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Maine Firefighters Escape Medical Oxygen Blast During House Fire
CHRISTOPHER COUSINS
Bangor Daily News
NEWPORT - No one was injured Tuesday when the concussion force of an exploding oxygen tank knocked two Newport firefighters onto their backs and demolished part of a home.
"We're very lucky," said Newport Fire Chief Jeff Chretien.
Firefighters Matt Snowman and Amanda Chretien, pulling a hose with them, attacked the fire through the front door of 4 Old Bangor Road after the homeowner reported a blaze breaking out around the wood stove at about 12:30 p.m.
Chretien and Snowman, who had been warned that there was oxygen breathing equipment in the home, took a position just a few feet inside the door. As soon as the water hit the fire, there were two small "booms" followed by a big one, they said.
"It physically knocked us backwards, then the roof started to cave in," said Snowman, who directed the nozzle while Chretien supported the hose.
"You could feel things hitting you," Chretien said. "When we looked up, we had flames over our head."
The force of the explosion tore away the ceiling and filled the room with flames as the cloud of pure oxygen burned. Snowman said his first thought was whether he or Chretien were hurt.
"I felt around and I had all my limbs and Amanda was OK behind me," he said. "You really don't have time to think right then and there."
They recovered and attacked the fire starting with the flames above their heads.
The raised ranch, owned by Sylvia Larry and Craig Young, was not insured against fire, said Chief Jeff Chretien, who is Amanda Chretien's husband. Crews from Newport, Corinna, Pittsfield, Detroit, Etna and Plymouth managed to contain the fire to the front rooms of the home, but there was heavy smoke and water damage throughout.
"It's hard to tell if it's salvageable," said Jeff Chretien, who said the homeowners were staying with family members in the short term.
"It's still standing, but there's a lot of damage."
The fire, located at the three-road intersection of Route 2, Old Bangor Road and the Christie Campground Road, caused minor delays to traffic on Route 2 as tankers brought water from a hydrant about a quarter-mile away. Chief Chretien said the State Fire Marshal's Office determined the cause to be a malfunctioning wood stove.
Both firefighters who witnessed the explosion said it was the worst they had ever experienced, though both said they have been blown back by bursts of fire called flashovers. Amanda Chretien said her first flashover was Monday when she attacked another fire through the front door of a mobile home on Route 100 in Detroit.
That fire, which destroyed a home owned by Kenneth Judkins and Tiffany Carchide-Bouchard, according to an article in Tuesday's Bangor Daily News, was ruled accidental. Chretien attributed Monday's flashover to the sudden introduction of oxygen and water in the tight confines of the home.
"It got about a thousand degrees, right above my head," she said.
"Once we opened the door and added cool water, the fire was everywhere."
Related
- Homewood, IL - Fire Kills Firefighter, Criticaly Burns Another
- Seffner, FL - Firefighters Injured In Mobile Home Explosion
January 26, 2011
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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There is a simple solution for this folks. It's called a NFPA 704 Hazard identification warning diamond placard. If a home has a liquid oxygen unit in their home, placing a small placard adjacent to the building address not only warns firefighters about the hazards inside the structure but that there may be someone inside who is disabled and may not be able to safely egress the structure without assistance.
What these firefighters were dealing with was liquid oxygen or LOX. An example MSDS (click here) shows the NFPA rating as a 3-0-0-OXY.
These firefighters are lucky to be alive as would anyone encountering an enclosed space, on fire, with a bomb waiting to go off inside. We as firefighters have a right to know what's behind door number two... and most of us hate these kinds of surprises. I vote for warning placards for firefighters...
TCSS,
CBz
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Permalink Reply by Derek R. on
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I'll second that, Mike.
Now please, correct me if I'm wrong, and this might only be in certain places, but isn't there supposed to be a placard type decal in the window of a door, or on the door itself, in homes where o2 is kept, or being used, for the purpose of alerting emergency personnel upon arrival?
