AS I LIVE AND BREATHE – OR NOT?
WARNING! The story that you are about to read is absolutely, positively intended to scare the hell out of you. If you are not fully prepared to read a “Fictional Tale” of a tragedy that could happen to any Little Compton family, then stop right here and hit the delete button on your keyboard.
It is 1:20 AM in our quiet seaside community. The family of four was all sleeping soundly on the second floor of their beautiful Colonial home overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The children were tucked in around nine, tomorrow was a school day, and the parents turned in after watching Jay Leno on the TV in the first floor family room.
A fire was smoldering in Dad’s recliner, started from a cigarette ash. The demon fire was rapidly sucking the oxygen out of the air for a long time before it burst into flames. Fire, just like people needs oxygen to live. It does not take long before the level of oxygen in the air is lowered to the level where humans loose consciousness. So now the family was no longer simply sleeping, they were anesthetized and had no sense of what was happening around them. If they were not rescued soon they would all suffocate and die.
A neighbor returning from a late night party spotted smoke coming out of the house and a glowing red through windows on the first floor. He rushed across the road and rang the doorbell and pounded his fist on the door. He tried to open the door but it was locked and the door knob was hot. He quickly ran back to his home and called 911.
It was 1:30 AM when the dispatcher answered the call. He wrote down the information that he heard from the desperate caller and sounded the alarm. The public address system barked the address while the two firefighters on duty at the Public Safety Complex quickly donned their “turnout” gear. Engine One roared to life and left the station at 1:32 AM.
The Fire Truck pulled up in front of the burning home at 1:37 AM, only five minutes had elapsed. But time was quickly running out on the family trapped in the house. One of the firefighters deployed a hose line while the driver engaged the pump and charged the line with water. They started fighting the fire at 1:39 AM. Almost ten minutes had elapsed since the neighbor had alerted the fire department.
Meanwhile off duty firefighters and volunteers were alerted with some heading directly to the fire scene, while others went to the Fire Station to get the 3000 gallon tanker, the Rescue Ambulance and the back-up Fire Truck. The first back up personnel started arriving at the fire around 1:40 AM. They quickly deployed a second hose line off Engine One to assist in fighting the fire which was quickly spreading to the second floor.
Meantime the tanker truck and Engine Two were on the way and arrived at 1:45 AM, and began setting up the reserve water supply. They removed the portable folding 3000 gallon canvas reservoir from the truck and started transferring the water from the tanker to the reservoir. It was 1:50 AM, 20 minutes after the fire was reported. The water in the reservoir still needed to be pumped to Engine One.
At approximately 1:51 AM the 1000 gallon water supply carried on Engine One ran dry. The fire was now raging on unabated and was coming through the roof.
At 2:00 AM the back-up pumper started pumping water to Engine One, more hose lines were deployed and they started pouring more water onto the burning structure, now fully involved in flames. At 2:25 AM the fire was proclaimed to be “under control” no longer spreading. Thirty minutes later firefighters were able to safely enter the remaining structure and search for victims. It was a little more than an hour after the fire had been detected, reported, and fire apparatus was on the way. Four souls had passed on to their Creator.
The Headlines said: Little Compton Family of four perished in overnight fire. Firefighters fought the blaze for more than an hour. The Fire Chief reports that once again limited water supply hampered firefighting efforts. He said that at one point the first unit on the scene actually ran out of water. The Chief went on to say that “maybe now the town will do something to get us more men and more water. We pray for the family that perished, but we did the best that we could with what we have to work with.” End of Story….
Could there have been a different outcome? Absolutly yes!
Same time, same fictional story line, but a totally different response and result.
The two on duty firefighters respond with Engine Two the recently acquired Compressed Air Foam System (CAFS) Pumper. Within two minutes after arriving at the fire they have begun applying Compressed Air Foam through the windows of the family room, three minutes later the fire is knocked out. They are then able to safely enter the home with their self contained breathing apparatus and rescue the family from the smokey second floor. The family is quickly transported to the hospital where they are treated for smoke inhalation.
Now I know that there those who will say that this is a bunch of B.S… They might say that the family would have been awakened by their smoke detectors that were inspected when the house was built. Have you checked the batteries in your smoke detectors lately? They might say that the first responders would have immediately entered the building and rescued the victims. But then of course there is “the two men in, two men out rule” that prohibits entering a burning building until there are four personnel on the “fire ground.” There will be this and that said to shoot holes in this fictional story.
But you have to ask yourself one question. Could it happen? You bet your life it could. Does CAFS do a better job than water? You can bet your life on that too. Should the Fire Chief do the right thing and change his procedures and deploy our CAFS pumper first on all fire calls? He should bet his job on it!
Why you might ask have I gone to such an extreme in writing this frightening fictional story? The answer is quite simple. I and other concerned citizens of Little Compton have had it up to here with the failure on the part of Fire Department Management to deploy the Pierce CAFS equipped pumper. All we have had to show for our more than $200,000 investment in enhanced protection of life and property are excuses. This truck was delivered two years ago! Personnel have not been trained! There is no strategic plan to put this state-of-the-art pumper on the “front line.” Our new Fire Chief is of the opinion that CAFS is just another “tool.” OMG!
