This is a recovered post:
I believe this post discussed an awesome fire that I missed. My shift, my unit, my day off. I’m sure we discussed something about “what the term residential mean to you?†I’m sure we also spoke about how the term “ordinary construction†is one of the most abused and misunderstood terms in the fire service. This home pictured above was well over 10,000 sqft and worth millions of dollars. It was still under construction, and was unoccupied at the time of the fire. The fire burned undetected for a long time and was through the roof prior to units arriving on scene. I hate missing calls like this! –Jimm-
Dave
Big fire = Big water. Whether it comes from large lines or aerial ops, an aggressive initial attack with something larger than a glorified garden hose could save time, money, and property. Like Jimm, I too missed this call (darn vacation) but my first thoughts seeing the news clip and the pictures was big water. Echoing statements made in an earlier post, when faced with a residential home of this size, some simple initial communications can make a difference. In Winter Park and some other areas, most monster houses like these are set back from the road, may not be easy to get to, and are not the typical “square” foundation. Many of these mansions have outcroppings or mother-in-law suites or whatever else attatched to the main house. This makes it extremely difficult to do a good size up when you arrive. Some homes have long driveways so you dont know what you have until you walk a good 500′ to the house. Once you do make it to the mansion, by just adding the word “large” residental (The rest of this comment has been lost forever…-Jimm-)
AJ
Like Jim stated this house presented with unique and challenging tactics. Just look at the photo of the fire. The structure looks like there could be bedrooms on the second floor side A. While those two windows on the second floor were actually on a stairway landing. The three windows at the top were fake and collapsed into the 1st floor. In fact the whole middle of the of the structure had little to no living space at all. Most of the middle of the building was a dedicated grand entrance that was only about 20 to 30 feet wide and two stories tall. The 360 is most important on fire like this. Once that was completed several tactics had to be adjusted. All of the living quarters were built in wings on either side of the structure. Everyone involved worked very had to save this house but unfortunately with the construction type (light weight truss) this home was lost before the last one was pushed on the phone.
Jeff
a few of my thoughts when dealing with these structures not about this particular fire. When dealing with very large extravagant houses we must note a few things when developing our tactics. Most homes of this size are going to have large span areas of with little to no load bearing capabilities underneath the engineered systems. Homes like this usually have very grand entrances with big open foyers to add to the aesthetics and show size and a open feeling of the home. Very good points were brought up about the decision to handle this situation from the commercial aspect as the size of the structure as well as anticipating a large amount of fire especially after burning through the roof. Great points were made about the fake windows over the entry way. Many times we find this to be the case. When constructing a home of this size due to its massiveness they have to construct aesthetically pleasing features on the exterior so that there are not large areas of concrete with no visual… (The rest of this comment have been lost forever… -Jimm-)