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During yesterday’s inaugural Hero Rush event in Clarksburg, Maryland participants saw smoke in a distance. These three videos show you what people saw up close.
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Also on STATter911 …
- House fire in Wellesley, MA. Police shoot video & post story about fire. – December 30, 2011
- Caught on video: Two views of collapse at three-alarm Birmingham, AL building fire. – March 30, 2013
- Arrival video & fireground audio: West Baltimore rowhouse fire. – April 13, 2012
- Controversy in Philly: Union says department is punishing heroes with burn policy. Commissioner says it’s about safety. – February 14, 2012
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All Hail Lightweight Construction!!!! A product of builder owned County Govt.
Lightweight construction at its best!
Interesting EastCoast deck-gun technique…
Slap the Sack!!! G
Back to Deck Pipe target training.
Lightweight Construction with a full sprinkler system, adequate public water system and more than 20′ separation between them would be a whole lot better for the fire protection aspect. One out of three don’t cut it. And to think the beautiful people of Clarksburg (Montgomery County) paid a hefty price to have their $500,000.00 + home burn three times as fast as something built back in the stone age (1970 and before). But that 4000 sf house that I really didn’t need to be that big really impressed all my fufu friends, until it nearly burnt to the ground in the time it takes to drink a beer.
So the fact they have more than you makes them deserve to have this tragedy happen?
Not a knock on beer drinkers.
The fire will go out if you put the wet stuff on the red stuff! Need better aim. Just sayin’
From the video at the back side of the house, it looked like maybe the guy at the deck gun wanted to hit the house next door, to maybe protect it until a handline got in place.
Trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Lightweight construction is a bad thing.
Yeah Dad, why do we need to see this?
Dad should’ve answered like this….
“Well Timmy, when you build with lightweight construction and the fire department isn’t fully funded to provide full staffing, this is what happens.”
“oh.”
Not “Well you don’t get to see this everyday.” cause actually it’s becoming more common.
So folks are finally figuring out the big fire, big water concept. Now they need to work on applying the big water to the big fire. Is it really that hard to aim a deck gun? Apparently……
Would have been nice to see the D side, it appears little to no exposure protection once again. Maybe there is and maybe they were leaving the address for the truck, but it appears that if the D side exposure had taken off, they would have been in some kinda piss poor position to do much about it. Sorta like the guys from Va last week.
As soon as I saw the first pic on the vid, I knew it was a loser. Good ole lightweight construction.
Here is my prediction… The poor aim of the deck gun was some dumb ass who couldn’t figure out how to pull the pin and lower it past the safety stop for ground monitor operations. I would bet money on it….
The deck guns on these crimson engines can’t be detached for ground monitor operations so the safety stop isn’t removable.
I was there from before the first engine arrived. After reading the “Monday morning quarterbacking”, I must say you are all off base. This was a well developed fire from before the first engine arrived. They did all the right things in the right order in a timely manor. Apparatus placement was perfect. They had 2500 GPM (two hydrants 150 and 30 foot lays)flowing within 10 minutes, Blitz, Deck, and tower. The video is of the first 5 minutes and all tank water. The adjacent home was protected from the beginning and never caught fire, just melted siding. This was certainly bread and butter, but everything went off without a hitch.
Follow the link for a pic of the master streams applied to the fire
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sj2197d0icg3xwp/2012-04-28%2009.24.52.jpg
Some folks might take issue with your “right things in the right order in a timely manor (manner)” and “everything went off without a hitch” statements when they are used with descriptions of having two hydrants flowing within 10 minutes.
Timely is in the eye of the beholder.
10 minutes to lay two supply lines to two separate hydrants and set up a blitz, deck gun and a tower is just about right. The deck and blitz were up in about 5, the tower was flowing in 10; the fire was out in 15. I live in the neighborhood and have been around awhile. If Clarksburg had done a bad job, I would be the first to say, but the fact is, they did a good job, protected exposures and then put the fire out! I am with you about the command vehicle though, that was not the best place
Nice to see that the developers are taking full advantage of every square foot of space by not wasting room on spacious roadways, leaving more space to plop in lumberyard houses. That first view down the street reminded me of the tight-ass city neighborhoods they are trying to entice people to move out of and into the new houses.
Another on my long list of pet peeves is the PD blocking the road before the arrival of the FD and GETTING OUT OF THEIR VEHICLE AND STROLLING AROUND!! I’m trying to count the number of times we had to slow down and wait for the vehicle to move. Hey Barney, someone might just need to be getting through there.
Getting back to the narrow street, did we really need to jam the fire SUV down in there too before we got some of those useful apparatii in place? OK, class, discuss the tactical usefulness of a SUV versus a ladder truck.
Just wondering why it took so long for the tower to get into service, doesn’t 35 have one????? Was it there?????
Yes, 35′s tower was there. (positioned on A/D corner to protect exposure which was 8 feet away)It received its supply from 29, who was 4th due. The hydrants in the area where at there max. The first in companies did an outstanding job in my opinion. They confirmed all out of residence and exposure delta, made the decision to go defensive and protect the exposure with a blitz fire. The only damage to the exposure was some siding that melted and the few holes inside to check for fire.
2500 GPM’s is great. But when you are watering the trees behind the house, it does nothing for the fire. I agree with the comment on the safety pin.
Seen a lot of strange comments. Being I was there right in front from about 5min after it started ’til the end, the spraying was exactly where it needed to be. They were trying to save the house next door then put out the fire. There is another house across the street that you don’t see in any of these vids, about 300ft away, its siding too was melting. Now imagine the house right next to the one on fire.
Beyond that, the response time was slow partly due to the neighborhood situation. Fire trucks couldn’t get in. I was talking with some folks at the soccer field after the fire and they said the fire trucks were using their sirens and horns to get cars out of the way.
In response to previous comments, I would like to make mention some in correct views.
(1) The comment about full funding for Staffing is, absolutely wrong. MCFRS Station 35 is a fully Career Staffed with an Engine,Tower, Medic Unit. The Staffing of 4- is in place as is with the majority of the MCFRS Stations. The 4-Staffing is becoming the norm in Montgomery County. The Medic unit has Staffing of 2, just as every other EMS unit. As far as Tactics, The Fireground decisions were obviously made with what the Fire was presenting. Fire issuing visibly with Hydrants in close location to the Fire Building, the available Staffing and Responding Apparatus to be deployed in the positions to safe Life, and protect property. Self serving sarcasim opinions are out of line and not relevant to actually what the fire Ground Operations were.
(2) Yes it appears the light weight construction was apparent. It is sort of a cheap measure just to build up a community. The results learned here hopefully can and will lend to better constructed structures in the future growth of Montgomery County.
I’m not an expert by any means, so forgive me, but these homes have sprinklers, shouldn’the sprinklers have contained this better?
No sprinklers in the attic, so if the fire ran up the vinyl siding and got in the attic the sprinklers wouldn’t have stopped it.
Sometimes the best way to protect an exposure is to knockdown the amount of radiant heat coming from the involved structure. Good job if all these streams were placed in service in the amount of time stated. The stream being shot over the involved structure should still have been directed on the involved structure to knock down the fire, if Tower 35 already had a stream on the exposure. Would be nice to have another aspect of the scene.