The digital world is truly amazing. Around 8:45 this morning Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department went on the scene at 5925 Cherrywood Terrace in Empirian Village (formerly Springhill Lake). Within an hour this video was posted by a neighbor showing the early stages of the fire.
Photo by PGFD's Mark Brady. Click the image to see more at Brady's PGFD PIO blog.
Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department Chief Spokesman Mark Brady reports the first firefighters on the scene were met with multiple residents on the balconies. Two of them, a man and woman in their 20s, removed by firefighters, were seriously burned and have been taken to the local burn unit. Brady reports both had burns to the upper body and respiratory tract. Four others taken from the balconies were not hurt.
According to Brady, a family of four six also jumped from a balcony. The mother and father were not hurt, but the four children ranging in age from three to 14 were taken to a local hospital for treatment.
Photo by Donald Fletcher Jr.
One firefighter suffered burns to the ears and has been taken to the burn unit. The firefighter is reported in good condition and is expected to be treated and released.
An hour into the fire a mother and son, who had jumped from a balcony and went to a friend’s apartment, complained of injuries. They were also taken to the hospital.
Brady reports the fire started in a second floor unit of the three-story, garden-style apartment building (three-stories front and rear). Brady says there were two attached buildings with 28 apartment units that have been impacted by the fire.
While the initial companies had water, Brady said there was a hydrant issue for a later arriving engine. Brady did not believe it impacted the fire’s outcome. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Damage is estimated at $750,000.
Also on STATter911 …
- UPDATED: One Girl Dies, One Gravely Injured After Prince George’s County house fire. Two other children, parents & firefighter hurt in early morning Brentwood blaze. – January 19, 2011
- Chopper video: Prince George’s County apartment fire with rescues on 85th Avenue in New Carrollton. – June 8, 2011
- Raw video: Two-alarm apartment fire in Prince George’s County, Maryland. – March 1, 2011
- UPDATED (new video added): High winds slam MD, DC & VA. Prince George’s County hit hard with numerous large fires damaging structures. Mutual aid from as far away as Baltimore City & Maryland’s Eastern Shore. – February 19, 2011
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WOW…PGFD is dropping the ball on that fire. 6 minutes into video to get a line. I still like to know what the roofmen planned on doing. The point of roof ventilation is to go to the highest point allowing for the removal of smoke not the lowest point. Plus it started self ventilating anyway, at which time I pull them off the roof. This department is looking for ways to kill firefighters.
@Ronnie – looks to me like they are hitting the living room area from the interior around 1:20. And having the edge of the roof on fire doesn’t quite count as venting itself.
WOW…your a terrible monday morning quarterback. #1 1min and 30 sec into the vid you see water comming out of the 2nd story balcony. #2 the roof man cut a hole from the ridge line all the way to the edge, the bigger the better. #3 it had not vented itsself, in the vid you can clearly see the fire leap froggin out the windows which caught the roof on fire. these guys have ran lots of fire at just this complex, i think they got an idea on how to handle it.
some piss poor truck work on side charlie. understand there were rescues to be made around side Alpha but where was the 2nd due truck?
6 minutes into the video to get a line??? Try at 1:27, the second floor had a line on the interior! The line you see is on the back side and not from the first due engine.
Obviously the last poster knows nothing about smoke coloring and what steam looks like. There is a line on the fire most of the video. And the venting the roof guys did probably stopped the spread of the fire through the cockloft as quickly as if it hadn’t been vented. Must be a disgruntled DC guy doing his 2 months on an abmo in SE.
Actually..1 1/2 minutes into that video when you see all the white smoke is when water gets on that…
Ronnie,
If you knew anything about PG and the general orders you’d figure out that it probably didn’t take 6 minutes for the inital line, that looks like side charlie of the building so that would be the third line brought in by the 3rd due wagon. We don’t see the front side where there is most likely two other lines already inside.
Ronnie,
WOW… If you knew anything about PG county and the General Orders, than you would know that is most likely not the initial attack line. Now I wasn’t there but that looks like side charlie which would mean that the line you see in the video would actually be the third attack line brought in by the third due wagon on side charlie. There most likely are two lines brought in through side alpha by the wagon and pumper. And I am willing to bet that it did not take 6 minutes for those to get in place.
You have no concept of Garden apartment fires, and no knowledge of the first due. The first due company does not have an engine, and you dont know when they arrived on the scene. this is takeing by a resident in the rear.
