April 3, 2025 • 44 mins
Worcester Fire Department District Chief Gary Fleischer joins the B Shifter podcast to share his expertise on critical fire ground factors in century-old wood-frame buildings, particularly New England's iconic triple-deckers.
• Construction characteristics of triple-deckers, typically built between 1890-1920 as worker housing near factories
• Balloon frame construction creates continuous void spaces from basement to attic with no fire stops
• Original materials include true dimension 2x4s (full 2"x4") and often asphalt or asbestos siding
• Buildings typically built very close together (sometimes just 5 feet apart) creating exposure problems
• Vertical fire spread challenges requiring simultaneous tactics on multiple floors
• First-arriving company officers must "own the incident" with thorough size-up and clear assignments
• Importance of quick water application on exterior fires before they extend into concealed spaces
• Search priorities in densely populated residential structures
• Primary access challenges including blocked rear exits and cluttered stairwells
When you see these older structures in your community, remember they require specific tactical considerations due to their construction methods and arrangement. Train your officers to recognize critical fire ground factors that will drive your incident action plan.
This episode features Josh Blum, Chris Stewart, Gary Fleischer and John Vance.
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This episode was recorded on March 19, 2025.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
welcome to the b shifter podcast.
Today.
You have uh john vance here instudio, I've got chris stewart
and then uh from zoom, we've gotjosh bloom and gischer Gary.
You know what?
Let's start off with you realquick and just let everybody
know who you are, because thisis your first time on the B
(00:32):
Shifter podcast.
So we want to welcome you.
You're one of our leadinstructors, pivotal to the word
getting spread out on the EastCoast, but why don't you let
everybody know who you are andgive a little bit of an
introduction?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, thanks, jv.
So I appreciate you inviting meon here today.
My name is Gary Fleischer.
I'm a district chief with theWorcester Fire Department.
I've been a firefighter here inMassachusetts for about 30
years.
I've been in Worcester about 35years.
I've been in Worcester about 25years and we started doing blue
card here about four years agothree to four years ago and
(01:09):
coordinated that.
We're still doing the program,coordinated that program here
and became a blue cardinstructor last September Nice.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, february of 21, in the blizzard, in the middle
of COVID, what a time to do it.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah Well, we're really happy to have you here
today, gary, and thank you.
Thanks for sharing someinformation, and today we want
to talk a little bit aboutcritical fire ground factors
that, specifically, you have alot of experience with,
particularly because of the ageof the community that you serve.
But we think it's a greatconversation for all of us to be
(01:46):
a part of, because we have alot of these buildings in
different parts of the UnitedStates.
You could end up mutual aid atthem.
There are some differentcritical fire ground factors
that we need to consider whenwe're particularly looking at
some of these older typebuildings, and we just don't get
into it enough, but there areentire cities populated with
(02:08):
these buildings.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
I think if we just kind of talk about I think Gary
just describing kind of whatthese types of structures are,
for them it seems to be likethey're fairly common in his
neck of the woods, both in hisstate and his region, right, and
there's no shortage of fires inthese right.
So we need to be able to kindof talk about what's critical
(02:31):
about them, how they're puttogether, what causes us
heartache, what is criticalinformation we need to have
about them.
And then let's talk about someof the tactics that they
regularly deploy in these,because regardless of your
incident command system, you'vegot to put into play tactics
that match the critical factorsthe building and the fire and
(02:53):
smoke conditions and maybe thelife safety and maybe the
arrangement, because these arebuilt close together.
So all of those things kind ofgo into coming up with a decent
incident action plan.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Thanks, chris.
I think maybe the best thing Ican do is just to kind of
describe the housing stock thatwe have around here.
So what we're kind of targetingin this podcast, I think, is
these two and a half to maybefour story wood frame
residential units wood frameresidential units, and I think
(03:29):
the key why this becomes soimportant to us is the
construction of how they wereconstructed and what we find
inside of them.
