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Ten Minutes in the Street: Strip Stores-All Hands Working
It's a nice and quiet Saturday morning. The sun’s shining, clear skies, slight breeze and very comfortable temperatures.
You’re washing the engine with your crew, and the bells come in. The dispatch is for a report of smoke in the building. The caller states they smell a strong odor in their store. Dispatch also states there are reports by passerby’s in the street that smoke is observed coming from the roof of the occupancy by cars in the intersection.
• The address is for a commercial area with business and older strip store and mall occupancies built in the late 1960’s.
• The location of this alarm is for strip center of stores that was recently renovated.
• The building is thought to be a combination of Type II and V construction. 280 ft. x 60 ft. at the widest end (Side D).
• The immediate area is fully hydranted, the building complex is not sprinkler protected.
• Your alarm response is typical of what you have in your jurisdiction as is your staffing level.
• You have a five minute response time for the first-engine company
There are very unique situations and issues affecting this complex of stores, configuration and construction.
• What’s obvious upon your arrival?
• After studying the aerial images of the building and occupancy setting, that are being posted on your computer screen in the engine cab as you respond or are also in your pre-fire planning book that you refer to; What influence on strategic and tactical incident actions will the building have on your assignments?
• What Tactics have you found to work successfully at similar incidents?
• What doesn’t work or should be considered when engaging in combat fire suppression at commercial occupancies of this type?
• Looking at the roof profile and building and occupancy layout; What are you seeing? What are you concerned about? and how will this affect tactical operations?
• What’s the Safety Concerns and Risk Profile?
• All Hands are going to be put to work. What do you need? When do you need them? Where do they need to go? What are you going to do?
Let us know what role and responsibility you're taking for this incident. If you'er assuming a Tactical Role, gives us further insights related to interior or exterior operations....
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jeff Cole on
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Well listen, I wear thick glasses, have a filthy dirty pc screen, and had sun glare through the windows! My allergies are killin' me, and my dog ate the...aw, never mind.
Yeah, I see now what ya are talking about. Guess I embarrassed Gonzo on this one. BUT I felt it was more of a tacttical challenge considering the building as whole. And so I did it...my way. BUT, of course the previous structural compromise will cause a totaly different tactical approach.
Fire in the truss voids, with it being totaly obvious, means complete and immediate withdrawl. Even if marginally obvious, or if the fire is not located within the first FEW minutes, given the knowledge of lightweight componant roof construction, we are NOT likely to contain it before it is seriously weakened.
I do hate the nozzle stuff. I am an advocate of "the big line" anytime it looks to be even a possible consideration. The only time I will use an adjustible (besides vapor disperssment) is for one or two room compartmentation fires. Just two days ago we flow tested ALL our nozzles, discharges, and in-use mfg. hose, and found our TFT's to be shamefully underperformers with respect to gpm vs. psi, and stream quality. Anything that can become clogged realtively easy during critical stages of offensive, interior fire attack concern me. We found the Elkhart 75 psi 200gpm adj. to be the best in OUR testing.
Now that I got THAT off my chest, and I may be totaly wrong by other's standards or experiences, we just need to understand that fire may have easily travelled well ahead of us in those spaces, undetected and unrestrained by the capabilities of the first alarm assignment and first attack lines. If we don't see it, if we get little steam conversion, and stays hot, gets hotter, we hear the snap snap snappy and crackle, and the smoke continues to swirl, doesn't lighten, and shows no signs of becoming colder within the first minutes of water application...we're outta there, and out of the collapse zones!
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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Jeff, part of the issue with TFTs is that if you don't know what you're REALLY pumping (i.e. if you don't have panel-mounted flow meters) they will take whatever you happen to be pumping and make the stream look pretty, but the nozzles can't manufacture GPMs.