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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What these firefighters were dealing with was liquid oxygen or LOX
Just wondering where you got this information from? Most home oxygen I come across consists of smaller O2 bottles and the O2 generators, not seeing any LOX out there. How do we know this was not O2 bottles cooking off here? Curious.
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I don't believe there are any national standards for home placarding, only recommendations.
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The force of the explosion tore away the ceiling and filled the room with flames as the cloud of pure oxygen burned.
My assumption here is that if a tank of anything exploded and burned, there would not be much residual... right? But the article infers that there was a cloud of pure oxygen, which again leads me to believe that the warning that there was oxygen breathing equipment in the home was actually a combination of both portable oxygen tanks and an oxygen generator, both very common for respiratory compromised patients.
When you think in terms of long term care for patients, you need to look at the numbers, or the actual amounts of oxygen needed to medicate patients with respiratory compromise.
At Home Liquid Oxygen Systems
1. Vessels for conventional liquid oxygen are highly efficient means of transporting and storing oxygen. 2. One liter of liquid oxygen equals 860 gaseous liters.
3. Liquid oxygen is approximately -297°F and when kept under pressure of 18 to 22 psi will remain in a liquid state.
4. Liquid oxygen is delivered to the patient's home in a base unit that can be the primary source of oxygen while at home and can be used to fill a smaller portable unit when the patient leaves home. 5. Conventional liquid oxygen vessels require no power source to operate, making it an appropriate choice for patients in areas with frequent power outages.
6. Conventional liquid oxygen systems are quiet and have no major moving parts.
7. When the conventional liquid oxygen base unit is used as the primary oxygen source, it needs to be refilled approximately every two weeks, depending on the patient's consumption rate and liter flow.
8. PRODUCT LABELLING WARNS TO KEEP THIS EQUIPMENT IN AN UPRIGHT POSITION AT ALL TIMES OR LIQUID OXYGEN MAY ESCAPE.
9. Oxygen tanks have a history of being involved in fire all by themselves... and there are lawyers who specialize in these types of incidents which means they are common incident types.
10. With the description provided, and knowing that oxygen users have more than one system, coupled with the intensity of the fire, I believe that a LOX system during the cylinder explosion was overturned, spilling liquid oxygen that intensified the fire due to the oxygen's "oxidizing" properties.
CBz
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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Who titled this article? The first sentence in the article is contradicting the title.
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Permalink Reply by FFN WebTeam on
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Corrected.
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I guess it is possible, but I just didn't see anything depicting it was LOX and not just cylinders. A cylinder cooking off could also give the same type of effects, depending on size. Although the new info on LOX at home is nice to know, as I mentioned, I never seen such a sytem in a home and have been to numerous calls where people are on O2.
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could be socioeconomics, availability and local contracts that dictate whether or not you see these units or not I suppose. they are very common where I live and to be honest, a ticking time bomb for structure fires involving one of these devices.
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Permalink Reply by Steve Reinhart on
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All good comments on this forum. To correct the story-"filled the room with flames as the cloud of pure oxygen burned". Oxygen doesn't burn. It supports combustion and is considered an "oxidizer". Oxygen itself will not burn (as noted in the NFPA diamond for "Flammability-0).
One other comment that was misstated-"3. Liquid oxygen is approximately -297°F and when kept under pressure of 18 to 22 psi will remain in a liquid state". Liquid O2 will not remain in a liquid state unless the surrounding environment is less than -297 F. Liquid O2 containers are constructed like a thermos bottle with a vacuum in between an outer and inner vessel. The vacuum decreases the thermal leak, but you never eliminate all thermal leak due to inner supports and piping penetrations. LOX is constantly boiling off and if not used, will relieve through a pressure relief device (PRD) on the container. If a heat source is applied to the outer vessel, it will boil more quickly, causing the PRD to lift and gaseous O2 to be vented.
Liquid O2 systems are becoming very common now. You may see a healthcare van on the highway with a yellow placard and the "oxidizer" label. These vans go house to house and fill the small containers located @ inside the residences.
You'd think NFPA would come up with a regulation to placard the main entry to the house.
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