So, particularly with us, we'reknown around here for our
three-deckers, and in otherparts of Massachusetts they may
call them triple-deckers.
They're all basically the samething.
So what it is is a three-story,basically an apartment, three
(03:52):
apartments, and they all sitright on top of each other.
So the third-floor kitchen isabove the second-floor kitchen
is above the first-floor kitchen, and so on.
With all the other rooms.
They have a very smallfootprint.
They're generally on a verysmall parcel of land, so you've
got a lot of people that canoccupy a very small parcel of
(04:12):
land.
Now the key with the buildingsare they're pretty old.
I think the first ones we everhave heard of were around the
1870s, but primarily between1890 and 1920, they built just
the lion's share of these thingsand you find them in these old
(04:32):
New England cities and townsthat often had large mill
buildings or factories and theywere used for the staffing to
live there for the factories.
So of course, back, you know, in1900, nobody had cars these are
(04:53):
blue-collar workers they didn'thave horses, they had to walk
to get wherever they were going.
So these three deckers werebuilt very close together in the
neighborhoods where thefactories were.
These three-deckers were builtvery close together in the
neighborhoods where thefactories were and the people
were able to walk to work, andnot only that, but their kids
would walk to school, they wouldhave neighborhood stores, the
(05:15):
neighborhood barbershop, theywould walk to those.
And one of the phenomenons wesee is that generally immigrants
from certain countries all landkind of in the same
neighborhood and they end up allkind of working at the same
factory because they all speakthe same language.
So we have like, for instance,of vernon hill, where we have a
(05:38):
lot of these three actors is, uh, a big section of it is is
polish and they had a lot ofPolish people there, and so the
only time they would leave ifthey left the neighborhood to go
somewhere, they'd have to takea trolley or a streetcar or, you
know, take the railroad to gosomewhere.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Well, you could have fooled me, because you've
already busted one myth.
I always imagine those beinglarge homes that were then
chopped up into an apartment,but for the most part, they were
always intended to be separateunits within those triple
deckers, is what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
There's a couple differentstories of how they were built.
There are stories of thefactory owners actually buying
the land and building as many ofthem as possible and then
selling them back to their ownemployees for their own
employees to have a place tolive and two income apartments
(06:38):
where other employees of thatfactory could live, or
potentially some level of theirfamily, their family, their
brother's family or theirsister's family.
And then we've also heardstories about people buying them
on their own and then movingthe whole family in on three
different levels to pay theirmortgage together.
So there's a few different wayswe've heard they all got built,
(07:03):
but I believe the factory onesthe most, because they're all
concentrated on where there wasa factory at one point in time.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
So most of them on.
We've noticed like there'll bea consistent with the living
units on each floor.
Then you've got like an outsideporch or outside patio, I guess
, on each floor, right, and theytend to be towards the alley
side, right, gary, if I rememberthis correctly.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, they all have similar floor plans, but for the
most part there's usually afront staircase and often will
either have a front living roomthat faces the street or they
would have front porches thatface the street and then they
(07:51):
would have a back staircase thatyou can either find inside what
they call a shed and when I saythey I mean the people that
grew up in them.
They call it a shed so you wouldhave rear stairs, kind of
enclosed from the weather butnot heated, and then like a
storage room on their backporches, if you want to call
them back porches.
And then in other cases we havecompletely wide open porches
that are just made ofpressurized lumber, so the house
(08:14):
would take up pretty much thewidth of the lot minus maybe
five feet on each side, so wehave an extreme exposure
problems.
They're generally close to thestreet and the only yard area
they end up with is in the back,so they could use the back for
the kids to play or, you know,to have a cookout or even have a
garden, but that would be theonly open space that they would
(08:37):
have.
There was no need for adriveway because nobody had cars
most of them have basements andkind of the heating systems and
stuff like that down there.
We're in basement land Again.
You know these buildings built.
You know the most of them builtbetween 1890 and 1920.