One of my previous departments encountered this problem when we had the money to replace 1/2 of our nozzles. We put 1 TFT on a preconnect and left an old Elkhart select flow on the other preconnect. When we used both at the same time, everyone thought that the TFTs were bad because they couldn't extinguish as much fire as the old nozzles. What we found out was that our engineers were chronically under-pumping the lines. When we thought we were flowing 250 to 280 GPM, we were actually flowing only 200. With the old nozzle set on 125, it was getting 125, leaving only 75 GPM for the TFT. No wonder the TFTs couldn't do much - they basically converted our old 1.5 inch lines to booster lines. We figured out the problem and fixed it by a) putting all of the TFTs on 1/2 the engines and the old nozzles on the other half and b) re-calculating our flows to figure out how to actually get the theoretical flows out of the nozzles. We bought TFTs for the other 1/2 of the engines the next year, and they did fine.
My current department changed to Akron Assault breakapart nozzles. The 1.75 inch nozzles are 15/16 smoothbores with thread-on combination tips. The 2.5 inch nozzles are 1 and 1/8 smoothbores with combinaiton tips. The smaller nozzles flow 150 GPM at 50 PSI and the larger ones flow 250 GPM at 50 PSI. We also have smooth bore nozzles and can flow three 1.75 inch lines and two 2.5 inch lines and know exactly how many GPMs are flowing, instead of the old pressure calculations that are wildly inacurate for anything except classroom calculations.
If you are not measuring your flows with a direct-reading flow meter, then you don't really know what you're flowing.
Remember, it is volume, not pressure that extinguishes fire. If pressure extinguished the fire, we'd fight fire with compressed air, not water.
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Permalink Reply by Ron Ayotte on
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Jeff.. I'm not embarrassed in the least.. I'll admit that I too "tunnelvisioned" on the smoke, missing the initial missing stores in the first pic.
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Permalink Reply by Reg Mathis on
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Here are some of my observations based on the pics provided. The sign out front reads “WANG FASHION”. So I’m thinking a dress shop. Open floor plan with a HEAVY fuel load. My pre-plan should tell me that. It should also tell me what I suspect from the aerial photos provided. This appears to be a case of a manufacturing company that has expanded operations over a period of years by adding space as the company grew, or a very cheap contractor who tried to squeeze as many commercial spaces on to his Zone C lot as possible. The pitched roofs(rooves?), and shingle/asphalt roll covering tell me that this is older construction. As pointed out in previous posts, I’m thinking wood trusses of old, dry, pine. Walls will probably be block, and not rated. There may even be double walls in places as I suspect that except for the 4 structures(counting ridgelines 2,3,4 and 5 starting from the first ridge on the B side which I believe are the original 4 of the complex), I believe everything else was added later. The orientation of the ridge means that spread will be from front to back and help contain any extension. But only for a little while. Let me add here that this scenario is a shining example of the value of a comprehensive and detailed pre-plan!
BUT!, If Mr. or Ms. Wang have not optioned space to the B or D side of the involved space, I’m betting that with the proper use of my TIC and the minuteman pack on my rear crosslay, I can get water on this fire within 2 minutes. The space in question is 30x40 at best. So the first thing I want to find out is the seat actually IN the structure, or BEHIND it. Looking at the smoke, the column of darker smoke is not very dispersed so I believe we have an established fire that is in the overhead or on the roof. But the diffuse lighter smoke probably means we have support materials involved so the trusses are probably involved as well. Assuming that my 360 shows me the fire is internal: If we take the “big water” approach, the nozzle on just one stick of 2.5 could reach out the back door. And with all the racks of dresses the Wang’s have out on the floor for their Grand Opening, dragging a charged 2.5 through several thousand yards of polyester is going to take more time than we have. Not to mention pissing off the Wangs.
After studying the aerials, there appears to be a hydrant at the A-D corner of the parking lot, so 1st in will front-lay in from there and center the engine at the entrance to Wang Fashion. I need my best TIC operator to start making entry while my attack team pulls the rear crosslay(1.75) and fakes it out to the door. It’s a dual-purpose, so I’d say no more than 20%, if not solid stream, until we find out what we’ve got. As pointed out by others, we’re probably going to be blowing out ceiling tiles soon. Our immediate objective is to locate the seat. Second objective is to get TICs in to the spaces on the B and D sides to look for spread.
Until we find the fire and get a handle on extension, I’d say only natural ventilation as once we’ve knocked down the fire, PPV will be easy.