The line looked like it was open within the first 2 minutes in the original fire apt. And they made many rescues on side A
6 minutes? what video were you watching? they had water on the fire at the 1 minute 30 second mark. Looks like a 2nd line to the adjacent apartment or room could have kept it from getting to the roof, but for that quick of a timeframe, looks like they did god work.
Uh, I believe you are looking at the Charlie side of the building. If you noticed the darkening of fire and water spray coming from the 2nd floor apt just a few minutes into the video.
The roof man is making a trench cut. SOP for a decent truck company on a garden style apartment fire.
I don’t know what video you were watching but the one I watched showed the fire in the second floor balcony beginning to get knocked less than 1:30 into the video. If you look closely you can see water from the hose line coming out of the second floor apartment between 1:25 and 1:30 into the video.
You also happen to be looking at what appears to be side 3 of the building so the line you see 6:00 into the video is not the initial attack line/s.
Dropped the ball huh??? Looks like R had it right with the living room being knocked at about 1:20 and it looks like they were getting a trench cut going. And Ronnie, let me guess.. you used to be a firefighter or are one of those people that jumps on the “bash PGFD” band wagon because your volunteer department only runs 100 calls a year. Have a good one.
Ronnie Harris – Definetly not a fireman. The roof crew saved 9 apartments by trenching the roof. It prevented the fire from spreading into the exposure apartments.
The truck work saved the rest of those units. Good job by the guys on the roof. Evidently the idiot talking about venting at the highest point forgot that trench cuts go from top to bottom. He was probably that guy wearing an EMS helmet and EMS jumpsuit. Safety conscious firefighters, rather than aggressive firemen is what is killing the fire service. And PG County is headed that way unfortunately.
Ok I stand corrected. The fire does darken in the room to left. But when you knock down fire in one place isnt in practice to attack other areas.
1st, KUDOS to the what I assume is the Tillerman from 14.. Knowing the Building and seeing the rapid fire growth, HE Immediately began to Cut the Inevitable, the ‘trench’..
2nd, who in the Hell was 2nd due truck, 31?? there is NO FLIPPING EXCUSE as to why there was 1, i will say it again OOOOONNNNNEEEEEE ladder to the “C” charlie side at 8 minutes..
what a joke.
Not exactly one of the best operations I have ever seen, but it wasn’t the worst either.It appears they got water on the fire in the living room in the involved apartment about a minute and a half into the video but what looks to be the bedroom of the same unit has a heavy volume of fire coming from it at least 6 minutes into the video.If this was in Montgomery or Fairfax, it probably would have been a lot worse. Overall, I will give it a B-.
just want to say good job to those who saved many lives today, and to the civialian who rescued 4 or 5 kids,
1st, KUDOS to the what I assume is the tillerman from Co# 14..
Knowing the building construction and seeing the rapid fire growth he began to cut the inevitable, the ‘trench’..
2nd, who in the hell was the 2nd due ladder, 31??? 8 mins into the incident and there is 1, I say again ONNNNEEEE ladder thrown to the ‘C’ Charlie side???
Wow, if that’s what the BVFD calls truck work.. better get some officers and drivers that Have a clue, or sell that 06′ pierce.
With the amount of rescues taking place it was very sad to see only one ladder on side Charlie @ the 10 minute mark. This isn’t towards the crews on the scene but towards PGFD. Staffing levels are sad. The crew on the scene had thier hands full and did a good job.
Jose Ortega y Gasset said, “The characteristic of the hour is that the commonplace mind, knowing itself to be commonplace, has the assurance to proclaim the rights of the commonplace and to impose them wherever it will.”
What is really sad is not all the things that you astute firemen have noticed from pictures and video tapes on youtube. What is sad is that you take the time to write your thoughts on the incident as if YOUR opinion actually mattered. Who are you Ronnie Harris or Retired PGFD or any one of your “Anonymous” hacks and why do we care what you think?
This fire is what it was. Of course there is always something that someone should have done. Whatever. You are looking at a video shot by who knows who, who knows how long into the fire, who knows who was hanging off what balcony in the front.
You silly people still think we care about the fire.
IT IS NOT ABOUT THE FIRE AND IT NEVER WAS!!!!!!!
It is about the people. So if the whole thing burned down……WHO CARES
Why get a line to the attic NO ONE LIVES THERE
You all have plenty of opinions and few of you have done the work that is necessary to justify them. Yes it requires actual work. Not just sitting on you haunches and throwing insults on the internet. I know what you would have done…do you?