The basements are calledfieldstone foundations.
(08:59):
So they're stone wallfoundations.
And they're called fieldstonesbecause the farmers would go out
and clear the trees and makefarms and that land would be
full of stones in their fields.
So they would clear all thestones off and builders would
take them, dig a big hole in theground, stack the stones up and
that would be the foundationfor that construction, for that
(09:23):
construction and typicallyballoon frame, or is there stops
on every floor for if there wasa basement fire?
No, you know what they'reballoon frame.
So let's you know, if we lookat it the way our company
officers look at it right,they're going to do a strategic
decision-making model every timethey arrive on the scene and
(09:44):
the first step in that is forthem is always going to be
sizing up the incident usingtheir critical fire ground
factors.
I won't go into all of them,but I think there's a couple of
really important ones.
So first is, before we get tothat construction, john, first
is the occupancy.
Almost 99.9% of the time theseare apartments that people live
(10:09):
in and oftentimes a lot ofpeople live in.
Generally they were built threebedrooms, one bath, but we've
seen that cut up to fivebedrooms, usually on one floor
or not usually, but sometimes onone floor.
Floor, or not usually, butsometimes on one floor.
So definitely doing searches isgoing to be high on our
(10:30):
priority list when we get those.
And we do have some buildingsthat on the lower floor, whether
it's the first floor orsometimes the basement.
That's where they had theseneighborhood businesses like I
talked about earlier the localbarbershop, the market they were
(10:56):
in the basement of these.
Or the first floor of thesetenements, these three deckers,
and you know what?
Very often bars.
They just made bars out of thebasements of these things and
they were very popular, you know, even at 7 o'clock in the
morning when they guys got offthe night shift from the wire
factory and they would streaminto somebody's basement bar,
but that's.
We still have some of those,some of those businesses are
still around, but now everybodyhas cars so that the
(11:18):
neighborhood markets and stuffaren't nearly as popular as they
used to be.
So that's pretty much the mostof our occupancy.
Critical fire ground factors,john, like you were asking, then
construction becomes a huge onewith these.
So if you can picture the turnof the century, we had so much
(11:42):
lumber available in New Englandthat it was a very cheap way to
build.
And this is virgin, old growthlumber, really thick, sturdy
pieces of wood.
And they would build the shellof these buildings with two by
fours Now that's nominal size.
(12:04):
That is literally two inches byfours.
Now that's nominal size.
That is literally two inches byfour inches.
No kiln, dried, no planing orsanding.
These are rough, cut big, twoby fours and they're 30 feet
long and they'll bring.
I don't know how they did it,but they would build a wall 30
feet tall and they would standit up on top of this field stone
(12:24):
foundation, tie all those fourwalls together and that would
give you the exoskeleton of thatbuilding.
And then, instead of having, youknow, platform construction
like we have now, you build thefirst floor, you build the
second floor on top of it.
What they would do is theywould literally hang the floors
(12:45):
off of those outside studs.
So, as you can see in thispicture here, there's a ribbon
board that they would miter intothe 2x4s the ribbon board was a
1x4, and they would miter itinto the inside of the 2x4s and
then they would rest the joistsright on top of those and nail
(13:06):
them into the studs, and theywould do this for every floor.
So what that leaves you is thisplenum space, this vacant space
in that stud wall that would gofrom the basement all the way
up to the eaves in the attic,and that's, you know, that is
our balloon frame constructionand that is one of the biggest
(13:28):
issues we have with this, and Ithink you know, you guys know,
from your parts of the countryyou probably have some form of
balloon frame construction,correct?
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yeah, you know a ton of the conversion of, you know,
homes that regular one-story orsingle-family homes that were
built in that same time framebut are now being converted to
two or three or four apartmentsjust because people aren't
necessarily wanting to live inthose homes.
So tons of balloon frame andthen other vertical shafts in
(14:01):
there, right, because they'retrying to get other types of
HVAC systems and all that roominto there.
