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Tactical Tips: Mobile Home Fires
The recent double-LODD in West Virginia has mobile home fires on all of our minds. Although it’s too soon for us to know what happened at that specific fire, or to draw any judgments about the tactics employed, it does provide an opportunity to review mobile home firefighting tactics. While our hearts go out to the families of Johnnie Hammons and Timothy Nicholas, our minds should turn to how we can prevent this tragedy from happening again.
I asked Chief Greg Jakubowski of the Lingohocken Fire Department, a “Fire Attack” columnist for FireRescue magazine, to provide a few pointers on mobile home fires. Here’s what he said:
"Think Easy-Bake Oven on a bigger scale. The construction common to mobile home keeps the heat inside. The kitchen and living space is at one end, the bedrooms at the other—with limited means of egress and little or no fire partitions in the small units to contain the fire in one section.
"To be successful at mobile home fires, you will need to keep the fire at one end or the other. Entering with the nozzle at the end of the mobile home where the fire is will simply push the fire through the home. At the same time the nozzle crew enters, take out the windows at the other end to ventilate. This will allow the nozzle crew to push the heat out.
"A quick fire knockdown is about your only hope of successfully rescuing any victims that might remain in the unit upon your arrival. Mobile home roofs are not generally designed to support the weight of a person, and it’s likely not worth the time or effort to try vertical ventilation.
"In many cases, cooking and heating for the home is provided by propane, so a large propane tank will be alongside or nearby the unit. Protect the tank from fire impingement. Cooking and heating can also be provided by electricity or natural gas. Take the time to check for these hookups on arrival—or better yet, ahead of time by touring mobile homes in your coverage area."
Following are some pictures from a 2006 mobile home fire Greg's department responded to:
Shannon Pieper is managing editor of FireRescue magazine.
Greg Jakubowski is a fire protection engineer and certified safety professional with 28 years of fire-service experience. He is a Pennsylvania State Fire Instructor and serves as the chief of the Lingohocken Fire Company in Bucks County, Pa. Greg is also a principal in Fire Planning Associates, a company dedicated to helping fire departments, municipalities and businesses with pre-emergency training.
I asked Chief Greg Jakubowski of the Lingohocken Fire Department, a “Fire Attack” columnist for FireRescue magazine, to provide a few pointers on mobile home fires. Here’s what he said:
"Think Easy-Bake Oven on a bigger scale. The construction common to mobile home keeps the heat inside. The kitchen and living space is at one end, the bedrooms at the other—with limited means of egress and little or no fire partitions in the small units to contain the fire in one section.
"To be successful at mobile home fires, you will need to keep the fire at one end or the other. Entering with the nozzle at the end of the mobile home where the fire is will simply push the fire through the home. At the same time the nozzle crew enters, take out the windows at the other end to ventilate. This will allow the nozzle crew to push the heat out.
"A quick fire knockdown is about your only hope of successfully rescuing any victims that might remain in the unit upon your arrival. Mobile home roofs are not generally designed to support the weight of a person, and it’s likely not worth the time or effort to try vertical ventilation.
"In many cases, cooking and heating for the home is provided by propane, so a large propane tank will be alongside or nearby the unit. Protect the tank from fire impingement. Cooking and heating can also be provided by electricity or natural gas. Take the time to check for these hookups on arrival—or better yet, ahead of time by touring mobile homes in your coverage area."
Following are some pictures from a 2006 mobile home fire Greg's department responded to:
Shannon Pieper is managing editor of FireRescue magazine.
Greg Jakubowski is a fire protection engineer and certified safety professional with 28 years of fire-service experience. He is a Pennsylvania State Fire Instructor and serves as the chief of the Lingohocken Fire Company in Bucks County, Pa. Greg is also a principal in Fire Planning Associates, a company dedicated to helping fire departments, municipalities and businesses with pre-emergency training.
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Comment by Michael Meadows on March 28, 2010 at 7:54pm
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I've seen a lot mentioned about building materials, but not a lot about modifications that mobile home owners make to their homes. Some people add tin roofs, quite a few people add wood stoves keeping the wood indoors beside the heater, change the interior with inferior products than the home was built with, use stryofoam sheets for insulation, etc. Bottom line is we have no idea what is in the homes without proper preplanning but with the explosion of these things being built there is no way to preplan all of them. Some first clues that I've found would be holes cut where there shouldn't be holes, pipes coming from where there shoudn't be pipes, and add-ons to the structure that wasn't part of the orginal trailer. I espically don't like the tin roofs most trailer roofs now are shingle and replacing that with tin, well, on a mobile home is asking for trouble if there is a fire. The thing with add-ons is they may not be on the same level as the rest of the floor causing problems getting to them and they may be built with less quality materials. I know of one mobile home owner who relocated his water lines to the roof from the floor. Made for a great sprinkler system but was kind of a shock to us feeling water coming from the roof. Bottom line is this: if you make interior use common sense and extreme caution!
