Editor’s note: Reporters Susan Bromley and Laurel Droz accompanied Brandon firefighters to a practice burn to experience a housefire from a firefighter’s perspective. What follows is a first-person accounting of that experience.
Brandon Twp.- Delores Dunlap stands outside the 900-square foot home with the wood exterior on Burrus Road around 8 a.m. on Aug. 12.
In approximately three hours, the home her stepfather lived in for 66 years will be nothing more than a memory.
More than 20 firefighters are making preparations to burn the home. Dunlap, who wants to build a new home on the four acres the house currently sits on, was looking for a cheap way to get rid of the existing early 1900s home following her 97-year-old stepfather’s death in March. Someone suggested she donate it to the Brandon Fire Department.
She made the call and Brandon Fire Chief Bob McArthur came out right away, she says.
McArthur jumps at any chance to get a donated house for a practice burn.
‘We’re lucky to get one practice burn a year,? he says. ‘We used to get them more often, but we don’t have that many older homes in the township. When we do (get one), we take advantage.?
The practice burn will give personnel interior attack training on a real fire, instead of a simulation. The department has a smokemaker to give firefighters practice, but it’s not the same, says McArthur.
‘There’s a huge difference in adrenaline rush when you see and hear and feel a fire. If the mask comes off in this situation, you’re dead.?
The morning starts off cool, with clear blue skies, but soon, I will be sweating more than I ever have in my life. At the home, a fire engine and tanker are parked, with a fold-a-tank that holds 3,000 gallons of water assembled nearby.
Laurel and I get into the firefighter gear we were fitted for the day before? thick, beige pants held up by red suspenders and a matching coat, boots, a hood that looks like what a knight would wear, gloves, and a helmet. All together, I am wearing about $2,000 worth of gear. I will later don my air pack and mask, which is about $3,000.
Walking in the get-up is not easy. I shuffle along. The day is definitely getting warmer.
A short tour of the house reveals five rooms? a kitchen, two bedrooms, living room and a bathroom that wasn’t added until 1985 (an outhouse remains on the property). Few things remain in the house, a couch, some chairs. It has been gutted, including the removal of some windows.
Assistant Fire Chief David Borst, the only ‘pyro? on staff, says McArthur, will ignite the fire using regular combustibles and a little fuel. Before the fire is lighted, an arson dog, a German Shepherd named ‘Blaze?, finds where the flammable liquids have been poured. This is practice for him, too.
Firefighter/medic Billy Starr gives me my airpack, which is worn like a backpack, although it weighs about 27 pounds with the composite air bottle containing about 45 minutes worth of compressed air. However, he tells us, it won’t last that long since this is our first time in a fire.
‘The harder you work and the faster you breathe, the less air you get,? he explains.
The pack will vibrate and a bell will ring when the air gets low. If that happens, I tap someone to get me out, although I should have air for at least 5-10 minutes more after the bell goes off. A PASS alarm is also part of my gear. It can be used in an emergency, such as if a beam falls on me.
The air mask has a red knob on the end of it. I can turn it on to clear my mask, which fogs up regularly. I am shown the button to push to start the air and the buttons to turn it off. I am ready to go.
On one side of the house, I am third in line on a 200-foot attack hose. Inside, three fires have been lit. Laurel is entering the house from another side with a different hose.
Gray smoke billows from the eaves and pours out the window and doorway as we wait for the fire to grow. The smoke becomes darker. We stand on the stairs but fall to our knees as someone yells, ‘get down, get down.? We start crawling. The smoke is black, but I am still kneeling on the porch, waiting to get in. I can see the firefighter in front of me, but beyond that, nothing.
‘Move up, move up,? yells Sgt./medic Don Ball from behind us and as the firefighter in front of me moves, so do I. The smoke pours in around me. I can’t see anything except rolling black. I am concentrating so much on just trying to see, I barely notice the heat. Suddenly, the fire is out and we are moving back out. Trying to stand up with all the gear on is a struggle. Once out, I can’t wait to take off the mask and breathe normally again.
Now it is hot, but I want to go in again. The chief says I can, but we have to wait for the smoke to clear some and for the arson dog to go in again. While waiting, I speak with paid on-call firefighter Tammy Shahin.