The person assigning grades on this one, a B-, is the classic example of those who don’t do. Teachers assign grades and those who cannot do, teach. Wow. Who cares about your stinking grades?
Dear Dave Statter-
The time has come for you to simply print the news. Enough is enough. You have contributed absolutely nothing to the growth of the fire service. You have certainly provided a forum for the continued story of fireman ignorance. You have provided yet another place for them to vent their vitriol, to spew forth nonsense. Most importantly you have giving those who think we are still stupid rednecks a place to go to prove that indeed we are. What councilperson, mayor, or regular person living in a neighborhood would read what is on your site and take from it a positive impression of what the fire department does?
Dear Firefighter-
The time has come to boycott Statter. Stop providing him with the hits on his site that feed the advertisers, you don’t benefit from that. Go to other places like the WatchDesk to talk badly with other stupid people. It is okay to be a silly person, but please do it behind closed doors. You see I don’t car that you put a firecracker in your butt and light it on fire what I care is that every one had to see it on the internet. We are working too hard for respect and funding and Statter’s single minded portrayal of the fire department as one continuous episode of Jerry Springer is not helping.
The first amendment does promise you free speech but our founding father’s were smart enough not to trust your freedoms and so we have the electoral college…I think you should be able to express yourself but not in a way that hurts the service. So skip statter and go to one of the sites that regular people do not frequent. Don’t make us all look like idiots so you can protect your misguided notions of your right to have an opinion.
An yes i did not leave my name because I know that silly people don’t like to be reminded of the silliness….you want so much to believe that you matter that I need to protect me from you…with anonymity…
Truck 814 laddered the entire side A of the building and effected almost a dozen rescues. 31 failed to ladder side C, the tillerman and driver of 14 are on the roof trenching. They know what they are doing…and it shows.
No matter where you are a fireman, there will always be those who think they can do it better than you did. No one crawled down the hall way you did, so don’t listen to them or buy into their petty jabs. Tip O the Helmet to those who were there…ACTUALLY there!
To the person who posted- “The time has come for you to simply print the news. Enough is enough. You have contributed absolutely nothing to the growth of the fire service.”
First of all, it is always good to hear from you Mom.
You came to this conclusion just now? All from that video I posted of a fire this afternoon?
I am reasonably certain I never made a claim that I contributed anything to the growth of the fire service.
Where in anything that I wrote today about the 3-alarm fire in Prince George’s County did I do anything but report the news? I am open minded about these things, so please point out what was opinion or not news in my posting.
“The time has come to boycott Statter. Stop providing him with the hits on his site that feed the advertisers, you don’t benefit from that.”
Gee, we only started posting adds three days ago.
Someone suggested this just a few months after we started STATter911. Was that you? I think I posted it on the main page.
From what you write I am guessing you are offended that we allow comments to be posted that you don’t like (or maybe I am wrong it is me or my news coverage you don’t like). Guess what? I publish a ton of them I don’t like.
I don’t like personal attacks and what these discussions often become. I do like to hear a mix of opinions and discussions of fireground tactics. I learn a lot. I hate it when the opinions are just cover for another agenda.
We either have comments or we don’t and if we do I don’t tell people what to write and I don’t edit them.
The ones I reject are mostly done so based solely on language. A few others are rejected when allegations are made against someone not based on what is in the news. Your opinion of a public figure is fine. You can write “Dave Statter is the biggest jerk in the world” and I will publish it.
I won’t publish it if you write ”
Dave Statter was just arrested for parking in front of a fire hydrant” unless we know that happened or it has been reported in the mainstream media.
When I saw the video today, I saw it very differently than Mr. Harris did. I wondered if we were looking at the same video. But it is his right to be wrong or at least wrong in our eyes.
This is the Internet. Every time you or someone else complains about the comments I make the same offer. Come up with a system for comments that works that doesn’t require me to be the censor.
I am required by my employer to allow the comments (as with most every news site out there). Some days I like them and find interesting discussions. Some days I don’t and wish they would go away.
Here’s the difference. I have to read each comment. You don’t. If the comments bother you, just don’t read them. If it is me that bothers you, just don’t read me.
Now, please get back to me with your comments system and tell me where I am not reporting the news. Okay, I do have a little fun at times with my lame sense of humor. And I agree that is not reporting the news. But almost always it is directed at me.
