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The TV station is referring to this explosion at a house fire in Dayton, Ohio early this morning as both a backdraft and a flashover. I will let you decide.
A house exploded while crews were battling a fire on Campbell Street, throwing debris at firefighters on the porch.
“Fortunately, we’re trained to recognize things going on,” said Assistant Chief Jeffrey Payne, Dayton Fire Department. “We have some excellent fire gear that keeps us safe.”
No one was injured during the explosion or the fire, Payne said.
The fire started in the home’s basement, said Payne, but an actual cause of the fire has yet to be established.
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I hope no one was hurts. Its funny to me, that every average untrained citizen thinks they can stand 20 or 30 feet away and 1. Not get in the way and 2. Be out of harms way. She was inspired to move once the heat could be felt. Take your house coat wearin’ butt and get out of there!
“Fortunately we’re trained to recognize things going on”…I don’t think they recognized this was going to happen.
I was gonna say… I’m pretty sure those guys on the porch had no idea what hit them.
“The TV station is referring to this explosion at a house fire in Dayton, Ohio early this morning as both a backdraft and a flashover. I will let you decide.”
I will decide, the explosion is definitely a Flashover.
Backdraft is a phenomenon in which a fire that has consumed all available oxygen suddenly explodes when more oxygen is made available. “typical” descriptions prior to a backdraft is conditions are very hot and dark, with little to no flame present” not always the case. also, typically not a self-vented fire. Also a key observation noted by FFs is that the smoke, upon immediate introduction of oxygen, drags back into the structure, giving the term Back Draft.
Flashover is an instance of a fire spreading very rapidly through the air because of intense heat.
This video shows fire is self-vented, and well involved prior to the flashover. This is what alludes to the flashover vs. backdraft, also the lack of the ‘back drafting of smoke inward’
I am not convinced that this is a flashover. There is no visible fire on the first floor prior to this event. The crew is on the front porch, possibly forcing entry (hard to tell). Flashover is rarely that violent. By all outward appearances, the door was opened, oxygen was infused into the smoldering environment, and a backdraft occurred. It looks like a text book case to me. Control the door and ventilate vertically. Not questioning their tactics, there is not enough there to pass judgement, but controlling the door and ventilating vertically can help to prevent such an event.
your flashover definition is not what I have read or experienced. flashover occurs when all of the contents of a room are heated to their ignition point and they give off gases which reach open flame all at the same time. Some heat source (fire below or in another room) is cooking the room, the solids start off-gassing( which is what all visible flame really is) and those gases ignite at the same time.
95%er, unsure if you were replying to my post, but just in case I will restate that I DO NOT think this was a flashover. Like I said, flashover is rarely this violent. I can assure you that I understand what the definition of a flashover is, but what I was describing is a backdraft, which, in my opinion, is clearly what occurred here.
JC, I was referring to the post above you. i agree 100% with your comments.
One angle view and I wasn’t there, but I’d say that was the first floor flashing over from what appears to be an active fire in the basement. Not your typical flashover, but the same phenomenom. All that heat, smoke, and gases got to that perfect mixture on the first floor and ignited. Hope no one was hurt and if so that their gear protected them and made it minor.
I would say with the force that the glass was thrown out that it appears to be more of a smoke explosion or backdraft than a flashover. Flashover tends to have more flame rolling out with less force. Granted, it’s not a big backdraft, but a bit too much force for me to call it a flashover.
“I was gonna say… I’m pretty sure those guys on the porch had no idea what hit them.” -BH
That would be correct. I was one of the 2 guys on the porch. Trying to fire up a K-saw to get some bars off the windows, and heard a little “woosh” and felt a pressure wave move through us. Luckily, we had just masked up maybe 1 minute prior.
I’ll let the fire dynamics gurus debate flashover vs. smoke explosion vs. backdraft, but after seeing the footage, I can’t say I’ve ever seen a flashover with that kind of force.
It’s kind of strange. I’m a guy that frequents all the various fire service websites and blogs all the time. Pretty weird being the guy in the video this time.
No injuries, by the way. PPE did it’s job 100%.
Glad you are okay Brad. Thanks for the insight.
Statter
Hey Brad, thanks for telling us your experience. I’m very happy to hear your PPE worked as it should. I wonder what your wife or Mom thinks of this video?
Brad, very glad you and your partner were OK. That matters more than ANYTHING.
I’m going with backdraft or smoke explosion.
flashover is when all the contents of a room spontaneously reach ignition at the same time and ignite. while it can be explosive to the person inside the room, I have never seen it blow out smoke and debris like that.
if you look closely at the video, the explosion appears to start inside the home and work its way to out, blowing out the window glass and out the door. There also appears to be a sudden flash on side B as well.
I never saw a flashover do this, but smoke or backdrafts sure do look like that.
Smoke Explosion……
and Brad, nice job coming home in one piece.
Some thoughts- backdrafts are not always preceded by smoke “drafting back” into a structure. Also, with the limited camera view (A/D corner), smoke could very well have been drafting back into the building on the other three corners not visible in the video. Also, if a backdraft (or any type of explosion for that matter) occurs inside a building, it is very possible that only one or more compartments out of the total building itself could be involved in the actual “explosion”, and depending on how the building is built and the number/type of openings present, the explosive force can push the contents of the building (including smoke and fire) out through an opening remote from the actual source of the explosion.
Very good comments. This should end the discussion.
Flashover, smoke explosion, Backdraft…Don’t really care either way myself. Deadly explosion if in the wrong place at the wrong time..
Whatever you all want to call it. thats fine with me. I’ll call it a lesson. Watch the smoke and if its not telling you what you think you need to know…Watch your ass. because if you cant see it coming. it will get you.
Glad you all weren’t Hurt Brad. I bet it don’t matter to you what it was either.. Other than a damn good thing you weren’t inside when it happened.
All that matters is you guys went home safe. They can study the damn thing to death and it still will not matter. If anything, maybe a new term for some unknown event will be named after you guys. They can called it the Holy sh** flash over. Glad you are ok.
Its a ‘ back overdraft flash ‘ or was that on my bank statement this month?
As always, I feel for the family who goes through the devastation of having a fire ravage their homes. The old lady already feels horrible and then as she walks towards her house, she is confronted by a smoke explosion. I’m glad the guys in Dayton made home safely.