Influential Fire Report- Firefighters Trapped at the HoJo

I try to read as many close call and LODD reports that I can cram into my schedule, but the one “report” that has influenced EVERY aspect of my career as a fireman came from my dad.  If anyone wonders, or has ever wondered, why I think, act, talk, teach and fight fire the way that I do…THIS IS WHY!

I first heard his account of this event when I was a fire explorer for Indy Fire Department.  He told the story to our group when asked about his “scariest” experience as a firefighter.  I asked him to retell his story for this post:

Back in the early 80′s, he responded to a fire at the Howard Johnson Hotel on the East side of Indianapolis.  Upon arrival, he was assigned fire attack with another firefighter.  They knew they had a working fire but were unsure of the fire’s location, so they had to go in and search for it.  They stretched a preconnected 150’ and made entry.  Their search for the fire led them into the amenities area of the hotel (conference rooms, pool, sauna, etc.).  According to my dad, conditions were not bad at all, with low heat and visibility about 2 –3 feet off of the floor (NOTE: PPE of the day was hip boots and NO flash hoods, so low heat meant low heat).

As they continued their search through the winding hallways toward the saunas, conditions remained about the same.  Performing a oriented-style search, my dad, searching from behind the nozzleman, searched into a bathroom area then returned to the line.  Just past this point, they discovered that they were out of line.

They radioed for more hose and/or an additional line to be brought in and they held their position.  As they held, flames began to flicker through the overhead smoke.  Despite the visibility and lack of heat, they recognized this as a sign of flashover and penciled the ceiling to control the conditions and cool the upper atmosphere.

He says that when they penciled through the smoke, a commonly taught pre-flashover nozzle tactic, it was like spraying gasoline onto the fire, only up to that point they had not seen any fire.  He says the entire area lit up instantly and violently, “like a bomb went off,” as he described it.  He reacted by burying himself facedown on the floor, his partner setting the nozzle to wide fog and spraying it above him as a water curtain.  It worked and they were able “ride out” the event.

In the scramble, my dad had become separated from the hoseline.  He quickly found a wall and followed it to where he thought was the way out.  As he slammed into a wall in front of him, he left a perfect imprint of his helmet in the sheetrock and, simultaneously realized that he was back in the bathroom that he had previously searched.  Reversing his direction on the wall he made his way back out to the hallway where he found his partner still on the line.  The two of them made their hasty exit as “everything was burning and falling down around them.”

Once they were close to the building’s exit, they were found and dragged the rest of the way by the “rescue team” (an impromptu RIC) sent in to get them.  My dad, his partner and the crew from the second line, who had almost made their way to my dad’s crew, were all transported, treated and released with burns around the neck and head (no hoods).

My dad was told by other firefighters on the scene that, from the outside, all they saw was a fireball.  My mom, listening to the scanner in our kitchen, heard the radio traffic for the explosion, the Mayday and the lost firefighters.  Knowing my dad would be one of them, my mom went to scene, arriving as he was being pulled out of the building.

The cause of the fire was determined to be faulty wiring in the sauna.   The conditions, and subsequent fire event that my dad’s crew encountered were attributed to building layout and construction features.  The sauna area had no windows and only one door that sealed shut.  The heat and smoke that they encountered throughout their search was dormant smoke from the fire that had consumed all of the fuel in the room.  However, heat and smoke had collected above the acoustic ceiling tiles, but did not have enough air, or an ignition source, to fully burn.  As a result of this, when the flameover occurred below the ceiling tiles and the nozzleman directed the stream into the upper atmosphere, dislodging the ceiling tiles, he unknowingly introduced both air and an ignition source to the area above the ceiling tiles, causing the event.  My dad finally described the events as “causing a backdraft by trying to prevent a flashover.”

The lessons that my dad learned and shared with me include:

• The importance of wearing all of your PPE properly
• The importance of realistic, hands-on, fire tactic training
• Training on life-saving tactics to the point that they are instinct
• Maintaining situational awareness, even during fireground emergencies
• The importance of a formal and disciplined Incident Commander
• The importance of disciplined crews
• The importance of training and continuing education in general, but especially building construction

Throughout my career, and especially now as an instructor, these lessons have echoed in my mind.  During that HoJo fire, despite everyone doing their job in an organized and disciplined manner, things still went wrong.  However, because everyone remained organized and disciplined, the outcome was positive.

Firefighting is inherently dangerous.  Despite this, mastering the fundamentals, learning your craft and staying current on technology, strategy and tactics can, and will, save your life.

Thanks and Be SAFE.

Also on SAFE Firefighter …

• First Due Friday: “Big Box” Search – December 9, 2011
• Thinking Outside The Box May Kill You – March 6, 2012
• I Have Always Done Victim Survivability Profiling – December 1, 2011
• Bread and Butter Vertical Ventilation Video! (Helmet Cam) – March 11, 2011