But thanks for reading and thanks for writing. I hope you are hanging around long enough before the boycott starts to at least read my view on things. I read yours with great interest.
Statter
the second due truck didn’t throw any ladders to side charlie. the ladders thrown to side charlie are by truck 14 and truck 34 members after side alpha was completely laddered. thats why it took a little while to get there. right after the video ended they completely laddered side charlie by stripping the ladder beds of 31 and 34 after 14′s was stripped on side alpha.
Ronnie Harris,,,stay in SEPABT. If Tower 7 was second due they should have been in the rear, not in the front yard. Unless command wanted them there. Even still it is their responsibility to cover the rear of the building. Truck 31 could you park any further away?? It isn’t a parade piece you know???
Good response, Dave. I hate to tell that guy that’s complaining, but I’m pretty sure about 97% of people coming to this blog are in the fire and EMS field. And of those, about 88% probably come simply to see some idiot horribly armchair quarterback a fire in the comments section, then have his butt handed to him by about 30 other people! Living just outside of PG, anytime I see a big PG fire on the news, I hit the web hoping there will be a “Ronnie Harris” out there! And there always is!! This time he was even first! I’m sure if we found a grill-cook blog, there’d be some idiot on there talking stuff about some chump burger flipper he saw on youtube.
Oh, yeah, and having lived in a Springhill Lake apartment in my ‘short’ time as a PG Volly, I can say with total confidance that they were doin it all wrong!
Dear Dave,
Your blog started as the tentacle of a news site. Sure you have separated from that role to a certain extent but you remain a newsman first and a blogger second. If your boss says you must post comments, then that is what you must do. He surely needs to sell advertisments and controversial blogs aide that quest…don’t they? And then how separated from the “news” can you be if your boss can still insist on how you do business? Enough of that though.
If you must post the statements then you MUST post them and surely if you must you cannot filter them too finely. You and I both know that there is no way to do that either well or fairly and so your challenge, while interesting, is ultimately empty. It reminds me of Zeno’s Paradox but then the rabbit even with Zeno Achilles actually wins, right? What do I win?
Just because I cannot fix what I know to be wrong does not make it right. Just because we don’t know how to censure what these people write does not mean that they are entitled to the opinions that they have. The reductio ad absurdum becomes silly after you figure out what a derivative is.
You exist on an implicit credibility that is based in part on your past experience in the fire service. If you were just a newsman reporting the news there would be no reason to post your pedigree in your biography.
You are at all the big firefighter events, you give speeches at them. I have seen your act with my own eyes. I don’t challenge your work as a newsman, you have a pretty strong record.
What I challenge is the access you get under the cover of a fire centric site with a your nominal fraternal connection to the service. I think, though I cannot prove, that this sense of fraternity, the tight focus of the news on the site, and the freedom that can only come with not having to support your argument or show your face combine on your site to create a lethal brew.
I do not urge a boycott because it will stop the stupid. Stupid is painful but it is here to stay. I urge the boycott because the fire service has to stop this PUBLIC madness…
You don’t want them to stop because in the bonfire of your vanities you must extract some pleasure from seeing the silliness, you must enjoy the number of hits you get, you must or you would have stopped a long time ago.
If you were just about the news Mr. Statter you have a larger platform than any of us on which to pursue your unhidden objective reporting agenda. You could use your investigative skill to dig deeper into these stories and provide objective third-party insight. Instead you keep throwing little packages of fire works into the fire hoping that there is a big pop and people start writing on your blog.
The irony of this situation does not escape me. I urged a boycott a few posts ago and here I am writing more. Surely I had to read what you wrote in order to respond. I further your cause in the mist of attacking it.
I guess it is not that I don’t like you. I am not calling you names but the pages of your blog grow a deeper shade of yellow with every ignorant post.
Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.
George Eliot
from Esme with love and squalor-
Dear Anonymous, Having been on quite a few garden apartment fires in my day, I think I am probably more eminently qualified to give them a grade of B-. I spent over 20+ years fighting those types of fires starting in the early 1970′s era when we learned to fight them by trial and error.It is you that are probably some 2/20 wonder who thinks they have seen and done it all whose idea of a hot fire is standing upwind of a fully involved dumpster.
Well, I do appreciate you writing back and I won’t dwell on the obvious admission you already made about lingering to see what I wrote. I realize that isn’t the point either one of us is trying to make.
