July 20, 2010 Active Recovery, Bike, and Structure Fire

Yesterday at work, I performed two rounds of my active recovery routine, getting 12 dynamic crescent swings the first round and 11 the second. My goal is 12 of these each work set. Once I accomplish that I'll add in another minute, progressing in this fashion until I get to 3 sets of 10. Afterwards I hopped on the exercise bike and rode a random hill program at level 10 for 20 minutes. It got a decent sweat going. I'm working on finding the right balance between getting in the workout and staying ready for the tournament this weekend.

Later that evening, right before dinner time we were dispatched to a structure fire in a neighboring station's first due. As we were responding, we heard an initial report of "nothing showing" meaning that everything appeared normal from the outside. We reduced from code 3 response to code 2 response, shutting down our lights and sirens. Next thing we know, the next report that we get is that the engine has a supply line to a hydrant and extended an attack line into the structure. That was unexpected. We upgraded back to code 3 and continued up the hill. My Captain assigned the other firefighter and I to open up all the windows in the structure for ventilation. This was a 3 story structure of lightweight construction, with a garage underneath, set in a complex with about 5' of space between units. As we entered the structure we had close to zero visibility throughout the entire structure. We completed a primary search ensuring that all occupants and pets were out of the house, as we opened up the windows.

One of the main lessons learned here was the need to sound the floor as going through the structure. As the engine from my station made entry, one of the engineers noticed a soft spot in the floor. He dug into it with his axe and had fire erupt out of the hole. The fire was running in the void spaces between the first floor and the garage, in the walls and above us between the first floor and the second floor. The main floor support below us, the glue-lam, was charred more than half way through, and the wooden I-beam was burned almost completely through. New construction is very light and strong, which is great for builders. It uses less materials which cuts their costs. Unfortunately for us, lighter structural members that are full of glue and adhesives mean they burn that much more easily and fail that much quicker. I initially didn't think of sounding the floor because we entered to structure at street level on the first floor. What I didn't see until a bit later was that the garage was below us entered from an alleyway on the backside of the structure. I'm used to sounding rooftops for structural stability and anytime when operating above a fire. After this fire I see how this is just a good habit in general, especially in lightweight construction.

On a side note, the station who was first due to this fire is scheduled to be closed next week. We already have one of the lowest ratios of firefighters to citizen population at 0.7 firefighters per 1000 people. Despite this, the city is chomping at the bit to close 3 fire stations, eliminate 5 engines and 1 truck company and layoff close to 80 firefighters. The city is claiming this is a cost savings measure, but many of the the firefighters they are proposing to lay off will be two days away from getting off of probation and gaining permanent status. This would mean that we would be able to hire them back later down the line without having to put them through all of the training all over again. Training is expensive, and as people promote and retire we will have to hire new people to fill these spots. We could ideally keep these folks on the line that have already passed the training and proven that they are capable. If not, then we should at least let them work the two days so we can hire them back and save that cost farther down the line. Even then, we're still risking losing them to other departments that are more than happy to snatch up candidates that are already trained and save their cities money. There's a lot here that just doesn't quite add up. If you are a resident of San Jose or just want more information, please click on the link on the right for San Jose Fire Facts. Thanks in advance for checking it out.