Our friend Rhett Fleitz from VAFireNews.com sent in this story that was written by Captain W.W.Wines Jr. from Roanoke (VA) Fire. Capt. Wines and the crew from Station 9-C recently encountered a little situation that they wanted to share. We’re sure each one of you have run into similar situations, so it should make an intersting discussion. Check out the supplemental page for details.
We’ve responded to an EMS frequent flyer in a apartment that looks just like that. Infested, trash every where and probably smells about the same (judging by the brother with the pak on). Fortunately he usually meets the crew outside (except when I responded there).
Thats a great suggestion… while on a medical call, take note to your area. Driving around you will notice odd things in your neighborhood. While in buildings on calls (commercial or residential) you can take note to all types of things. Building construction. Lay outs. Hazards. FDC’s (for us Engine guys). Aerial placement restrictions or prime locations.
Every call can be one to learn from… even the basic, run of the mill EMS call. Learning is all around you, take part in it.
Thanks for sharing… Keeps you thinking.
Stay safe. Work smart.
~Egan
My engine did a salvage call for a broken water pipe at a house like this. Looks nice from the outside but a packrat lives inside. We spent 20 minutes moving boxes of stuff just to get a pathway to squeegee water. The garage was filled to the rafters with flammables. Good to know at 3 A.M.
We have/had some homes like this in our response area. One which was vacant even had about 10grand in it which was found in the demo of the house. The cash was saved by the 4 feet of garbage over it.
I like the first photo there with the under used garbage can.
Thanks Willie and Rhett.
We have several house like the one featured in our first due, but also in one of them we encountered jars, milk jugs and bottles full of urine sitting around. We all need to watch out for the biohazards, and don’t forget the weight load once interior supression operations start. Kind of makes you wonder what’s going to come down on you when you start hooking ceiling.
FTM-PTB-EGH
Mike E
We did an odor investigation into a 4 story house (each floor was a separate unit) and the 2nd floor was a nightmare. There was a very narrow path through each room and the rest was piled almost to the ceiling with magazines and other junk. Each room also had a minimum of two big screen TVs in it with one room having 4 of them. It was obvious that most of them weren’t used. I would hate to see how quickly that building would collapse once the fire got going.
The odor investigation turned out to be the landlord soaking insulation in gasoline and putting it on top of the furnace – he apparently didn’t like one of the tenants. Glad we caught it when we did!
Well, its def safe to say that its more and more common in all areas of the states. And its not just in low or average income neighborhoods too. Its in wealthy areas as well. I remember attempting to vent enter and search a second floor of a 2 stry p/d on the driveway side and my officer at the time was asking how come im not making a move up there. Id didnt know how to explain to him what i was looking at. Clothes upon clothes upon clothes stacked up above the window sill. I started pulling clothes out and dropping them to the driveway but it wasnt helping a bit. Just a few weeks ago in a quite wealthy area of town an a/f/a revealed a house stacked with thousands of books. Small little walk-ways surrounded by walls of books. Owner said he was in the process of selling them on ebay. NO WAY!!
BE SAFE ALL.
The situation you discovered is called a “collier’s Mansion”. Do a little research about the collier brothers. FDNY find crapike this all the time. Imagine this situation 3 or 4 floors up.
I have heard that term recently, however you don’t hear it much in VA. I have read up on it a little. Thanks for clarifying it.
Check this out for more information:
http://www.theplan.com/dmi/collier_story.htm
This can be found anywhere, but the most common place that I find this type of conditions is in basements. As I teach my guys, “Just htink of all the crap that you put in your own”. In addition to just the amount of crap there is people have the wonderful habit of storing gas/propane tanks/black powder/insert bad things here in their basements.
Everybody has these somewhere in their district. The point to remember is if you choose to enter a structure under these conditions when fire is present to exercise extreme caution. It would be very easy to become disoriented, trapped under falling debris, or have your escape route blocked by falling debris. If fire conditions are advanced, it is unlikely that you could crawl accross the piles to locate alternate means of egress. Stay safe…it’s a dump out there.
The last 2 fires I have worked were in residences like this. Trash and debris piled knee high. Fire spread was much faster due to the large amount of surface area of the combustibles. The second time we came across these conditions we were very conservetive in our operations. The likely hood of identifing much less finding the victim(s) in the setting is very small. Protect yourself and the crew with big ventilation operations and 180 gpm minimal handlines.
Gents,
We have houses like this in our city. When we respond on houses such as the one shown, and are unaware that it is a pack rat type home figure it out once operations start. We do a very important thing. We take every window and cut down to the floor and make doors to every room for access. We did this at the last fire we had and it worked great and it provides IC a huge safety net, for crews operating on scene.
One of the other brothers noted we at FDNY call this a “colliers mansion”. It does seem to be a pretty common occurrence. The point of my post is this. Everyone should have a common term like this or other that jumps out to all the guys that this situation exists. Just the radio transmission ” There is a lot of S^&T in here” doesn’t accurately describe what your seeing or feeling. If and when we here Colliers Mansion during a job in FDNY, there is no doubt the conditions they are facing and hence the Chief understands the slow progress with line advancement, searches will most certainly be delayed, overhaul will take much much longer. Etc Etc.. I found this term or similar is a sure fire way to describe the situation above. One last point. Most of us probably went to proby school or FF1 school and crawled around a vacant fire tower as a search drill looking for a mannequin. Well a fully furnished house will feel like a colliers mansion compared to proby schools vacant tower. So don’t mix up the two, they are drastically different.. Get a term like this in your communication plan……..
Safe Tour Brothers..
We had a working house fire that looked just like that but it was a two story single family dwelling and there was stuff from floor to ceiling we had problem accessing the second floor and locating the fire.