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With all of the turmoil we have shown you lately in the DC Fire & EMS Department, it is nice to be able to show you that they still go to fires in Washington, DC. This video comes courtesy of Joe Brown at TraditionsTraining.com. It combines helmet-cam and a little ground camera video with Joe's narration of how roof operations were handled at a house fire that was dispatched just after 6:00 AM Sunday morning in the 4200 block of Lane Place, Northeast.
Here's what DCFD.com and 27Engine.com reported about this fire:
E27 went to work knocking down the first floor. However, due to the stairs being burnt out the crew was unable to get to the second floor. The ladder pipe took care of the second floor, and the fire was under control in 30 minutes.
Truck 17 was the first due truck.
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Image from 27Engine.com where you will find more pictures.
Also on STATter911 …
- Raw video, fireground audio: Four-alarms for multiple rowhomes in Allentown, PA. Five firefighters hurt. – August 24, 2012
- Arrival video & fireground audio: Vacant commercial building on fire in Northeast Washington, DC. Engine 10, Truck 13 first due. – January 19, 2012
- Video: Rowhouse fire in Freemansburg, PA. – May 13, 2013
- Banned in DC. Or is it band in DC? Staind’s Aaron Lewis with a DCFD t-shirt. – April 11, 2012
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Great video!!
Good job. After the hole is cut and the roof FF is back on the ladder, it looks like he left the tools on the tip. Just wondering if he did, or I just missed him taking them down with him? Thanks for posting.
Joe Brown, nice work on the video and the fireground, DCFD nice work period, Mr. Walls and Mr. Ellerbe this is the kind of work a competent PIO does, safety and ppv nazis you may now criticize at will.
Great video. It's nice to watch a Fire Dept. that knows what they're doing going to work.
This is why vertical ventilation is important on house fires; especially Balloon Framed. This was a basement fire. Proper roof ventilation created clear conditions on the first floor; where you would be looking for the stairs.
So, by depending on vertical ventilation to be effective, the building was ventilated 6.5 minutes after arrival of the truck, just in time for the companies to abandon the building.
For the duration of the video, according to the narrator, the engines can't find the fire in the attic, or even the stairs to the attic. Not sure what's going on in the basement.
PPV would have had the first floor ventilated 1 minute after the arrival of the first engine (when this tillerman is grabbing his SCBA out of the compartment). Pressurizing the first floor would have improved tenability in the first floor and attic, allowing for a rapid search by the truck, and the quick location of the attic stair.
Opening the roof improved the flow of heat and fire gases from the basement to the vent hole, speeding the spread of fire, and causing the abandonment of this building – probably before the search was complete.
Using PPA, that is, putting a fan and vent–hole in service prior to making entry, would have allowed for the FD to search the entire first floor and attic in smokefree and low heat conditions.
If the OV man (officer of the first engine?) picked the wrong hole to vent, and the fire area wasn't self-ventilated, the fan would still clear the building and tend to contain the fire. The fan isn't going to blow through the fire area into an unburned area unless that's the only way for the wind to blow. If you vent the wrong hole, the air track will short-circuit to that hole. If you vent the right hole, the air track will sill short-circuit to that hole, but it will carry the heat and smoke from the fire out as it does. If the fire self-ventilates, you've already got the right hole, just make it bigger.
Ventilation of any sort will make a fire bigger. This includes opening the front door to put the fire out. PPV clears the smoke so you can attack it faster, and conduct a search faster.
The tactics of Positive Pressure Attack include letting the vent track stabilize prior to entry, reducing the chance of a sudden adverse event (flashover) occuring while personnel are in the building. The top floor of this house flashed over while personnel were operating inside. Luckily, they couldn't find the door to that area due to the smoke, and no one was in it.
With PPA, you delay a minute at the outset to gain a smoke-free environment to operate. DC spent 6.5 ineffective minutes crawling around before they could vent the roof. It seems that a one-minute delay would have been worthwhile. It certainly would have been for this family.
If anything it's an argument for more staffing not more fans. A 6-man truck would have been able to vent the roof and VES at the same time. Instead of relying on one guy to do both.
This building was of balloon frame construction. The reason for the fire spread was due to the fire spreading vertically in the walls, though some spread vertically where the stairs got burned out too. PPV would have caused this fire to spread even more rapidly via this style of construction which would have lessened the time the firefighters were able to remain in the building. Since there was a report of person(s) trapped, this would have lessened the time the personnel were able spend performing searches. They did search the basement and first floor, but had difficulty getting to the second floor due to the stairs being burned out along with the fire conditions starting to get much worse around that same time.