So it's that construction andvoid space and understanding
what that really is.
So you pull up on somethingthat's original, with plaster
and lath, still, that was 90years old.
We're going to have to handleit and deal with it and have a
whole different set of criticalfactors than something that's
(14:21):
that old but been gutted and nowit's four separate apartments.
So I think we're seeing thatfrom well, where you are all the
way to, as we talked about alittle bit earlier, in
California, san Francisco andsome of those other places all
around Seattle.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Gary, with the way the floors then are set and kind
of hung in there, how does theroof truss and the roof system
then go on top of the walls?
Is it basically sitting onthose four exterior walls or how
does it tie in?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, it's.
Basically it sits on the top ofthose walls.
It overhangs.
Most of these buildings haveusually a pretty good eave, and
where we run into trouble iswhen the eaves are not made of
solid wood.
When the wood's been removedwhich is really common here in
the Northeast to reduce icebuildup, what they'll do is
(15:18):
they'll remove the eaves andthey'll put in a vented soffit
there and they'll cut a ridgevent along the top of the roof
to allow the cold air to flow upunderneath the roof so that
none of the snow on these roofsmelt and then refreeze into ice
and cause ice dams.
(15:40):
So that's obviously a perfectplace for propagation of fire,
especially with auto exposure onthe exterior.
If you have a fire on the secondfloor, a bedroom window, and it
pops out that window and startsburning up the exterior, we
know that we're going to end upin the attic in this place, like
(16:03):
Josh said, we have all thethings that he mentioned.
You know the wet walls, thepipe chases, the chimneys, these
, you know these were built.
They had big, giant, behemothcoal furnaces in the basement,
wrapped in asbestos, and itheated steam that heat the whole
house.
So there's a chimney that runsright up through the middle and
(16:25):
before I was again on the firedepartment.
I was an electrician'sapprentice and doing a work in a
three-decker is so easy becauseyou can just drop the wire
right down next to the chimney,go from the attic all the way to
the basement.
That's exactly where you knowwhere our fire's going.
There are some other issues too.
I mentioned auto exposure,right.
(16:45):
So what they used to side thesehouses with through the years.
I don't really know the timeframe, but we still have houses
that are sided with asphaltsiding.
It's just like a roof material,but they put it on the side of
a house and you can imagine howthat burns and it's pretty ugly.
(17:07):
So what do they do?
They cover it with vinyl, whichreally doesn't do anything for
us.
So what do they do?
They cover it with vinyl, whichreally doesn't do anything for
us.
Now there's one picture herethat John can show you, where
there's two of these buildingsside by side, and the one
closest to you with the brownstripe that's an asphalt-sided
building.
So you can imagine if we had anoutside fire there, it's going
to run right up that asphaltpretty quick right into the
(17:29):
eaves.
But the building that's justpast it.
It's kind of a brown colorright.
That building has asbestossiding, so it's the complete
opposite.
You couldn't light it on fireif you tried, um, and in any
case, a lot of times it wasinteresting to find these two
next to each other that somebodyhadn't covered in vinyl siding.
(17:49):
We see a lot of the vinylsiding hides what's actually
underneath there, and I guessthe only other thing maybe to
point out is you kind of lookthrough the pictures is these
three and two, three and fourstory buildings as you move
closer to the coast.
(18:10):
So Boston and some of thesuburbs, primarily these are
flat roof buildings, which meansthey have a drain in the roof
that goes down through thosepipe chases all the way out into
the sewer line.
The drain roofs up.
Now in central Massachusetts,where we are, we have a heavier
snow load here.
(18:30):
So most of our buildings areeither a gable-end roof or a
hip-shaped roof and we can kindof tell you know when we go to
them, how much difficulty theattic's going to be, based on
the type of roof that we have.
If you can imagine, agable-ended roof is pretty easy
to get into and use for storage.
A gable-ended roof is prettyeasy to get into and use for
(18:51):
storage.