Sarge
WARNING! The story that you are about to read is absolutely, positively intended to scare the hell out of you. If you are not fully prepared to read a “Fictional Tale” of a tragedy that could happen to any Little Compton family, then stop right here and hit the delete button on your keyboard.
It is 1:20 AM in our quiet seaside community. The family of four was all sleeping soundly on the second floor of their beautiful Colonial home overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The children were tucked in around nine, tomorrow was a school day, and the parents turned in after watching Jay Leno on the TV in the first floor family room.
A fire was smoldering in Dad’s recliner, started from a cigarette ash. The demon fire was rapidly sucking the oxygen out of the air for a long time before it burst into flames. Fire, just like people needs oxygen to live. It does not take long before the level of oxygen in the air is lowered to the level where humans loose consciousness. So now the family was no longer simply sleeping, they were anesthetized and had no sense of what was happening around them. If they were not rescued soon they would all suffocate and die.
A neighbor returning from a late night party spotted smoke coming out of the house and a glowing red through windows on the first floor. He rushed across the road and rang the doorbell and pounded his fist on the door. He tried to open the door but it was locked and the door knob was hot. He quickly ran back to his home and called 911.
It was 1:30 AM when the dispatcher answered the call. He wrote down the information that he heard from the desperate caller and sounded the alarm. The public address system barked the address while the two firefighters on duty at the Public Safety Complex quickly donned their “turnout” gear. Engine One roared to life and left the station at 1:32 AM.
The Fire Truck pulled up in front of the burning home at 1:37 AM, only five minutes had elapsed. But time was quickly running out on the family trapped in the house. One of the firefighters deployed a hose line while the driver engaged the pump and charged the line with water. They started fighting the fire at 1:39 AM. Almost ten minutes had elapsed since the neighbor had alerted the fire department.
Meanwhile off duty firefighters and volunteers were alerted with some heading directly to the fire scene, while others went to the Fire Station to get the 3000 gallon tanker, the Rescue Ambulance and the back-up Fire Truck. The first back up personnel started arriving at the fire around 1:40 AM. They quickly deployed a second hose line off Engine One to assist in fighting the fire which was quickly spreading to the second floor.
Meantime the tanker truck and Engine Two were on the way and arrived at 1:45 AM, and began setting up the reserve water supply. They removed the portable folding 3000 gallon canvas reservoir from the truck and started transferring the water from the tanker to the reservoir. It was 1:50 AM, 20 minutes after the fire was reported. The water in the reservoir still needed to be pumped to Engine One.
At approximately 1:51 AM the 1000 gallon water supply carried on Engine One ran dry. The fire was now raging on unabated and was coming through the roof.
At 2:00 AM the back-up pumper started pumping water to Engine One, more hose lines were deployed and they started pouring more water onto the burning structure, now fully involved in flames. At 2:25 AM the fire was proclaimed to be “under control” no longer spreading. Thirty minutes later firefighters were able to safely enter the remaining structure and search for victims. It was a little more than an hour after the fire had been detected, reported, and fire apparatus was on the way. Four souls had passed on to their Creator.
The Headlines said: Little Compton Family of four perished in overnight fire. Firefighters fought the blaze for more than an hour. The Fire Chief reports that once again limited water supply hampered firefighting efforts. He said that at one point the first unit on the scene actually ran out of water. The Chief went on to say that “maybe now the town will do something to get us more men and more water. We pray for the family that perished, but we did the best that we could with what we have to work with.” End of Story….
Could there have been a different outcome? Absolutly yes!
Same time, same fictional story line, but a totally different response and result.
The two on duty firefighters respond with Engine Two the recently acquired Compressed Air Foam System (CAFS) Pumper. Within two minutes after arriving at the fire they have begun applying Compressed Air Foam through the windows of the family room, three minutes later the fire is knocked out. They are then able to safely enter the home with their self contained breathing apparatus and rescue the family from the smokey second floor. The family is quickly transported to the hospital where they are treated for smoke inhalation.
Now I know that there those who will say that this is a bunch of B.S… They might say that the family would have been awakened by their smoke detectors that were inspected when the house was built. Have you checked the batteries in your smoke detectors lately? They might say that the first responders would have immediately entered the building and rescued the victims. But then of course there is “the two men in, two men out rule” that prohibits entering a burning building until there are four personnel on the “fire ground.” There will be this and that said to shoot holes in this fictional story.
But you have to ask yourself one question. Could it happen? You bet your life it could. Does CAFS do a better job than water? You can bet your life on that too. Should the Fire Chief do the right thing and change his procedures and deploy our CAFS pumper first on all fire calls? He should bet his job on it!
Why you might ask have I gone to such an extreme in writing this frightening fictional story? The answer is quite simple. I and other concerned citizens of Little Compton have had it up to here with the failure on the part of Fire Department Management to deploy the Pierce CAFS equipped pumper. All we have had to show for our more than $200,000 investment in enhanced protection of life and property are excuses. This truck was delivered two years ago! Personnel have not been trained! There is no strategic plan to put this state-of-the-art pumper on the “front line.” Our new Fire Chief is of the opinion that CAFS is just another “tool.” OMG!
Sarge
posted by Kevin Paul Healey at
8:11 AM
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2 comments
