Dang... thats a big fire. Surround and drown, nothing much you can do there.

We had one in Allentown a few years back at a place called Concept Sciences. The place was not up to code and blew its top sky high. I remember sitting home and there was this low rumble that just kept getting closer and closer and then the windows and ground started shaking. I headed down to the fire dept. right away. Every truck from every company in the Lehigh Valley was dispatched. The tones on the pager lasted almost 3 minutes long with all of the different companies.

We just all surrounded the plant and used the water moniters to keep it at bay. The worst thing was that there was a lot of magnesium in the plant which didn't go too well with the water of course. In that circumstance you just have to provide copius amounts of water.

I think I was there for a total of 18 hours straight. What a nightmare!

 

magnesium + fire + water = Pray for good luck. Makes for a heck of a light show though :P

We have a tough time with our limited water supply to put the small amount in a steering column out. I couldnt imagine a plant or building full of it!

James, I am glad that no one was seriously injured. That could have been a disaster of immense proportion.

 

Yeah it takes a TONS of water. Literally! The fireworks show was neat though. There were a couple of fatalities unfortunatley.

I'm still amazed no one was killed in this fire. They must have had some seriously good evac plans.

 

wait... *goes and read the ENTIRE thread not just looking at the pictures*

NO ONE WAS SERIOUSLY INJURED?!!?!?!

not complaining, but utterly stunned... thats amazing. im definately glad to hear it! im just in awe that no one was killed.

to andy with the Evac comment.

i hope it the damage gets repaired quickly and smoothly

and have they ofund out the cause of the blast yet?

 

lucky it was at 0600 on a sunday! on a monday at 0900 would have been catastrophic.......

Still no news on the cause though, I am sure we will find out soon enough!

 

It's good to see they have good pre-planning and are together on drafting and relay pumping or that could've been a huge mess.

Back before NJ set up the criteria of a "task force" it was all hodge podge. There was one fire I believe in Secaucus or Carlstadt that needed relay pumping and one town from the mutual aid responding didn't have any 5 inch, only 3 inch. So not only did they mistakenly put that engine in the middle of the relay, effectively cancelling out all the other 5 inch :bang:, but they had a gasoline engine and they ran out of gas during the operation.

 

OUCH! going from a LDH to a much much smaller is a big no no. Im surprised they didnt burn the pump up.

 

Yeah man. Pump copious amounts of water through 3 inch is very tough on the engine. It can cause serious problems with the impellers especially on a quick shut down causing water hammer or cavitation. :bang:

I think its LA that has some seriously large LDH. It think they go up to an 18 incher.

 

18" I'd hate to roll 1000' of that, heck i've never seen anything over 5"

 

Its non-collapsible so you wouldn't have to roll it but I'm sure its pretty heavy to lift in itself.

 

Yeah I don't remember which dept it was but they screwed up in setting up that relay. They should've put that engine to work on the fire attack. But we all know the fire service is reactive not proactive and it usually takes for something bad to happen for changes in SOPs.

My department is in northeastern Bergen county, about 5 minutes outside NYC so we don't get to draft or do large relays all that often as we have a good hydrant system. All of our engines carry 1000 ft of 5inch along with a 5inch hard suction for drafting. One time we responded mutual aid to a mansion fire up in the hills in Englewood Cliffs NJ which turned into a surround and drown. We dropped all 1000ft of our 5inch along with another engine's for the relay. Talk about having to pick that up :bang:

18" LDH in LA? WOW. I've never seen anything bigger than 5inch either. Isn't Los Angeles one of the few or possibly the only dept still using wooden ladders?

 

i didnt know you were a FF mike. career or volly?

 

I'm a volly, brother. Been a FF since '98. Spent my first 2 years on Fire Rescue in NY (Nyack) until I moved to Jersey. Unlike Nyack which the dept is made up of 8 companies, my dept in Jersey is just one company with the entire dept in one house. So, depending on whether I make first due or not, sometimes I'm an engine man, a truckie, or on the rescue.

 

Nice, I wouldnt know what its like having more than 3 guys on the first due engine Ah the joys of a small rural volly dept. Its fun none-the-less though.

 

That's pretty much our daytime response. We're lucky to get a full crew on our first due engine so it's a good thing some of our members are on DPW or we wouldn't get out the door.

It's a blast. I LOVE IT!