My 2nd engine will make for the C-side entrance and lay in from the hydrant between the residential driveways on the B side, across the street. Stage at the back door until we find the seat. Without being reckless, an aggressive attack in this situation should get this fire under control quickly. And because of the suspected construction materials we need to be VERY meticulous in our overhaul.
I would also like to express my thanks to Chris for posting this. In our little neck of nowhere, this is probably the closest I’ll ever get to a problem like this!
TCSS,
Reg
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Guys, we ALL miss things on initial arrival - there is simply too much going on for any one person to possibly absorb it all. That's why we send a chief along with the company officers - the company officers focus on tactics (smoke from the fire occupancy, where the likely fire causing it is, and how to best get enough GPMs to that fire) while the chief focuses on strategy (RECEO-VS, occupancy, missing stores, etc)
There is a First-due balance between cue-based decision-making and "Second-Due Syndrome"...quick size-up, observe for key factors, and make the best decisions you can based on limited information plus training and experinece. Another name for cue-based decision making is "recognition-primed" decision making...but the recognition comes before the "priming".
Teamwork will get us through the Chris Naum online simulations just as it does the real thing.
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Reg, I've fought numerous fires in strip mall occupancies, and in every one we lost, using house fire, room-and-contents tactics (small-caliber preconnect lines) contributed to losing the entire building The other two classic mistakes are in not pulling ceilings in the exposures which lets the fire into them via the overhead, and in vertically ventilating where it is convenient rather than directly over the fire and creating the subsequent wind tunnel effect in the overhead. I've heard "we've got this one" from the First-due company more times than I like to think about...followed by a 12-hour surround and drownfest and losing the entire strip mall, because the initial engine didn't take enough hose or water power to reach and extinguish the fire.
Think about the fuel load here. If there's enough fire to create visible ventilation of the heavier black smoke, then this is past the stage of being an incipient fire that a small-caliber line can control.
As opposed to the ones we lost, every one we saved used 2.5 inch lines and pulled ceilings in the adjacent exposures, then prevented firespread above the partition walls.
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Permalink Reply by Truckinainteasy on
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This fire has "Bad" written all over it. Everyone adequately covered the choice of lines, however I would only stretch to the extent I could search and verifiy everyone was out. (Think Chesapeake CIty LODD in auto parts store) A few random thoughts
The new facades that are going on the old buildings are just some really lightweight steel studs with everything else made of foam and plastic.
The "missing" store should be clearly placarded to advise firefighters of the hazard. Side Charlie reports are essential.
Division C access is restricted, but we have 2 centers here with worse. Remember that what ever you send to Side C should be ready for heavy forcible entry and they will be in the position to through ladders (no high parapet). Roof Ops from Side A can expose members to a 15' drop to the roof line in one of our complexes (but it looks purty now)
I see this fire ending with a tower ladder bucket sitting on the side walk in front of the joint.
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Permalink Reply by Christopher J. Naum, SFPE on
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The LODD incident in VA from 1996 is attached. If you haven't read this, do so...good lessons worth reviewing and thinking about.
When confronted with a commerical fire-Don't think in terms of residential fire tactics or operations. It's all about fire load, fire dymanics and behavior, building risk profile and structural integrity related to fire spread, impingment and time. Appropriate time sequenced tactical assignments that are well coordinated with adequate fire flow and resources makes for a good day.... - Attachments:
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ChesapeakeVA03.18.96.pdf, 24 KB
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Chris.. the problem is we fight most of our fires in residnetial structures, where an inch and three quarter line or two will usually knock the fire down.
In a commercial building, this is a recipe for disaster... everyone should heed the lessons of the Hackensack Ford fire, Chesapeake, VA auto store fire and the Charleston 9 fire.
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All comments are made based on the scenario and conditions unfolding in the writers head and in no way are meant to resemble the truth or the proper response to real life situations! And please don’t try anything you read here, at home.
Ben,
Please don’t interpret my comments as an argument with your tactics. And in a majority of strip malls (90+ %?) in America I would never pause to question your decisions as my IC. But if you look closely at the photos, the only thing this complex shares with a modern, or even slightly modern strip mall, is the light steel and "stucco" storefronts added within the last 6 months during the "renovation". With the understanding that I have the luxury of going repeatedly back to the photos and assuming I have the World’s Greatest Pre-plan Notebook, here are my counterpoints.