So it's going to have plankflooring which is very difficult
to overhaul from the thirdfloor.
If we have a hip roof, thoseare very difficult to get into.
You're bent over and crawlingaround.
So there's generally not a lotof storage up there and very
little flooring that you wouldhave to worry about.
(19:12):
So that's basically some of theoh and the arrangement.
Right, you had mentioned thatearlier, chris.
That was the other issue.
A lot of these are very, veryclose together.
We have a picture here of threeof them that are side by side.
This was in Boston somewhereand you can see how tight they
are together.
Incidentally, that one in themiddle of this picture, this
(19:35):
came off a wheeler's websitethat sold for $1.35 million for
one of these things, so I hopeit has gold faucets.
I'm not sure why you'd buy onefor $1.35 million.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
So when you guys start responding on these like
you do regularly, even thesimplest fire you know, a
kitchen fire, food on the stove,pot of meat, whatever that is,
even that you can you're at adistinct disadvantage where you
can easily get fire extensionjust from those types of things
(20:10):
right, and so that being superdiligent about checking for
extension, even on somethingthat you show up that actually
may have nothing showing it,becomes a pretty significant
thing for you guys.
Am I guessing correctly?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah, any substantial fire.
We have a lot of ceilings topull and a lot of walls to open
up, and it's not, of course it'san old building, so it's not
just sticking your hook throughsome sheetrock.
You know, it's mostly plasterand wood lath, which is a lot of
work.
In some cases we have the metallath.
(20:47):
We don't see it as much, thankGod, because that stuff is
really difficult.
But yeah, I mean that's, youknow, the critical fire ground,
the critical fire ground factorof the fire really.
And where is it originatingfrom?
You know, because if that fireis originally in the basement
(21:10):
and it has reared its head in athird floor bedroom, it just
goes to show you how importantit is for us to do those 360s by
our first arriving companyofficers.
Look at conditions in thebasement, because that could
have started on any floor andpopped out on any floor.
Same thing with a lot of thefires we have in these buildings
(21:33):
originate in either the frontor the back porches and if you
don't get there quick enough andput water on it, a front or a
rear porch fire is going to theattic.
There is no doubt about it.
That is where it's going to endup If you don't get some water
on that thing fast.
To end up if you don't get somewater on that thing fast.
(22:01):
So as far as our tactics forthese, we got to get quick water
on them.
As you do almost anything, wehave to get water very quick on
them.
We've been fighting these firesfor a long time, long before
people talked about FRSI.
You know, attacking from theoutside, transitioning to go to
the inside.
We've had company officers foryears.
When I came on and was a newguy, they would tell you hey,
(22:24):
pull 50 feet at two and a halfoff that one guy.
You're going to knock thisoutside fire.
You know, fire down from theexterior and the rest of the
crew is going to take an inchand three quarter and advance it
to the alpha side.
When we're going to knock thisoutside fire down from the
exterior, and the rest of thecrew is going to take an inch
and three-quarter and advance itto the alpha side.
When we're ready to go, youjust shut that off, drop it and
you're the fourth guy on theline or the third guy on the
line.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
To go back to something you said about 360s
and size up.
So, with these being as closeas they are together, what's the
normal operation for getting a360 if you've got them this
tightly?
Do you have to depend on otherfolks other than the initial
company to get the 360, or isthere opportunities for them to
do that?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
We still push the company officers to do 360s.
Generally you're I mean they'renot attached.
There's always room between thetwo.
It could be anywhere from five,maybe five feet on the smallest
.
It's maybe a little bit bigger.
It's usually enough for bothhouseholds to have a be able to
(23:26):
walk down the side of the houseto a little bit larger.
A lot of people have putdriveways in, probably in the
30s and 40s when cars becamemore affordable.
So outside of maybe fences,there isn't too much usually to
stop you from doing a 360.
It certainly isn't big enough.
