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In the Street with the Safety Officer
You’re the on-duty Senior Incident Safety Officer. You've responded on a first-alarm assignment to a working fire at a large car dealership. First-due companies have arrived and are encountering heavy fire in one of a number of service bay areas, with heavy and rapidly extending fire. Companies are going to work and are committing to an aggressive interior operation at the present time.
The entire large complex is over 30,000 SF and is has mixed construction and features, with a number of additions and expansions added on over a period of forty years. The fire is beginning to extend (arrow) into the adjacent bay as engine companies are pushing in and working the fire with multiple handlines.
You’ve arrived on scene on the Delta Side, with most companies committed to the Alpha Side. A second alarm is being transmitted as you get your gear on and start for the command post.
What should you be considering related to this fire at this point?
What needs to be done?
What is your risk profiling of the building telling you?
After a quick face-to-face with the Incident Commander, your assignment has been given to you to provide the IC with recommend actions regarding suppression operations and for a risk assessment profile report.
What information do you think you need to get ? What are you thinking about - might be happening now and what may be happening in the next 10 minutes? What's the biggest concern you have regaring personnel safety?
All hands [companies] are working, with some progress, but doubtful….
What’s your safety gauges starting to tell you ……
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Tiger Schmittendorf on
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I'm off that day...
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Permalink Reply by Christopher J. Naum, SFPE on
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They just might "special call you".....
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Permalink Reply by Brian Evans on
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Can you find a service tech/ manager and get info on the bays, like how many cars, any chemicals being stored etc etc?
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Reports are...lots of cars in for service, repairs, painting etc. the place has the expected [typical] high fire loading, chemicals, combustibles, flammables etc. Think about what you normally see when you take your car or truck in for service.....plus there's plenty of service personnel, mechanics, sales and service staff and a number of civilians all around....
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1st concern is getting all fire fighters out! total recall from the building, this goes to surround and drown operations. Years back my father was IC on a concrete yard fire, their service garage was the epicenter and the settling tanks started going off like fireworks, to avoid any casualties he had everyone pulled out and was using towers/ladders to drown while ground lines worked to contain the fire, keeping everyone away from the explosive areas
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Permalink Reply by Doug on
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Light weight steel/aluminum truss construction, large HVAC units on the roof. Get a hold of the MSDS and the service manager, this one is definitely involving hazardous materials. May want to redeploy from the A side and make entry and attack from either the B or D side where it would be safer from the overhead dangers. Get several ppv fans going from the B or D side venting towards the A side. But, ah....I'm either golfing or fishing with Tiger.
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Permalink Reply by Palmyra Chief Donaghey on
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grab any service dept employee that can assist with building red zones. most facilities like this utilize a tool/chem. room for supplies and haz mats......hope the accetalene tank is still cool.......you may even find a CO2 drop system in body shop.
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Ya, welding acetylene and oxygen tanks are not fun in a fire. We recently had a detached garage fire where those things started popping off.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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What should you be considering related to this fire at this point?
The first priority is to get a PAR of the employees as quickly as we can. If any are truly missing, we need to verify what part of the structure they're in and how to get there and back...quickly.
What needs to be done?
This building is on the edge of Born Loser. The only reason to be in it is if we have a savable victim, so we need to make some quick strategic decisions. We need to decide a) if we have a rescue problem or not, b) if we have a rescue, is the victim going to be viable or not, and c) are we going to be able to make a QUICK rescue or immediately go defensive.
What is your risk profiling of the building telling you?
We can't trust the building construction - mixed construction is notoriusly prone to collapse in fires.
The overhead is heavily involved - there is a fireball showing near the A-B corner and Black Fire showing elsewhere over the main body of the fire. There are a lot of Class B fuels and hazmat scattered everywhere.
There are lots of plastics and artificial fabrics in the cars, so this will burn quicker and hotter than the average residential fire. The structure either isn't sprinklered or the sprinklers are not working. There is a large potential for collapse due to the numerous HVAC units on the roof. There is a large potential for firefighters being overrun by rapid firespread or becoming disoriented and low on air.
After a quick face-to-face with the Incident Commander, your assignment has been given to you to provide the IC with recommend actions regarding suppression operations and for a risk assessment profile report. What information do you think you need to get ? What are you thinking about - might be happening now and what may be happening in the next 10 minutes? What's the biggest concern you have regaring personnel safety?
The largest group of firefighters is committed on Side D, probably entering under the service entry overhang. That overhand isn't well-supported. If the roof structure is exposed to much fire, it will fail quickly, trapping all of those firefighters inside. We're not putting enough water on the fire right now, as the heavy smoke and fire and lack of steam production shows. Another problem is we need to shut the ladder pipes down RIGHT NOW! We're using master streams and an offensive attack in the same area at the same time, which should NEVER be done.
All hands [companies] are working, with some progress, but doubtful….What’s your safety gauges starting to tell you ……
We need to find any employees we can on our way out, which should be now.
We need a second alarm for water supply and additional master stream operations.
We need lots of rehab support.
We need extra chief officers and additional safety officers to monitor the entrances and keep civilians and firefighters out.
We need to ensure SCBA are used even on the outside, due to the toxins in the smoke.
We need to get several wreckers to pull the uninvolved cars away from the building.
We need to set up an employee staging/PAR area to ensure that we can account for all employees, customers if possible, and keep them corralled.
We need lots of law enforcement help for traffic and crowd control. We'll need to shut down some adjacent streets.
We need to get Emergency Management and PIO support. They need to get some PSAs started to get civilians downwind to either evacuate quickly or shelter in place from the hazmat smoke.
If firefighting is creating a large amount of contaminated runoff, we might just have to let this one burn.
Either way, we need a third alarm for downwind brand patrol.
If we're going to continue to use the ladder pipes, we need to have them use narrow fog streams directed at an upward angle into the thermal column to cool it.
We need a BIG Level II staging area a couple of blocks away, upwind and uphill.
We need utility support to get the electric and gas cut and get us additional water pressure.
I'd seriously think about implementing a full NIMS Command and General Staff on this one.
Note: This is all your fault, Chris...we never used to have fires this big in South Carolina until you visited us last month...LOL.
Bottom line - Can you say "Super Sofa Store"? We may have to write off missing civilians in this fire. If they’re not being rescued now, we’re going to have to pull out without them.
Ben
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Hey Ben...your relief just arrived on scene...(BTW- It's Tiger- they called him in on a special recall) .....boy are you lucky....you get to go home...
Thanks for taking the time in your posting-very complete, well developed and thorough (hey- have you done this before....?)
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I forgot a couple of things...we may still need RIT, even after we go defensive. A fire this big may still injure firefighters, and I want a team that can go get them and move them to Medical without pulling a bunch of firefighters off the surround and drown excercise.
Also, we'll need decon showers, changes of uniforms, Gatorade, and Power Bars all around before we take up. Otherwise, I may run over Tiger getting out of here.
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...oh wait...I hear there's another Box being transmitted....and you're gonna be special assigned...let's see what the next alarm brings you.
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