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Comment by Greg Jakubowski on February 27, 2009 at 1:13pm
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Don't beat on my guys too badly for an aggressive interior attack that went well. BUT - How about this for Risk vs. Benefit? Why EVER go into any home or building that isn't sprinklered (unless there is a SAVEABLE life involved)??? Have been talking about that on some other forums? If we as firefighters refuse to do that, it might help gain support to get all new buildings to be sprinklered. 2 of the 3 communities we protect have (and have had) residential sprinkler ordinances. The other community now wishes they had adopted residential sprinklers years ago, but the new state code essentially precludes them from now doing so, and they are having unsprinklered single family dwellings going up in the 20-25,000 sq. ft. range. A bit of a different problem than "mobile" homes.
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And "manufactured homes" brings about a whole new topic/category. While we were talking about "mobile" homes I was generally aiming at the Single- or Double-wide varieties. Manufactured homes can now easily go up to thousands of square feet (I am aware of one in the Princeton, NJ area that included an elevator for a family member who is disabled). I have actually designed industrial buildings in the US and overseas that included "manufactured" sections that were built in Europe around shipping containers. Once they were built in a huge warehouse, they could be taken apart with flanged piping, etc., the sides of the shipping containers welded back on to them, and then sent anywhere in the world to be reconstructed quickly on site. But those are topics of a different sort than your basic "mobile home" fire (using the term loosely).
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Except perhaps on those mobile homes with homes "added on" to them.
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As far as the Vindicators go, we carry the Blitz Attack Vindicators on our 3" handlines with CAFS. Awesome in this application (but maybe a bit much on a single-wide ;-)).
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Art, if you are referring to the pictures, again, I can't say for sure as I didn't make that run. The risk/benefit call was made by the Chief/Lieutenant on the scene. It was a relatively small contents fire, didn't involve the structure and it was handled quickly and easily. I can tell you we make those risk calls all the time - I am a huge fan of risk and risk analysis (one man's risk is another man's - "hey, that was cool, can we do it again???"). I actually teach a college class on Public Risk Analysis. Our dept. had a dust collector for an asphalt plant well involved in the bottom of one of the 4 working quarries in our first due about 5 years ago. The filter bags were made of Nomex and they were involved, so that tells you the conditions. The quarry was continuing to work, and we were about 1/4 mile below ground level with no hydrants within miles. On that call - we actually left as there was little benefit to extinguishment, and great risk. There were no exposures (everything around it was rock), and a firewatch was posted to monitor the fire until it burned itself out. Once it did, they replaced the filters and restarted the plant. Guys thought it was a little strange, but no need to put anyone at risk with nothing to save.
Greg Jakubowski
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Comment by Jenny Holderby on February 25, 2009 at 12:38pm
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An issue we have in my area is that folks build on to or build around mobile homes. They may LOOK like solid structures but the original "mobile" part often still has flimsey floors & walls. They may have a wood roof over top which causes a space for fire to flow freely above. When you roll up on a trailer with flames shooting out both ends, the best thing to do is protect exposures, use LOTS of water on both ends if you can & forget the rest. A pike pole works very well on the heated metal to pop the rivets to open up the sides and to cut away the flashing around the bottom.
Someone said risk a lot to save a lot. ,. I am not sure exactly where that phrase originated. I learned it in a risk management class many years ago. It is one of the best pieces of advice any of us can follow.
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Comment by Robert Priebe on February 24, 2009 at 5:57pm
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i am a voly in Toledo Ohio and am about to move into one of these so called death traps. As long as proper fire saftey precautions are taken they very safe dwellings.My department has been to 3 in the last year and a half in the trailer park in our township. Allwere fought defensivley and no injuries reported. However it is my expreience that if you dont have to go in then dont.
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Comment by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on February 24, 2009 at 4:38pm
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Yah Yah.
The Vindicator nozzle by First Strike Technologies is definitely the nozzle.
In fact; the first time I saw it demonstrated, they lit a mobile home, waited until it was really cookin', then attacked with an inch and three quarter Vindicator. Fire was down in about a half a minute.
I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with me own eyes. Monroe - 1998.
We now own two of them and use them most of the time. Great with foam apps too.
TCSS.
Art
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Comment by Paul Young on February 24, 2009 at 3:57pm
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We still have some of the older metal sided and metal roofed mobile home.......with siding around the hitch and the wheels / axels covered by siding. As far as the preferred nozzle, I like a broken stream ie. the Vindicator or a smooth bore. If you are gonna sqirt water....squirt water! Thats just a preference.
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