4 Alarm Fire - Shenandoah, PA - 2/23/13

[@jerseyguy242]

Every fireman's nightmare is what you see here. A fightable fire in one house gets up into the cockloft that connects the attics of many rowhouses in Pennsy. Once that happens in older rowhouses, the odds are against an easy job. This went to four alarms!!

[@Blitz350]

The Telesquirt was the first arriving piece and found one address with fire venting from the A side and multiple victims hanging from the exposure with heavy smoke showing from that address. There was heavy fire involving the rear of multiple addresses and auto exposing across the back of the row and around the inside corner of the row. This entire block was much as the rest of Shenandoah in that all four sides were solid rows of balloon frame and brick row homes. The sole access to the rear of all the buildings was through the first floors of the address from the next street over.

[@demotivater]

Great footage

[@richard54932]

As I watch this fire's progression, I can't help but to wonder what went wrong for these guys. This is why, if you can, make an aggressive attack on the fire. It is clear that the command of resources was not meet.

[@JB91710]

If you start commenting by using Common Sense and Logic, you will be as hated as I am. The 95%ers want to be Heroes Before they do their jobs and don't think for one minute I am wrong.

[@legrandyaka2013]

très impressionnant!

[@briankeith1530]

why do they build these so close for

[@JB91710]

From the information I gathered below, this is an example of why you have to hit the burning material hard and fast. The moment I read there were victims in an adjacent building, I'll Bet You ANYTHING this department didn't fight the fire until the VES BS was done first. Goodbye neighborhood!

[@Blitz350]

JB91710 so property before life?

[@JB91710]

Blitz THINK YOU DUMB FUCK! I am so SICK of you morons! You hit the Visible Burning Material with the Deck Gun within One Minute of arrival while everyone is pulling their pants on and you PROTECT THE VICTIMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When are you Braindead Zombies going to get that through your thick skulls????? It is NOT either or, or what goes first! YOU STOP THE THREAT NOW!

[@Blitz350]

So you think that when you call 911 everything just shows the fuck up instantly? The crew from the squrt barely had time to get out of the cab when the fatal jumped because fire started rolling over her head. Idon't recall the staffing on the first in piece but it's tough to put out fire that was this far advanced and rescue victims with a single piece in the span of 15 seconds. These aren't your little single family dwellings that can be knocked down with 500 gal of water, they are BIG balloon frame row homes that require substantial flows to knock down. That takes time. It sounds to me like you would like to tell someone hanging out a window with thick, black, turbulent smoke pushing out around to wait it out until you put the fire out and then maybe you'll deal with them. A smoke condition that you probably wouldn't enter into with all your gear and a pack on BTW. This was not at all a situation where the occupants could wait and the brief delay in fire attack had little bearing on the amount of property lost due to the amount of involvement on arrival. This was not a situation where you could lob some water at the fire and make everything better just like that.

[@JB91710]

Blitz Sorry I jumped down your throat but I'm sick and tired of people saying, "So you would save property before lives?" What people don't understand is, if you Save the property fast, you Are saving lives! Fire creates New Heat and New Toxic Gasses every second they wait. Victims are exposed and when FFers run out of air or get trapped, that fire needs to be out. The VAST majority of American departments ignore the fire to do a search first. It's Not because they can search faster than they can get water on the fire, they do it to Play Hero and because some moron told them they might Steam everybody to death!