A Video Worth Watching

[Click Click 27]

www.loudoun.gov/Default.aspx?tabid=2384

Audio and video of the Meadowood court fire in Loudoun County VA.

[voyager9]

Wow. Great video. I hope those injured are recovering.
I'll have to watch it again, but one thing I thought was curious was that command ordered the evac right after Engine 6 reported a mayday/collapse yet the evac tones weren't dropped for another 5 minutes or so. Is that a SOG-thing, did I mishear something?

[papacheese]

I had the same impression,voyager......way too long.

Everyone knows how focused I am on reading smoke; aside from thermal imagers and five inch hose, it's (to me at least) one of the most useful tools in our firefighting arsenal, especially for anyone in a supervisory position who need to make decisions.

This video is an EXCELLENT illustration for "Reading Smoke" as well as firefighting tactics for McMansions.

1) The light brown smoke relatively early on in the process clearly indicates that the roof structure is being compromised. Not being familiar with the local, I'd have to worry a little since the house looks fairly new and thus a strong candidate for lightweight construction, ie: early structural failure, which not coincidentially, occurred when the back dormer collapsed moments later.

2) The time stamp, in conjunction with the smoke conditions, is another valuable indication that shouldn't be ignored (and one of the chief reasons why I advocate installing a really big, obnoxious, in-the-IC's-face 20 minute "shot clock" in the command vehicle). Although it hasn't quite gotten to the twenty minute mark yet, it IS clearly obvious that things are not staying the same or getting better...therefore, it is time to boogy, regroup, and figure out another approach..... cuz brothers, this one ain't working.

Another aspect that needs to be discussed is committing to an offensive stance without having enough personnel to ensure you can pull it off. It's fate, karma, kismet, or simply great timing that Rescue 3 pulls up either right before or right after the Mayday is called, since (by my count) they're probably going to be the RIT.

[voyager9]

Written report at
www.loudoun.gov/Default.aspx?tabid=286&fmpath=/Meadowood%20Court%20Report

Has a good description of interior operations and when paired with the video provides a very good idea what was going on inside and outside.

[voyager9]

Oct 31, 2008 10:20:19 GMT -5 papacheese said:

I had the same impression,voyager......way too long.

Based on the written report:

13:16:55 – BC601 advised Command:
"Battalion 601 to Command - evacuate, structure collapse rear, evacuate."

13:21:35 – The ECC transmitted the evacuation tones on 6-Delta, which consisted of a 15 second “warble” tone followed by:
"Attention all units, attention all units operating at Meadowood Court, evacuate the building immediately. All units evacuate the building immediately. 1321 hours."

As mentioned in the report:

There were multiple evacuation orders issued on Meadowood Court. In post-incident interviews, personnel from several units indicated that they did not hear the verbal evacuation orders and evacuated the structure only after hearing ECC “drop” the evacuation tones.

In post-incident interviews, the Incident Commander indicated the reason for not asking the ECC to “drop” the evacuation tones immediately after the request from Division Charlie was to avoid covering potential radio transmissions from the MAYDAY firefighters. It is important to note that at least one unit remained inside the structure until the evacuation tones were transmitted by the ECC.

In the mean time you have events such as:

Engine Firefighter opened the nozzle in an attempt to attack the fire in the staircase and immediately lost pressure. In an attempt to diagnose the problem, the Reserve Engine Officer took the line from the Firefighter and opened the nozzle. Again, the line immediately lost pressure. It was later determined that the inner and outer layers of the hoseline had burned through approximately 10 feet from the nozzle, dramatically reducing the water pressure available at the nozzle.

And

The Tower Officer attempted to break out a window in the Master Bathroom to escape the intense fire, smoke, and heat. Unable to break the window, the Tower Officer exited the Master Bathroom in search of an alternate means of escape. Ultimately, the Officer was able to exit the structure on Side Charlie and, according to witnesses was on fire when the Officer landed in the backyard.

Related to that:

Windows throughout the house consisted of double-paned thermal glass, except for those in the Master Bathroom, which were Herculite® K, double paned, tempered safety glass.

[papacheese]

I'm going to read the report before offering any more comments but would like to add....

I commend the department for making this information available; it is not an easy thing to dissect something that had such bad consequences for our brothers.....but doing so is necessary so that others learn and avoid the same mistakes.

