a chuckle or two.