(23:46):
If you run into a fence on oneside, you're just going to have
to go back around the alpha anddown the other side and you
should almost always be able toput eyes on Charlie because it's
a staircase.
It's regularly used, so it'susually very accessible.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
That makes sense.
That makes it nice to have abetter idea of what's actually
going on before you're steppingfoot in the building.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
What's the access like to the individual units?
Is it outside, inside?
How do you access eachindividual unit then?
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So generally the front stairs are finished stairs
that are usually completelyenclosed.
They're not in a heated spacebut they're completely enclosed
and they usually wrap a littlebit up and then there'll be a
apartment door at each landingand then the staircase continues
(24:42):
up to the next floor.
You know, as you look atpictures of these, you'll see
the front corners of thebuildings that you don't see any
windows, or you see a verysmall rectangular window or a
specially shaped window.
That's where your staircasesare in front.
The back staircases are theones that we really have
difficulty with, because some ofthem can be inside that shed
(25:06):
enclosure, some of them can beoutside external porches made of
pressurized lumber, but if youcan imagine, when you don't feel
like taking your trash out,that's where it's going to end
up.
And there are some apartmentsthat are extremely difficult to
access from the Charlie's sideand, in fact, some cases where
(25:28):
they never use them, so they mayput the refrigerator in front
of that door.
Ultimately, those are probablythe most challenging ones that
we have, when we know what wegot to do, we know where we got
to go and we're getting therequickly, but we're hindered by
something that's blocking ourway that we don't expect.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Based on conversations that you and I
have had and then you've hadwith other folks here is, when
you get fires in these, you andyour department have had to
really kind of resource and beable to deploy, based on being
able to cover a lot of tacticalpositions you know in a quick
(26:11):
amount of time, right, and so sotalk a little bit about how you
guys respond to these and whatkind of what your priorities are
with getting folks into thebuilding and and because I
vividly remember you saying whenI, when I first asked you about
it, he goes well, think abouthaving fire in the in the
basement, first, second andthird floor in the attic and
(26:32):
trying to get to them allsimultaneously You're like, oh
okay, yeah, I get the problemRight.
So talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
It can.
Yeah, again, it can be verydifficult.
Uh, if it's in a place that youknow, if it's a fire that's
started externally and when Isay that I mean, like you know,
the rear, the rear porches,which are more or less outside
um, sometimes it's a little biteasier because you know that you
could put a line on the outside, put some water on it, maybe
(27:00):
prevented it from getting intothe attic.
But, uh, you know, as we know,it's balloon frame construction,
so, just as easy as it can, itcan come up from the basement
and go into an apartment or gointo the attic.
It can just as easily come offthe rear porches and go into the
apartment as well.
So we have to get primary allclears on those.
Um, so what it basically meansis, uh, doing your best size up,
(27:23):
doing your best 360, trying todetermine the lowest floor of
fire, advancing a hand line tothat and quickly having you know
while you're advancing the hoseline, you're doing primary
search and fire control andhopefully you have another
company with you, especially ifyou have smoky conditions, to do
a more thorough search whileyou're trying to track down if
(27:46):
you have a fire in thatapartment or if you have
extension, so hopefully we'regoing to have another.
It usually ends up being aladder company or our heavy
rescue company.
We try and do assignments toget a search crew on every floor
and we try our best to makesure we have a hose line
(28:06):
available to protect them,because over the years we know
about our line of duty deathsbut we've had so many near
misses and guys jumping out ofwindows and we really need to
make sure we get those lines upthere and they're not
preoccupied by something else.
So where it's really importantfor us and where I like to try
(28:27):
and influence our companyofficers is we want smart
thinking company officers andthe key is when they pull up in
their first due.
We want them to own thatincident.
We want them to do a qualityinitial radio report in the
truck.
And then, hey, once you openthat door you don't know what's
(28:49):
going to happen to you next.
Is Mrs Smith going to comerunning up to you and tell you
that her child's on the secondfloor?