"Those who ignore history are condemned to repeating its mistakes"

[breakingsomemirror]

Wow, fantastic video! This would be an interesting one to show in a drill and ask, "What if this happened here?". Scary how many homes exactly like that one are in this county. Like the saying goes, if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere!

I have to agree with papacheese here, you've got be able to read the smoke and know the construction on this one! Watch the video again and notice one thing. In addition to the color (brown to black) and volume of smoke in the roof area, watch the windows. First due engine arrives around 8:32. The first window was vented at about the 9:40 mark, about 1:10 after arrival. There was light to medium brownish smoke venting, not really hard though. By the 13:50 point (about 5 minutes after arrival), smoke is beginning to push from the windows and front door. As an IC, this is when I get the "Oh Sh*ts!". If you don't have smoke somewhere and then a few minutes later you do and it looks like that, that's not good!

By 1510, it's pushing hard and fast and black from all the windows and front door. At 1542, approximately 7:10 after arrival, the roof collapses and the mayday is called.

Pay attention to the front door too. At first, I'm thinking attic fire, maybe some drop down into Div 2. It's a large house with lot's of potential volume to hold smoke. In less than 10 minutes after arrival, there is now thick black and "ugly" smoke coming out of the front door. That, my friends, means trouble! You've got to seriously consider dropping back and punting at this point.

I'd love to hear Dodson's read on this one.

Any time you have fire involvement in an attic with lightweight truss construction, you've got to be one of two things to put this thing out from the interior: fast and lucky! Seriously, if you're going to send a crew inside to fight these conditions, you'd better be thinking that they have a minute, maybe two to make things better or else you've got to pull them. In all honesty, I may not commit them at all. Lots of factors there.

Another quick point, and this is especially to all the younger officers or those who aspire to be an officer. Listen to the radio traffic. Do you hear anybody screaming? NO! I was pleasantly shocked to hear how calm everybody seems, even when things go in the toilet. OK, a little bit of excitement in the voices at one point but still, no screaming! I loved it. As an officer, you've got to set the tone. If you are excited and screaming on radio, then everyone else will be. The calm, reassuring radio report sets a good tone and gets everybody focuses. You could be pooping your pants on the inside but try and take a breath, count to 5 or 10 and then give a calm, clear, concise report. Well done to this department on their radio demeanor.

I also give this department a lot of credit for putting this out. It's hard to stand back and have people Monday morning QB your department but they did it, hopefully to for the betterment of everybody. Kudos to them.

[voyager9]

Nov 3, 2008 10:15:18 GMT -5 breakingsomemirror said:

Pay attention to the front door too. At first, I'm thinking attic fire, maybe some drop down into Div 2. It's a large house with lot's of potential volume to hold smoke. In less than 10 minutes after arrival, there is now thick black and "ugly" smoke coming out of the front door. That, my friends, means trouble! You've got to seriously consider dropping back and punting at this point.

If I hadn't heard the initial 911 call I would have assumed Attic fire as well. There wasn't much coming from the front door when the crews made entry.

At the same time, if you read the report, the Truck6 crew reported heavy smoke on division 1 upon entry. The officer entered late and had to use the TIC to see the rest of the crew climbing the stairs. In addition he reported hearing "crackling" before going upstairs himself.

The lesson I tried to reinforce to my guys when we went over the video was that if you believe you have an attic fire, but find heavy smoke on division1 you need to investigate.

Now that I think about it, this was pretty similar to the Pickwick job(s) in Evesham two years ago, isn't it?

[papacheese]

Having spent some time reading the written report on this fire (a VERY exhaustive and comprehensive one I might add), I most definitely have the ole "It CAN Happen Here" tingle going....

1) The report breaks things down into very discreet sectors - especially operations, personnel, communications, and even post-even PPE examination (an excellent resorurce for any training officer who's trying to put together a session on PPE). The time line and communications log are outstanding for making sense of what we're seeing on the screen....this is a "must read" for those who want to understand the situation better and hopefully not repeat things.

2) The initial size-up was faulty, but I say that with much discretion. Why? The engine officer attempted a 360 and only got as far as the A/D corner. A bump-out for the master bedroom and first floor effectively blocked his line of sight to a very key piece of information that would have no doubt caused him to change his tactics: the fire was on the first floor, not just the attic. Now, the reason for the discretion leads me to....

