In this incident, Homewood FD and presumably other similar departments in the area had a problem with chief officer staffing, where there is one chief officer in the department and if they are not on duty they have long delays. Rather than add manpower they pushed initial chief command duties off onto the first arriving lieutenant. In this case, the lieutenant helped throw lines while he appraised the fire, then retreated to the apparatus to use the radio there for communications because the hand radio couldn't scan fireground and dispatch at the same time. This left the hose team of one experienced firefighter and two candidates with mere months on the job entirely outside the span of control with no supervising officer. There were no officers inside the structure at any point before the flashover. The senior firefighter nominally in charge of the hose team failed to wear his hood. When the fire started to cook down to knee level, rather than open the nozzle and cool the area he elected to hand off the pipe to one of the candidates to wait while he fetched his hood from the rig. While they waited, firefighters outside took out all the windows they could reach, dramatically increasing ventilation without coordinating that operation with the hose team inside, which at this point was leaderless, out of communication, and completely unaware of what was happening or what to do. Ventilating windows from outside the structure is stupid and dangerous at the best of times. If you're not going in, then just sit on your hands. The suggestion that the visible body of heavy fire should have resulted in disregarding of the report ("failure to execute a proper risk vs reward') of a trapped invalid and a transitional attack from the exterior is highly arguable. If officers had been present inside to direct operations, or even a competent nozzleman capable of acting command, executing an interior attack to cover the search team should have been highly successful. All this situation needed was an open pipe, vertical ventilation, and not breaking windows from outside.
When a police officer reports “fully involved”, 9 times out of 10 it’s a one room & contents fire with heavy smoke condition. The same thing with a motor vehicle with an engine compartment fire, it’s a “Fully involved vehicle “ to the boys in blue.
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In this incident, Homewood FD and presumably other similar departments in the area had a problem with chief officer staffing, where there is one chief officer in the department and if they are not on duty they have long delays. Rather than add manpower they pushed initial chief command duties off onto the first arriving lieutenant. In this case, the lieutenant helped throw lines while he appraised the fire, then retreated to the apparatus to use the radio there for communications because the hand radio couldn't scan fireground and dispatch at the same time. This left the hose team of one experienced firefighter and two candidates with mere months on the job entirely outside the span of control with no supervising officer.
There were no officers inside the structure at any point before the flashover.
The senior firefighter nominally in charge of the hose team failed to wear his hood. When the fire started to cook down to knee level, rather than open the nozzle and cool the area he elected to hand off the pipe to one of the candidates to wait while he fetched his hood from the rig. While they waited, firefighters outside took out all the windows they could reach, dramatically increasing ventilation without coordinating that operation with the hose team inside, which at this point was leaderless, out of communication, and completely unaware of what was happening or what to do.
Ventilating windows from outside the structure is stupid and dangerous at the best of times. If you're not going in, then just sit on your hands.
The suggestion that the visible body of heavy fire should have resulted in disregarding of the report ("failure to execute a proper risk vs reward') of a trapped invalid and a transitional attack from the exterior is highly arguable. If officers had been present inside to direct operations, or even a competent nozzleman capable of acting command, executing an interior attack to cover the search team should have been highly successful. All this situation needed was an open pipe, vertical ventilation, and not breaking windows from outside.
Heartbreaking listening to the poor guy
I knew Wendell, the story is truly sad
This is heartbreaking. To actually listen to this is awful
When a police officer reports “fully involved”, 9 times out of 10 it’s a one room & contents fire with heavy smoke condition. The same thing with a motor vehicle with an engine compartment fire, it’s a “Fully involved vehicle “ to the boys in blue.
how horrible