Ten Minutes in the Street: Strip Stores-All Hands Working

Side Alpha Street Side with Fire Location

Aerial View Side Delta

Side Charlie

Side Alpha Initial Arrival Operations

Side Alpha, Smoke Showing

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....

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on September 8, 2009 at 4:53pm

Chris,

I agree, and the follow-up photo clearly shows the "zipper" arrangement of the alternating rafter ends atop the partition wall. On this kind of roof, that will generally be the case, regardless of whether we have rafters or trusses.

I have a photo of a large HVAC that came through the roof on a fire a few years back.
If I can find it, I'll post it.

Good scenario, as usual.

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Permalink Reply by Christopher J. Naum, SFPE on September 8, 2009 at 5:11pm

Good comments about RPDM ( or natualistic DM) and the issues affecting cue-based and the second due....all too common...thanks, I'm certain this may lead some members to research these out futher. Thanks for your contributions

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Permalink Reply by Truckinainteasy on September 8, 2009 at 6:38pm

Ron, Good point, but it is up to the officers to change that. In actuality most dispatched structure fires are anything but. If we pull a line once of 10 times that would be alot. A good start is to limit the use of 1 3/4 to residential only unless directed otherwise. That at least takes away some of the "we can handle it" mentality. Chiefs have to enforce this and use the 2 1/2 frequently on single and mult unit drills.

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Permalink Reply by Jay Nicholson on September 8, 2009 at 9:32pm

Houston FD had a multiple LODD back in 2000. I snipped this from Firehouse.com. ACs on roofs are a death waiting to happen.(I don't mean Asst. Chiefs either)

A short time later, a portion of the roof bearing a large air conditioning unit collapsed, causing firefighters to become disoriented.

Evacuation sirens and an announcement to assume defensive operations sounded shortly before the collapse. Cucino followed the hoseline to safety, but the two firefighters from Engine 76 could not be accounted for.

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on September 9, 2009 at 10:50pm

Here's an example of what you can get in the overhead if you pull an acoustic tile ceiling all the way down. Note the lack of the metal grid - a few pieces are partially up, but most of it is on the floor with the ceiling tiles. All that's left is the oxidized firefighter entrapment system.

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on September 9, 2009 at 10:56pm

Here's a commercial truss roof after a truss void fire.

Note the following:

1) Large hole (to the rear of the shot) where the big HVAC unit punched through the roof and parts of three trusses. The trusses didn't completely collapse because:

2) Parts of the trusses stayed relatively intact, sagged down to the partition walls, and turned the partition walls into unintendo load-bearing walls.

3) The partially-popped gusset plates that got my the photographer's attention to where I he immediately evacuated the area once I he completed the attack of stuuuuupidity.

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Permalink Reply by Moose on May 9, 2013 at 9:35am

Excellent points and tactics in this thread, wish Mr. Naum was still making these scenarios because they make you think.

The only thing I can add here, is the observation of the parapet walls in front of the stores. If you ladder there to make roof vent ops, make sure the crews know of the parapets and dont fall off the ladder thinking the roof is right there. Looks to be a good 8-10 foot drop from the top of the parapet wall to the roof, in smokey conditions you wont see that until your saying "oh SHI......." THUD

False fronts and parapet walls could be very dangerous. That false front in this scenario in particular, what if a group of firefighters were over there rehabing and changing out bottles and the false front fell on them because the supports were bad or burned through unkowing to the IC? Or the same thing as the parapet walls, you think this is the exposure "D" side building and you send a team to the "roof" to prevent spread from the original building and you lost contact with the team because they fell to the ground and are hurt bad.

Good size-up is always crucial, like with this, pre-planning helps every little bit as well. We only have 3 commercial occupancies in my district yet we pre-plan them religiously on an annual basis.

Good scenario, hope to see more in the future???

Stay Safe