3) The initial engine crew consisted of a D/O, officer, and one firefighter. Since they were unable to verify if anyone was in there or not, he made (IMHO) the correct assumption and took an aggressive stance to try to get a search done by the tower crew (again, three). The key here is that everyone went upstairs beleiving it was only an attic fire, thereby setting the stage for a near-miss.

4) Consider this: if there had been a back-up line, chances are better than average that they would have taken a position near the interior stairs and thus, would have discovered the fire burning on Division 1 and either held it at bay or at least warned the upstairs crew. Unfortunately, there were no more firefighters available for this critical assignment.

5) A tip o the helmet to the D/O's for throwing ground ladders when they did....

6) And another to the officers and firefighters on Division 2: their MAYDAY and self-survival training kicked in....they weren't standing around waiting for the end to happen, but actively seeking an exit route.....

Another important aspect of this job that cannot be overlookedwas that the call taker and /or dispatcher failed to tell the crew that:

- the fire was on the first floor and,
- that no one was home

Do you think those two key pieces of information might have caused the officer to change his tactics?

This near-miss and the subsequent investigation is a treasure trove of valuable insight into fires that all of us have had in the past or will be encountering. Did the dwelling's construction pay a role in the fire's condition? Absolutely. If you notice, the fire was developing along pretty predicable lines until the rear bedroom dormer collapsed, pushing the fire, smoke, and heat downward into the structure and no doubt probably shoving it right back up the stairway. Did you notice how the Div A doorway smoke slowly changed...then rapidly changed once the dormer was down? Did anyone notice the light brown smoke coming from the roof area early on, indicating that the untreated structural wood was already weakening. Is it any wonder the dormer collapsed?

Another area of the report I found interesting was the post-incident examination of the PPE and SCBA, both of which are common throughout our county. The key point that needs to be emphasized is that (to my knowledge), none of them were in direct contact with fire - that thick, black ugly crap was superheated. Another aspect: their gear was top-notch, yet did not fully protect them (not that I believe it could have fresh out of the wrapper).

This is one of those situations that deserves our full attention; hopefully the chief and company officers who regularly visit this forum will show the video to their troops....it's that good. I'm already putting something together....

[voyager9]

Nov 3, 2008 11:24:41 GMT -5 papacheese said:

4) Consider this: if there had been a back-up line, chances are better than average that they would have taken a position near the interior stairs and thus, would have discovered the fire burning on Division 1 and either held it at bay or at least warned the upstairs crew. Unfortunately, there were no more firefighters available for this critical assignment.

I believe Engine 23 was in the process of getting the backup line in service when the Mayday was issued. I know the video shows them getting ready to go in with the backup, but I forget the actual timing..

[papacheese]

I'll have to go back and look again, voyager....I remember seeing them mask up in the front yard, but don't recall seeing a handline there...maybe I just missed it, which brings to mind a question:

Is a back-up line absolutely, positively necessary for a situation like this? Assume (as was the case), that the Engine 6 officer believed that a possible search scenario was in place...do you wait for a back up? Did anyone notice that they took a line with them to search the second floor, even though (presumably) they didn't know there was fire on the first floor?

In my opinion, in order for an offensive mode to take place, you need a minimum of an attack, back-up, and vent crew...anything less and you're (pun intended) playing with fire. There are probably hundreds of scenarios that take place every day where this isn't the case, and in 99% of them, nothing happens....so it must be OK? There are people who would argue "the attack team can vent as they go", or the "back up crew can search as they proceed", but isn't that spreading the work load out too far and possibly setting them up for a disaster?

Seems to me that a lot of these near-misses and LODD's occur when our troops are trying to do too much; one of the Loudoun County report's post-incident recommendations (since implemented) was to increase staffing from three to four because of the overload that was faced in those first critical moments. If you listen to the Engine 6 officer call in the situation and state that he needs to pass command ASAP, you know the guy's trying to figure out how to do more with less. No rip at him: he's doing his damnest to try and make the situation better.

Interestingly enough, I went back and looked at the video strictly from a reading smoke perspective (knowing the situation) and have to say there were no obvious clues in the first moments that this was anything more than an attic fire. It wasn't until the smoke issuing through the front door began to thicken that I got the idea there was more here then meets the eye. That's why a 360 is absolutely, positively needed...you have to get the entire picture, not just a single snapshot.

Lastly, I have to admire a department that automatically dispatches a dedicated ISO on structures....that's proactive.