Despite the fact that most of our calls for assistance these days are medical in nature firefighting is still a dangerous job. To prove that point here is a series of photos taken by a photographer at a Toronto, Canada fire from February 26, 2006. Notice the fast progression of the fire and how untenable the firefighters position became on the second floor where they became trapped, waiting for a hand line to fight the fire that was progressing upon them.
I reviewed the photos and here is what I think happened to result in having these men trapped on the second floor.
The call came in during the day and to me it seems that it is early morning which would indicate that there might be victims trapped inside. The crew that ended up getting trapped on the second floor must have assumed this and entered the house to search for victims, notice that in the first and second photos there is already fire showing at the front door. I am assuming that the crew is the first in truck crew and they entered the house without the aid of a hose line, which is not uncommon for a truck crew and began searching the structure for victims. At some point the fire in the basement or another area of the first floor extended to the front door area blocking their primary means of egress.
In the fourth photo the crew has found themselves trapped on the second floor as the fire now at the front door is coming up the stairwell in the middle of the house. They vent a window and ask for a hose line to hold the fire in check but no one has a personal rope with them so the crews on the ground can’t get the hose to the crew on the second floor.
One of the firefighters squeezes through the window to get on the snow covered roof to get closer to the hose line but the fire progresses faster than he can reach the hose line being passed up to him. Notice the glow in the lower left corner of the window…that’s the fire entering the room where the fire fighters are trapped. In the next photo you can see the glow is a lot bigger and the picture appears to be maybe 5 seconds later.
Now he has the hand line but as you can see something big is on fire in the room smoke is billowing out of the window around the remaining crew members. But wait, he almost has it…just a little more…he finally gets the hand line by grabbing the bail but the forces of pushing and pulling the line caused the nozzle to come open and he looses it.
Now it’s a fight to survive, the room can’t be held and the crew has to bail out! It’s gone from bad to worse for these unlucky firefighters and its all hands to try to get them to safety. The roof is too small and one slides off onto the ground 8 feet below. Another one is about to go over the edge also, but his buddies hold him back. They probably feel the thousand degree heat beating down on their backs now almost as hot as it was in that room before they bailed out. Thankfully someone on the ground begins cooling them and stops the fire from venting out the window onto them.
Everyone gets off the roof and despite some heat injuries and second degree burns all appear okay. I’m sure the department had at least one after action review or as we call it in the fire service a lessons learned meeting after this one…a close call in deed for those Toronto Fire Fighters.
Total elapsed time…my best guess: 5 minutes.
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