Fire Rips Through 4 Story Hollywood Apartments
On Monday, November 9, 2009 at 6:15 PM, 14 Companies of Los Angeles Firefighters, 7 LAFD Rescue Ambulances, 1 Arson Unit, 2 Urban Search and Rescue Units, 1 Hazardous Materials Team, 4 EMS Battalion Captains, 4 Battalion Chief Officer Command Teams, 1 Division Chief Officer Command Team, 1 Rehab Air Tender and 1 Emergency Air under the direction of Assistant Chief David Yamahata responded to a Greater Alarm Structure Fire at 1425 Detroit Street in Hollywood.
Lightforce 27 quickly arrived to find fire showing from a unit on the third floor of a four story U-shaped apartment building that was under construction. Additional resources were swiftly requested.
Firefighters made a concentrated effort to quickly extinguish this early evening fire. A Drop Bag operation was rapidly performed to bring hoselines to the third floor while firefighters on the roof cut 'heat-holes' allowing heat, smoke and gases to escape.
This proved to be a fast moving fire that started on the third floor and without delay traveled through the walls of five units. Several other units suffered water damage.
Firefighters not only had to battle the blaze but met additional dangers early on with electrical wires arching and having to navigate with limited visibility over smoke filled floors that hid a large hole from an unfinished trash chute being constructed. Due to firefighters keeping safety in the forefront of their mind and the keen supervision of the Incident Commander, no injuries occurred.
The blaze was fully extinguished by 101 firefighters in one hour and seventeen minutes limiting the damage to $50,000 ($50,000 structure & $0 contents). The cause of the blaze was from 'sweating pipe' on the third floor.
Submitted by Erik Scott
Los Angeles Fire Department
6 comments:
Please tell us what a " Drop Bag operation" means?
Mike from Los Angeles
What are sweating pipes and how do they start a fire?
A drop bag operation is when the firefighters drop a rope bag that each firefighter has on their turnouts. They drop the bag keep one end of the rope with them then hoist up the hose to what ever floor they made the drop from. This keeps the firefighters from having to walk up mulitple pieces of hose to the fire floor.
what are turnouts?
Turnouts are the yellow protective gear the firefighters wear
Wow! What a very detailed report of a very complex fire. PSO Scott you are following in the foot steps of the PSO's of LAFD's past. Keep up the good work. Ballton
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