I won’t judge you. How about not judging me? While I may disagree with a lot of what you say, I do appreciate your well thought out and intelligent response. And I am not trying to kiss up to you.
You may not believe it, but I do not care if another nasty comment comes in. I know it does nothing to further the cause. With the exception of the very big stories that give us a spike in numbers (two that come to mind are the St. Louis fire truck collision video and the DC sprinkler demo) the number of comments don’t always correlate with higher pageviews.
As I have said on this forum, and in public (at some of those events you have seen me at), normally the large number of comments come in when there is another agenda someone is pushing (career vs. volunteer, a chief someone doesn’t like).
I have never had a boss speak to me one way or another about the number or types of comments that come in. Probably the only people I recall talking to about comments are our web producers Emily Cyr or Jillian Coyle. With them my conversation have been more of a standards and practices theme trying to determine if I should post a comment because of a phrase someone used (they tend to be more liberal on this than I am).
It was only a few days ago when my blog was migrated to the new site and WordPress gave me a tally, that anyone knew there had been almost 12,000 comments posted since the blog began. Never had a clue.
While I am always humbled by the fact that someone would respond, good or bad, to something I write, I am strongly against the flaming kind of posts. I do like the interesting debates that don’t center on personalities. I have found some very smart people writing into this site and have learned a lot.
I have had people say awful things about me and people I am very close to (friends in the fire service). I honestly never take it personally, but I certainly understand why these friends and others do get hurt and dismayed.
This is one of the more interesting paragraphs from your post:
“What I challenge is the access you get under the cover of a fire centric site with a your nominal fraternal connection to the service. I think, though I cannot prove, that this sense of fraternity, the tight focus of the news on the site, and the freedom that can only come with not having to support your argument or show your face combine on your site to create a lethal brew.”
I cover a beat. It is one I have been interested in since I was a pre-teen. My active role in the fire service is ancient history now and lasted about 1/6 of the time that my career in radio and television has. I am a reporter. I don’t think I try to pretend to be a firefighter, but that is for you to judge.
It is very rare that I wear fire department T shirts or hats. No pins, badges or other items (even though plenty have been given to me through the years). My expertise, if any, is that I have covered the beat for a long time.
As for the events you see me at it is almost always because an organization has sent me an invitation. The only exceptions probably are that I have in recent years promoted the blog in Ocean City and at Firehouse Expo in Baltimore.
I am not trying to pass myself off as a brother firefighter to anyone and I am sorry if you have come away with that impression. I have enormous respect for firefighters and am happy to have more than a few as good friends. But the ones who are my close friends know I am a reporter. And at times they aren’t particularly happy with what I am reporting. It goes with the territory.
By the way, on the new blog format I don’t think there is anything that identifies me as a former firefighter except my biography, which is hidden. Do you see me posing dressed up anywhere or showing pictures on here of me when I was a firefighter? (I do have some pictures on my Firefighter Nation page that are there to share with some old friends).
If you want to judge me on the comments of others who write into the blog, that is your choice. I even see your argument about my responsibility in that area.
Of course, I would prefer that you instead judge me on the words I write for the blog. I think there is a distinction. Clearly you do not.
Do you feel the same about the comments that are on Firehouse.com or other sites? Or is it because I am not a firefighter, that you believe I don’t have a right to write about the profession and post these comments?
There is a lot of toxic crap on the Internet. Some of it, sadly, comes through our comments section. I also think there is some good on the web, and as a reporter a blog gives you the ability to shed light on parts of your beat that would otherwise get ignored.
Believe me, I understand your complaint about digging deeper on some of these stories. I agree with you. I wish I could. There are a half-dozen or more local ones right now that people have contacted me about that I can’t get to (not to mention the out of town stories).
As it is, I usually sleep between 4 and 6 hours a night. Most of my blogging is done on my time. It is like a second full time job. Check the times many of these posts are written (and this response). I am assuming the people send me these news tips, documents and stories because they see me as a reporter who understands the beat. If they thought I was a firefighter they could just as easily take those tips to the local fire station.
I will admit, you have me thinking. That’s the good side of the comments section and when I enjoy it most.
Since you provided a famous quote to wrap it up, so will I. It comes from too many Saturday mornings sitting in front of the TV: “I am what I am”.
Thanks for the reply. If you want to lose your anonymity, I would certainly consider putting your thoughts on the main blog and not just the comments section.
