Above is the video shot by a neighbor.
People living along Ormsbee Avenue in Westerville, Ohio knew something wasn’t right as firefighters went to work on the fire in their neighbor’s garage on Saturday. There was hose on the ground, both a supply line and an attack line, but no water wasn’t getting to the flames. In the video above you can hear the neighbors recognizing the problem as they watched firefighters gesture and saw water coming out where it shouldn’t.
When they told the local NBC-TV station in Columbus what they witnessed a reporter attempted to get some answers. That apparently didn’t go to well during the first round on Saturday (the video below). But now the fire chief has supplied an explanation to reporter Matt Alvarez. Here is an excerpt from the article on the WCMH-TV’s website:
NBC 4 did some digging, and over the past three days, the interviews with officials, eyewitness accounts, home videos and documents prove that something went wrong.
Westerville Fire Chief Bernie Ingles told NBC 4 Monday, “A hose line was tangled near the nozzle which rendered the hose unusable.“
Below is an excerpt from Ingles’ interview with NBC 4:
Ingles: “It has about 100 pounds of pressure in the hose, and the hose actually goes round and if it’s trapped in here then there’s no water getting past it.“
Alvarez: “So it’s just trapped in the handle?“
Ingles: “Yeah, the hose would come from the fire truck, and goes to the nose, part of the hose became entangled in this bale, which created the pinch, which wouldn’t allow water to get to the nozzle.“
Alvarez: “How often does that happen?“
Ingles: “This is the first time I’ve experienced it in my career, I’ve been in the fire service for 33 years.“
Alvarez: “Are you 100 percent sure this is what happened the other night?“
Ingles: “I am not, that’s what I’ve been told about the initial attack crews, I need to interview them a bit further in the morning.“
The clip above is the original story by WCMH-TV with an interview with a battalion chief.
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We may not know how or what happened yet, but we certainly know when we’re witnessing answers to valid questions which are hard to believe. If you are the LT on the second engine in, why are you not aware of this water supply issue? More importantly, the BC doesn’t admit any knowledge of this fireground issue either? For the chief to even put forward such an incredible explanation about a kinked hose at the nozzle speaks to the enormous need of better control of external communication.
After their post-incident critique, one of the ‘opportunities for improvement’ the Westerville FD may identify is the public’s disastrous new perception of their department as a direct result of these unbelievably harmful video interviews.
They might choose to either train and utilize a public information officer or fill the apparent need to train their spokespeople to more capably and credibly respond to the tough questions.
Does anyone know if the hose was folded in the bail on a ‘triple layer load’? This has been a fear of mine when crews finish of the load by tucking the fold in.
More than a few of these lately. You haven’t got water, you ain’t got s..t. ICS, great radios, great PPE, all of it doesn’t get it done without the wet stuff. Praise the lord and pass (pump) the ammunition
I think Anon hit the nail on the head. This is a pretty common occurrence if the engine company cross-lay is configued in a triple layer / tri-fold. In an attempt to hastily deploy the attack line, if the nozzle firefighter doesn’t remove the fold of hose from the bale of the nozzle before the pump operator charges the line then the entire attack line is rendered useless. This seems to be a reasonable explanation as to why that one particular line could not be used. Situations like this can be easily prevented with training in the basics and good fireground communications. I do have a question about what looked like a burst hoseline in the background between the garage and the truck co. The video was pretty poor quality so if anyone else can tell what that was… Other than that, all I can say is that even in the best of circumstances when everything goes like clockwork, the general public always perceives the passage of time differently in emergent and stressful situations. How many times do people question why we didn’t “run” when we got there? We do our best to explain to the public how we do our jobs and end up giving people a disertation on team cohesion and an abridged version of “Tactical Fireground Operations 101.” And when they still don’t get it, sometimes we lose our cool (like the chief in the video). Doesn’t make it right, but I get it.
These people need to undergo training again from packing a hose load to fire attack. This is supposedly a professional operation.They have the best of everything and don’t do the job.
It is my understanding this was a triple-load that was charged prior to removing the hose from the shut-off handle. The second line burned through. The third had to be extended because the second due couldn’t get close enough. Cannot testify to this nor am I being critical. Just hoping to learn from our mistakes.
First of all if you cant properly stretch your attack line whatever loads you use go back to rookie school. This is well advanced fire in a garage, not an 1 3/4″ fire, big line or deck gun in the garage door to darken it down 2nd due can stretch handline for final extinguishment. If the line somehow gets tied in a “knot” use the radio everyone loves to talk on have the pump shut down break it at the coupling to drain the pressure and fix it!