Thus, PPV would have caused that fire to spread even more rapidly and probably do more destruction, and it would have lessened the time for the firefighters in the interior to complete the searches of the basement and first floor.
PPV has it's applications as it's especially useful in high rise incidents. But it is not a good choice for early application at buildings made from balloon frame and ordinary construction.
Theres a great book on PPA called Positive Pressure Attack for Ventilation and Firefighting that dispells some of those myths about spreading fire using PPA/V. Salt Lake City and other departments have been using PPA for years during inital fire attack with great results. Worth the read.
http://positivepressureattack.com/ppa_book.htm
Those better not be DCFD shirts under that turnout gear!!!!
Nice truck work fellas!
Dave, another video of the fire. This one from ground level looking up.
http://youtu.be/495zihI1kbY
Yes, this is the one Joe uses in the nicely done split screen (except thanfully without the band that apparently showed up to play the fire). Much appreciated.
PPV —– An inexperienced Firefighter or Incident Commander may recommend it's use.
A real Firefighter and/or Incident Commander would never consider PPV on a balloon framed basement fire.
Hey Joe, the comments at 7:58 are unwarrented. You just blew your chance at being an Editor at Firehouse Magazine!!
Just kidding. Comments were right on the money! Excellent job.
PPV blows…
The results could hardly have been worse: back out after 7 minutes, incomplete search, watch the top floor burn from the yard.
Was PPV going to blow fire from the basement to the attic? That happened without ppv. Was PPV going to make the fire grow too big, and cause the FD to abandon the building? That happened, too.
How much air flows in a closed space? Not much. Opening both ends caused the spread.
This tillerman was great at his tactics. It's the department's strategy that failed.
Exactly what tactics failed? Putting the fire out in the basement and unable to get to the second floor right away because the stairs are burned? Sounds like they did their job, did it well, adapted to the situation.
Great job! One man did all that in 5 minutes. That guy is at the top of his game.
But I learned in the Training 100 days in Fairfax we would have to wait before anyone can break a window then we would have to make sure our radios are not worn with straps and heaven forbid t-shirts are underneath the gear. Good Job DCFD!
So very true
but what can you do
they want to go to the roof
they want to cut big holes
they want to risk their soles
…all for
a hole in the roof
dear fire never dismay
the truckie will make a way
to the oxygen you hold so dear
truckies always want you near
so sit and wait the flow path will come
and all the guys on the inside will be done
you, dear fire will have your say
right after the truck clears the way
post script
our apologies dear fire if it takes too long
we have to make sure that we frame the shot
cause Joe Brown can't be wrong
so long as he is making the fires burn hot!
Sweet job!! PPV on a balloon constructed structure? No thanks!!
Great roof job, Great job by the Tillerman.
What that man was doing looked dangerous.
i think smoke went away because the entire second floor was freeburning. i think it had nothing to do with a hole being cut, which was completely unnecessary, except to use that ladder pipe. what dcfd has become. so sad
PPV…did you write that directly out a manual???
That was a long drawn out and ineffective way to describe this fire and probably why I fell asleep after the 1st paragraph..PPV (Poor Placement Ventilation)
That's the point timmy. They didn't use the ladder pipe and SAVED the house. I know it's an odd concept.
read the story,they did too ladder pipe it. guys your OLD EYES DONT WORK OLD HEAD
He wears googles to help his vision. Pipeman aka…..Squirt lol
yeah the kentla… i mean dcfd is better than everyone googles??? drink that kool aid baby….. ladder piping houses, putting ems in the new official name of the department…. you guys are the cats meow
PPA, yeah right. This video shows what happens with ppv placed too early (read: while the fire is still burning). And this was a training exercise. Now try this on a real working fire where you don't know the conditions of the structure before the fire is lit. Start watching around 2:15. Look and see the immediate change in conditions after the fan is started. Please stop trying to tell people that PPA is the answer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTInZhv4ZyE
1. PPV nazi is just kidding, right? Fires in tens of thousands of balloon frame buildings have gone out with effective truck work and wo PPV. If the stairs are gone, as I believe the case here, it's a wrap anyway. Through experience and many burned down houses, PPV is ineffective on balloon frames and dangerous. Obviously, in type I and II it has it's place. T
I cant believe someone wrote a damn poem to make fun of a video…..the idiots on this site amaze me