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COBRA™ Technical Hotline:
+46 300 404 112 |
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Fire in a pre-school, Arlöv 2005-04-11
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Facts
| Alarm : | 19.21 |
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Alarm type: | Major alarm station 170, level 2 alarm at Centrum
Fire in a villa. Abandoned pre-school in Arlöv |
Resources: | Stn 100 : 101, 103 |
| Stn 120 : 121, 123 (Begärdes till platsen av IC) |
| Stn 380: 381 (Avlösning) |
| Sjukvård : 910 |
| Ledning : 116, 106 |
| Depå |
| Räddn.värn |
| Stn 170: 171, 174 |
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Conditions: | N. wind ca 8 m/s. Sun, rain, hailstorm. |
| Organization: |
Incident manager/RL Patric Nilsson (PK) |
| Chief
Anders Stenkula (SA) - sektor begränsning och ventilation |
| Ove Sjölander (OV) -sektor håltagning och skärsläckare |
| Anders Engman (AE) - sektor släckning |
| VBI Kent Gabrielsson (KG) |
| Medic Valdemar Larsson |
| SBM Stefan Comnell (CO)
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Alarm
Alarm to SOS-Alarm about heavy smoke from an abandoned pre-school close to the swimming hall at. Dispatch according to alarm plan. 171 available on radio and arrived early.
Situation – analysis - decision
171 arrives four minutes after the alarm and AE note strong fire in one or more rooms. Decision is made to deploy a BA-team. Good reporting to base. Centrum arrive three minutes later. SA connects with AE. Four minutes later PK arrives and takes command. A decision is made to divide into two sectors. Sector 1 – extinguishing with AE as responsible and sector 2 – fire suppression and ventilation with SA as responsible. An additional BA team is requested. Strong wind towards the other buildings put them at high risk. They were already filled with smoke.
Decision
Limit the fire to one building and extinguish.
Execution
Stn C pressurise the threatened building with PPV and apply a fogspear on the roof. When 121 arrive OV make me aware that the ”new” 123 with the Cutting Extinguisher is available and it is requested. Sector piercing and fire gas cooling with the Cutting Extinguisher is made with OV as responsible. The BA-team from 171 had to abandon their operation due to communication problems. The BA-team from 121 took over. BA-team activities were discontinued at 19.55 when parts of the roof showed signs of caving in. OV monitors the limiting line with IR camera from 106. A pumper from Lomma relieves stn. Centrum and resources for mopping up is requested.
Other Decisions
Entry into buildings.
Cordon of the area with Police assistance.
Divide area into sectors.
Fire and rescue mission completed by 22.30.
Handing over responsibility to city council.
Completion
The city council is contacted via phone and a representative arrives on site. We inform what applies once our activities are over. This is not an insurance issue as the building is marked for demolition. We are winding down and PK hands over to AE who remains on site until 01.30. A report was made to the police.
Result
As planned the fire was limited to one building that was completely destroyed. The neighboring building was protected by a firewall made from gypsum. The fire had penetrated the upper part of the firewall. The building was probably saved by the Cutting Extinguisher, which we applied to cool down the entering fire gases.
Experiences and opinions- Good reporting from early arriving 171
- Early division of responsibilities made roles clear.
- The Cutting Extinguisher proved itself an excellent tool for cooling down fire gases. We did not use it for any cutting.
- Ground support was very good. Its important that they arrive early. In this case we especially needed dry clothing.
- We discussed whether the end result would have been different if the force from Burlöv had attacked the fire from the outside instead of going inside. Its a difficult question to answer but we believe it is important to consider and discuss when and if BA-teams should be dispatched at all in cases when only material values are at risk.
- Handheld IR-camera was a very effective tool to check how the fire spread.
- Burlövs radio system has problems and has to be changed.
- Two hoses broke. AE will arrange hydraulics training for all teams.
Pictures
Front of the building soon after the fire has broken through the roof.
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Gable of the building where fire started. |
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Applying the Cutting Extinguisher. Difficult to use from a ladder due to recoil
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The fire was stopped here. The destroyed building is behind this wall.
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Experiences from using the Cutting Extinguisher
Since this was the first time we used the Cutting Extinguisher in a real incident I would like to share some of our experiences. We have not had much practice with this tool yet so there is probably still some uncertainty and hesitation during these early days. At least this how I and to the other guys in my team feel.
When M123 arrives we first tried to apply the Cutting Extinguisher on the gable and the eave of the school building with no visible result. The reason was that the outer roof was partly collapsed and we couldn’t reach to the fire gases. We then moved to the other building trying to protect it. From inside one of the rooms we pierced the ceiling with the Cutting Extinguisher to reach the attic. This had an immediate effect, which we monitored with an IR camera. This is an extremely useful tool to use in combination with the Cutting Extinguisher.
We could hold the line at the firewall as the pictures show. This was the first time we used the Cutting Extinguisher in Malmö in a real fire so there was some uncertainty on how to best apply it
Practice and training is the key to develop skills with the Cutting Extinguisher. When have you actually pierced the surface and reached the target (the fire gases)? Double walls or other obstructions can make it difficult to see the effect of it. Then you have to move positions, not once but many times. You have to be flexible and develop a ’finger top feeling’.
A very useful supporting tool is the IR-camera. I would even go so far as to propose that you can’t effectively use the Cutting Extinguisher without it.
You need at least two people during an operation, one person controlling the hand lance and one reading the effect from a distance.
Another experience is that you do not need to use the abrasive to penetrate wood. The small 10-litre bottle contains enough abrasive for 5 minutes of cutting. You cannot fill the bottle while the pump is working.
The best way to build experience is to use it. We have to start
think Cutting Extinguisher,
and make sure that it is requested at incidents over the whole region.
I believe in the Cutting Extinguisher. It will become a good complement for us but we need to devote more time to practice and to gain more experience.
When we pierced the ceiling from inside the building the guys got very wet. A rain coat would have come in handy.
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