Structure Fire 7/21/07

Around 0700 hrs on the morning of 7/21/07 the Branchville and Frankford Fire Departments were assigned to the report of a possible structure fire in the Culver Lakes section of Frankford. I was on Engine 1 with my father. While enroute, my LT. 674 (M. Dann) arrived on scene with and address of 166 Lower North Shore Rd. and to confirm a working house fire. When that was herd, my father (the driver) put the pedal to the medal. We arrived on scene to see nothing but flames. My father and his good eye found a spot where our truck will fit to get easy access to the spot we declared the draft site. My Captain 672 (K. Pumphrey) Arrived and assumed Lower North Shore command. Branchville 652 was first arriving Ladder while 654 was 3rd arriving engine. Myself and 2 other firefighters pulled the "gated Y" off the back of engine 1 so we could have many different lines coming off the truck for the attact of the house. MYself and the other female firefighter on my dept. Stacy cover the exposure on Side B of the house. This side was extremely close to the neighboring house. We started to see the paint bubble on the neighboring house and decided to get out acts into gear and get as much water as possible to our side of the house. The fire was nocked down within about 2 hours or so. AFter that it was time for all of us to take a break and get rehab'd and fluids in our system. We had been working extremely hard in the extreme july weather in full PPEE. When we were all done cooling down, it was time to get back into out gear and start overhaul. While doing so, i was upstairs in the back 2 bedrooms. While investigating and pulling the celing down, we found out that the back 2 rooms were almost ready to flash over. Looking at the inside of the room gave us this evidence. We saw the air-conditioner totally melted and the plastic and medal cooled in the dripping stage. I must say it was cool to see. As we continued to overhaul, the house owners were giving us instruction on where certain valuable items were in the house, luckily they were in the 2 back rooms. We finished overhaul and watched the arsen investigators do there thing. They came to the conclusion that the fire started exterior by ashes falling onto a matress they had outside the "breezeway" of the house. These ashes were "possibly" from the bon fire the neighbors had the night before. WIth how the wind swirlled around inbetween the 2 houses, and how strong the wind was (lake effect, gotta love it), it was extremely possible for the smoldering ashes to reignite, which is what happened.

We did have one fatality - The cat... died of heat exhaustion and possibly dround in all the water we were flowing. Very sad, but true.

We all left the scene to report no injury's to anyone in the home (except the cat), and ourselves. We all consider it a job well done. Even though the house wasn't savable, we all came home that night which is all that matters.

Units on scene

Engines---

Branchville Hose Co. Engines 654, 653, 651

Frankford Twp. Fire Dept. Engines 1, 2, & 3

Hampton Twp. Volunteer Fire Dept. Engines 48-62

Sandyston Fire Dept. Engine 2

Lafeyette Twp. Volunteer Fire Dept Engine 852

Ladders---

Brachville Hose Co. Ladder 652

Tenders---

Frankford Tender-1

HAmpton Tender-48-71