The fact that each space essentially has its own roof system and B/D support walls (In some cases possibly load bearing walls?) should mean that my extension is going to be from A to C, rather than B to D, if we don’t stop it. I believe this one is gonna take out the roof before it spreads to the spaces on the B or D sides. My point being that I don’t think we should be so quick to abandon house-fire tactics when we are dealing with a house- fire incident (sorry, but that’s what the voice in my head tells me about the structure we’re dealing with). If the structure had a single peak that ran from B to D, then I would agree with the absolute need to control extension. But if my assessment is correct, each roof peak visible designates a separate space, just jammed VERY close together. If you look 2 spaces to the B side of the seat of the fire, it looks like there is actually a void between the buildings of several inches. I’d bet that we’re gonna have fire blowing out of the front and back of Wang’s before either of his neighbors get involved.
I agree also that due diligence would require a team in the B and D spaces and take a “poke and peek” (whoever posted that phrase gets a gold star). And when assigning these teams, I would send them with the gear to remove the suspended tile ceiling as well as the ceiling which may be above the tile. So be ready for drywall or possibly even tongue-and-groove. (I know, but I believe these structures to be anywhere from 30-50 years old!) And my Most Excellent Pre-plan Notebook Ever has all this information in it!!!!
On the topic of the size of the attack line/s: Going back to the photos, I’d estimate that this space is no deeper than 40 feet. So if I place my engine (caveat! The engine I would be working from!) 20 feet from the entrance, if I deploy 1 stick of 2.5, I’m 10 feet short of the back wall. If I deploy 2 sticks, I’ve got 40 feet of slack I have to hoss around if I don’t find the seat right away. The mental images I have is opening up the tiles in one corner of the ceiling and realizing the seat is 20 feet to my left. Shifting the 2.5 laterally as it snags on every free standing rack of dresses between me and the seat and dragging Mr. Wang’s entire spring line of stock with me. And if my assessment of the space is correct, I could have BOTH my crosslays deployed and be on attack before I could get the deuce deployed. Also killing both the mobility bird and the water volume bird with the same rock?
For this next bit, I do NOT intend to make myself out to be anything more than a student of the Art of Reading Smoke, so forgive me if I miss any clues. From the cohesive appearance of the dark smoke, my first impression is that we possibly have an electrical fire started by the AC unit which has spread to the shingles (no telling how many layers of old tar and asphalt shingles we’re dealing with). Because it hasn’t had time to disperse, it should indicate that the smoke originates close to the seat. The grey smoke has dispersed a lot more and is not rising as rapidly as the darker smoke(my thought being is that it is cooler by having traveled along the peak before self-venting out the void between the original roof line and the foam façade). The presence of this lighter smoke also would indicate that the (almost certainly) plywood sheathing of the roof has been compromised and the fire has possibly extended to the rafters (not trusses, these buildings appear older than that).
Okay, I will readily admit that my comments are done mostly (almost entirely?) from my Chief-on-scene armchair. And like you so wisely observed, thing’s are a LOT different when you roll up and the siren is blaring and the radio is squealing and you can see and smell the smoke. But I’m also tossing in that because I live in a small town and have been here a while, I have the advantage of being pretty accurate on what era the structures we might be called to are from. So I placed this structure in my jurisdiction and used my knowledge of construction and materials (and the shenanigans of contractors and developers!) to build my assessment.
Assuming that I got everything right on my 360. That the fire is venting from INSIDE the roof and not on it. And that this fire is going to naturally contain itself to the space it originated in (for a few minutes!). I would stand by my decision to attack this fire aggressively and go for a quick knockdown and an extensive overhaul.
Now let’s just hope that my suspected cause in the AC unit didn’t compromise the rickety-assed, untreated 2x4 platform the HVAC contractor installed to set his AC unit on.
And thanks again for an excellent learning experience! We have a couple of strip malls of the modern type and you have definitely added to my tool bag on how to mount a proper attack in that situation.