Statter
I will take this opportunity to respond to exactly what 31 did and why. I am not going to get in an insult throwing battle, however some of the information that is being posted is incorrect.
Truck 31, when they arrived on the scene attempted to go into the courtyard on side charlie. However it appears that Springhill Lake management (or whatever the new name of the complex is) decided to install large boulders to prevent vehicles from entering the courtyard. When we attempted to access side charlie from the charlie/david side there was an unoccupied police vehicle from Greenbelt PD blocking the road. Not only that, there was an egine from 35 in front of us, so we parked and operated from the closest point possible.
Truck 31 threw two ladders on side Charlie, which you cannot see from the video, and was going to continue to throw ladders when command instructed the truck crew to complete a trench cut on the bravo exposure. The crew went to the roof, and due to some confussion on MY part, the second trench was not completed.
As everyone knows, to come onto a forum of this nature and ‘Monday night quarterback’ usually accomplishes nothing. I can suggest that if you are truely concerned with Beltsville’s or my operations on the fireground you should call the station and talk to me.
I look forward to your call,
Matt
Well there sre somethings that did happen prior to arrival of units PSC alerted both first due stations Via Redphone for a building Fire @ 5725 Cherrywood Te. Truck 14 went responding on the wrong channel so no one responding heard there on scene report. Well just like must of us encounter with the police to many police cars in the way. truck 14 had to stop short from where they wantes to be, First due engine had to wait for police car to move out of way after they blocked the rd. second due engine had same problem and when they did get thru they blocked TRUCK 31 from getting closer to the Scene. also The great State of Bladensburg E809 said they had a dead hydrant so E848 layed dues lines from 35 to get them water after that was completed they found out why they didnt get water cause u have to turn the hydrant on first and yes all rescues was from side ALpha none from Rear a 360 was performed. so the video does no justice for the amount of work and fire that was on the front side also.
two rescues were actually performed from side charlier
MATT THEY WONT CALL SO DONT WAIT THEY ARE COWARDS PEACE OUT MY BROTHER
PGVFF Learn how to speak. Please save us from the confusion and don’t post any more comments.
Police Car= Small
Fire Truck=BIG
BIG pushes small out of way… Chauffer arrested for vandalism of a Motor Vehicle…Case thrown out of Court by Judge for lack of Intelligance…
So,mistakes were made on this fire. Go Figure!!! Please tell me WHAT call there were NO MISTAKES made!!
Nit-Pik all you want.Just look in the Mirror to see the perfect Fireground Commander/Participant who has NEVER made ANY Mistakes**
And what did you see?….What was that?? A FOOL?? Just what I expected…A FOOL!!!
Good job by all. The bottom line is the fire got put out and no one got killed. Mistakes where made, but there is never a “perfectly run” call. Its a jacked up area to run calls to begin with. Throw in a random cop who clearly didnt grasp the magnitude of the situation and wasnt thinking about where his police car fit into the “big picture” (although, honestly, I did not see a lot of empty parking spot’s where he could have parked other than the grass or the area where command was set up). T-14 got a Ladder to the roof but it was close. I think if Truck 31 had a few more feet closer to work with and a few less tree’s, the might have been able to throw there stick to the roof from where they where at, but the tip would have been in almost the same are as 14′s, just on the other side and it would have been close.
Reagardless of where they should have been, Tower-7 Had a good spot. Judging by the effort It took to get it in and out of there and the fact that their position was in direct line of sight of the command area, im pretty sure they didnt just decide to park it their without being told to do so. My olny concern is almost everytime a Truck/Tower/Tele-squirt does that in that area, is that it often times gets buried and end’s up getting towed out. Given how poorly designed that whole complex is and you have to deal with the access your given to the buildings, had I been command, or a driver, I would have done the same thing.
Lots of ladders where throw. That stuff takes time even when you have designated ladderman. Good laddermen/or truck-work in general, will throw all available ground ladders. But that is assuming that you dont have to deal with other extranious issue’s like trapped people or limited staffing.
Wrong channel: there is probally not a person on this board that has not been on the wrong channel at some point. If you say you havent, you are lying to yourself. In fact, the officer from 14 was initially given the option to move to Channel 10 and declined. once a chief officer got there and established command, the incident somehow moved to 10 and the officer, understandably, being a little busy at the moment, didnt catch the change.