As she talks about being a female firefighter, one of the guys overhears her and says, ‘She’s not a female? she’s a brother,? and hugs her.
Shahin, who is also a school bus driver, notes she works with 40 women during the school year, but 40 men when fighting fires. She and Beth Binder are the only women firefighters in the department. When asked how she got into her two professions, she says, ‘It just happened.?
Shahin laughs as she recalls what her 9-year-old son said to her this morning.
‘When I told him we were going to start a fire today, he said, ‘I thought you put fires out, not started them.??
Waiting for the second fire to really get going is incredibly uncomfortable as it gets hotter and hotter. The mask is on so we can be ready to go. I can feel a blister on my right foot from where my sock has slipped off in the boot. I want the gear off, but there is no way I would give up this opportunity, even if I feel like I can’t breathe.
Finally, they are ready. I am third again on the hose. Laurel is behind me, followed by another firefighter. I turn on my air mask and breathe deeply. We climb the stairs and kneel to crawl. This time, we are all the way into the house. To our left, in another room, a couch is fully engulfed in flames. The sight is hypnotizing, but we are moving quickly and there are flames licking upward in a corner of the room we are in. Black particles float through the air, but the smoke is not as heavy this time. I can see books on the floor, a postcard against the wall, the blackened, charred remains of a chair. There is black water on the floor and loose, burned pages. I hold the hose, but the firefighters in front of me are controlling it.
‘More hose, more hose,? I hear them shout. We feed the hose to them quickly. Then, they are telling us to get out,the fire is out. We crawl back, and near the doorway, get to our feet again. We are out. They will not light another fire in the house. It is time to burn it down.
We strip off our gear, except for the pants. What a relief. The dog goes in again. Firefighters climb to the roof and use an ax to chop away shingles. The final fires are lit in the house. We stand back, watching. The smoke is really billowing out of the eaves now and through the doorway, I see more heavy smoke. Suddenly, there are orange flames. It’s incredible to see and really fascinating, beautiful in a way that is difficult to explain. Glass shatters, and the little siding that is on the house begins to melt. The heat from the house is amazing. We back up and keep backing up. We are 50 feet or better away from the house, but still, my face feels like it is literally baking My eyes burn, my eyebrows feel like they are crisping. The heat is intense in a way that it was not when I was inside the house. The flames are everywhere now, the fire glowing bright orange with a temperature of about 2,000 degrees.
Sgt. Don Ball calls this a defensive fire. If there were people inside a fire like this, they would not be saved, could not be saved. They would be beyond help, already dead.
Ball, 49, has been a Brandon firefighter since 1997. He has always liked the job and the continually changing environment of it.
‘There’s always a variable,? he says. ‘You think on your feet and go with the flow of what’s happening. You go into a fire with a heightened sense of caution. There is no such thing as a routine fire.?
The firefighters work now to control the fire only. The house will burn to the ground, but care must be taken that no grass fire starts, that no trees catch fire from flaming particles in the air.
They use the hose to spray at the corner, going side to side. I am given the hose. Tucking the hose under my left arm with my left hand under, I use my right hand to pull back on a metal lever and water shoots out. I swerve it slightly from side to side.
I can see into the fire a little ways, the door is illuminated as the fire does its own work, destroying everything in its path. Shingles and asphalt burn, making white streamers to the ground. We walk around the house to see what is happening on the other side. Not much.
There is one window on the opposite side of the house. We can see flames in the crawl space/basement, but the floor has not burned through. When it does, explains Capt. Dan Flood, there will be a flashover where contents reach ignition point at the same time and the room flashes. The fire will get the oxygen it needs, and we will see the flames from that window. Soon, that is just what happens. The black smoke pours out again, thick and heavy. The heat increases again.We back up again. On the other side of the house, the roof is collapsing. Things happen more quickly now.
The fire consumes the house. Dunlap and her sister, Darlene Jennings, look sadly at a 1950 porcelain Tappan gas stove that stands among the ashes. It was their mother’s, but they did not remove the stove because of its weight and condition. Now, it and a brick chimney are all that remains of the home that was nearly a century-old.
Firefighters ask if we want an application. The answer is no. Today was just perfect.