TCSS
Reg
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Reg,
The "poke and peek" term is something that my former boss and I coined when we did a strip mall fires tactical training for our company officers about three years ago, so thanks for the gold star.
I re-examined this structure and am not sure I'm seeing exactly what you're seeing.
I've fought two fire in building almost identical to this. The B/D partition walls were masonry, but they did not extend all the way to the roof decking as you'd get with a house fire. There was a gap of 8 to 12 inches atop each of the partition walls, as the trusses from adjacent exposures needed space for the truss ends to overlap atop the partition walls. The truss ends would be staggered like a zipper, with alternating trusses from opposite exposures. The area that would normally be sealed soffits on a house may well be open in this building.
I don't see a gap in the buildings as you describe - just a darker line that looks like A/C condensate running into a rain gutter, but I could be wrong.
I'm not assuming that these buildings have rafters - if the roof supports were redone in the remodel, they're trusses. If we assume "truss" and have rafters, no big deal. If we assume "rafters" and have trusses, it could be suicidal.
Your assessment of the roof space might very well be accurate for your jurisdiction.
It isn't the same as the ones in my experience.
Also, on your building measurements, I took an approximate scale with the white van parked on the Delta side of building's end. My wife drives an identical van, which is approximately 18 feet long. Drawing a line from the back wall of Wang's to the equivalent spot on the Delta wall near this van gives me approximately 4 van lengths from the front wall to the rear wall. That is a front-to-back length of approximately 72 feet...if we can pull the line directly to the fire. Obstructions in the business and/or the fire not being directly in line with the front door can easily double that stretch...sooo we're at around 150 feet of working line to get all the way through the structure, depending upon where the fire is. With at least one more section to get from the engine to the front door, we're at 200 feet.
Looking at the front, I think this may be the occupancy to the left of Wangs, too. Occupancy width, around 40 feet. We might be able to get a 70 x 40 space with a single, small-caliber line, but I'm not sure I want to bank on it. If the fire is in the overhead, we can do the poke and peek, then hit the fire from just inside the front door with a solid stream if the fire is indeed in the void space.
As Ron Ayotte comments below, with the number of LODDs that are accumulating from using house fire tactics and lines on big box or strip mall fires, I'm going with commercial tactics from initial arrival. I'm not saying that you're wrong, just that a couple of your assumptions are different that what I've seen in the past.
Bottom line, if you KNOW that what you described is exactly what you have on scene, your tactics might well work. I'd just rather take overkill on this one, because if I underestimate this fire even a little, it's going to win. I'd rather overpower it and make sure we win.
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Here's a view of the Truck Company Operations and roof construction
This is what its all about, critical observations, developing skills based upon what we know, what we presume, understanding the past ( ie History Repeating Events), what may have worked (our past successes) What didn't work, or worked badly, learning from other insights and Knowing our Buildings. Conservative presumptions, due-diligence and understanding your jurisdictions are some of the key elements. Everyone's insights have been valid based upon a variety of perspectives. I would however suggest, that the tactical perspectives of residential operations at marginal considered commerical fires be rethought, operationally your IAP has an increased margin for a successful outcome, IF your "thinking and operating" based upon the higher demands associated with commerical based fire loads, construction, size and related IAP needs. The points made in Reg's post are somewhat more valid than you think. Let me offer this, I was patiently waiting for someone to pick up on the roof lines and equate that to the "compartmentized" occupancies and suggest the type of possible roof construction. I posted some insights earlier to have you look closer at the roof lines and configurations. It is a fact that these roofs are raftered roofs, with a plywood deck with some common areas extending from area loft to loft. ( see the photo I've attached). The roof top HVAC will have a negative impact on operations. Remember, go with your most conservative strategic and tactical plans and assumption, if your think its truss construction, and it turns out to be rafters, then your margin of operational time and reduction in error likely circumstances was deminished. In other words, you operated with more of a margin of safety on YOUR Side. This is a good thing!
Again, the dialog, insights, perspectives and assumptions coupled with the strategic and tactical plans and IAP's have been outstanding by everyone. This is how WE All Learn
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