Listening to the radio traffic on the way in, It sounded like it was a pretty well run fire. Good job to PG Communications as well. Good job to everyone their as well.
It seems to me that there are a lot of people alive today becuase of the actions of Firefighters especially your Truck 14 and other early arriving crews. When it comes right down to it you follow your SOG’s the best you can. When there is a Life Safety Threat your IC may have to make tough choices under real life fire conditions. If some of you Monday morning quarterbacks who are handing out B- grades by sitting back and look at a video tape from one side of the building or “fought those types of fires for 20 years” should have had something sink in over the years and know that no 2 fires are the same.
If you want your department or others to move forward and point out what could have been done better go to a critique and bring up your points. Then you can get feed back as to why somehting was or wasn’t done.
It is obvious that there was some great things done this day. For those of you with your always negative attitudes, that we refer to on the lecture circuit as Firematic Mental Midgets & Incident Stress Griefers, you need to take a look at yourselves and what your contributions are to the fire service and weather or not you are cut out to stay in it.
Aside from some apparent lack of immediate attention to side C in the video it sounds like everybody did what they needed to do to get the job done. Lives were saved, propery damage spread was minimized, and everybody went home. All preplanning thoughts aside, factors such as PD cars, construction equipment, etc., can throw the best made plans in the trash. I wish there was an official site that displays and describes scene activities in detail w/o speculation so we can all learn from actions taken for our own education. Having a positive focus for bettering ourselves is an approach that can help us all live longer. Cudos to everyone who actually WORKED this incident. BTW…its amazing how T7 was able to make it past all the obstacles everyone else encountered & beach themselves on side A….Now did they calmly take the fence down of blast through it? Either way…extra credit goes for aggressiveness there!
Withheld——–”know that no 2 fires are the same.”
BS…it;s a convenient teaching cliche’. Those with experience running the same calls to the same buildings have operated identically or better due to history repeating itself. A balcony based furnace fire on the 2nd floor of the same garden apt bldg can often be predicted to do the same thing each time…burn upward, inward, and into the cockloft…I personally have run repeat fires such as this and preplanning WORKS….ladders get thrown to the right spots, the truck gets burried in the yard, and the roof gets opened while rescues and the interior attack is performed. Live the life for many years…see the same sights over and over….do the routine again and again…and you too can sing the same tune. If you want to get into the minutia…..yes, depending on weather conditions, which window breaks out first, and the varying direction and intensity of smoke and fire spread an action or two may have to be altered….however, you will still likely need a tow truck out front. PG should initial dispatch tows on similar calls, especially where aggressive volly companies are at play.
The tower chauffer has been driving it since it was new. Command didn’t tell him to put it where he did. He didn’t blast through it at first. He cut a sign post and 2 fence posts out and then drove over them. The boulders that were placed hindered trucks from getting to side C.
And for the TOWER Driver he didnt even need a tow to get out way to Chief 7 saved PGFD some Money
unbelieveable how many side comments from ,most likely, people that were not there, nor have ever been to more than a 1 alarm fire in thier lives. PG has quite the experience in fighting these fires at garden apartment buildings. Ladders, trench cuts, aggressive palcement of aerial devices are all things needed to get it done. nearly all fires in this particular comlex go the same way- fire in apt on (fill it in_____) floor, extensio to top floor by autoexposure, fire in cockloft progression to exposures A & D . trust me folks , we know how to do it.
Ok These buildings have burned since they were under construction in the 1960′s Everyone on the North Side of the PG county fire service has been here at one time or another and some of us way too many times Rescues made for some 40+ years and the Fire Put out each and every time The buildings are built to burn and after about 20 mins it is out of your control untill you pull out go defensive and then back in when you have gained the upper hand MFRI wishes they had a Mock Fire Ground that they could burn as we all learned how too at Spring Hill Lake I was coming from 716 to go to 812 and could see the column at 193 & 495 and pass T812 at 1 & Greenbelt road and made E-812 and it looked like the above video and that was 36 years ago so have we really learned anything and yes we have it burns, the building is damage, we saved lives and we all went home and the problem is? History is a circle, just get older and you will see
does anybody know what the roof construction was?
Did they cut a trench or vent holes? Chain saws or partner saws? Did the fire vent thru the vent hole or did a section of the roof collapse? Are their fire walls taht do not extend above the roofline? Chitchat aside lets discuss firefighting and tactical decisions used by the guys that decided to commit to roof ops. Tks