People are going to be pullingyou in different directions.
So you give that initial radioreport so everybody's clear what
you have going on before youstep out and get distracted.
Your company knows exactly whatyou guys are doing, what your
IEP is doing, and then you'vegot to break free and get that
(29:12):
360 done after you get somecritical information from
witnesses.
But of course they want to tellyou what they had for breakfast
before they tell you exactlywhat they see in that building.
It's real difficult.
It's the hardest job here is tobe that number one IC and then,
as they're doing their 360, wereally want them to start giving
(29:37):
assignments while they're goingaround the building before they
get in the IDLH and they'retalking with a face piece on.
We know we have a lot of tasks,chris, you just said it.
We're task saturated at thatpoint, start giving out some of
those tasks.
So if you're IEP plus two plusthree plus four, that's great.
You know that if you didn't tagwater supply you're going to
(29:58):
need one.
Get that right out beforeyou're done in 360.
If you've got a ladder companycoming up right behind you, spot
to your advantage, set up thetruck and have your crew meet
with my crew for primary searchof floor two, whatever floor
you're going to, and maybe eventhe next company coming in to
take a line off our truck andadvance it to the floor above us
(30:21):
, primary search and firecontrol.
So I mean, some of these are,hey, every fire is different,
but a lot of those first fewthings you do are the same all
the time.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Yeah, you're referring to the slide that
shows up regularly in day one.
Our presentation right thosestandard conditions.
So there's a typical standardthing that your officers are
evaluating in these incidentsearly on and then they're
starting to apply that standardaction of getting companies in
the right place.
(30:53):
The fire can be in you know anygiven spot of the building, but
it becomes that fairly standardprocess of getting them in
place to manage all the placesthat you kind of expect it to go
right.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah, definitely.
And again, the fires aren'talways the same.
So you know, if we wanted tobase people's functions on their
arrival order, it's just it'snot going to work for us.
Because you know, if you sayyour first two ladder company is
going to go to the floor fireand do a primary search, and
(31:27):
while that first Duke companyadvances in there they realize
hey, this fire is actually onfloor one, not on floor two,
then you know they're moving upinto a spot of you know where
they're not going to beprotected by a line.
So they need to be told by the,you know, incident commander
hey, we need you on thisparticular floor.
And you know the other issue wesee is typically here the
(31:49):
second-due company isresponsible for water supply and
then your third-due company,almost always just by
happenstance, is pulling thesecond line off the truck.
So if you're not first-due'susing TLOs, there's a real good
(32:12):
chance that that water supplygets missed.
Because you know, hey, who wasnumber three, who was the third
guy in Three engine companyofficers all raised their hand
at the same time.
I was there, I was there, I wasthere.
So that's why we like to doorders using TLO and directing
it to where the necessity is.
(32:33):
Where's the first location andfunction we need to handle?
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Gary, you said something earlier, I think, in
what you just mentioned thereabout making sure you're giving
assignments in TLO and, beingspecific, that first new company
officer owns it, right?
So, uh, I was.
I had some time earlier and Iwas perusing through this.
(32:59):
It looks pretty new yeah 1946,uh series of books and
specifically I was looking atthis reading some things that I
bought this when I was 18 yearsold, became a fireman, but it's
the entire series of uh,firefighting tactics, engine
company operations, all of that,um, and in the firefighting
(33:24):
tactics piece it says theincident commander must organize
and assign companies based offof what they see, the facts, the
facts that they can identifyand what they perceive.
And it's like that was 1946 fromLloyd Layman, right, and it's
like it circles right around.
So there's nothing new thatwe're talking about here and it
(33:46):
goes back to that thinking pieceof what is the problem and
what's keeping us from solvingthe problem, and that's where we
need to use our resources.
So I think that's reallyimportant for people to think
about and consider, because afire on the first floor, one of
these three or four storybuildings, is different than a
fire on the third floor.
And then considerations thatit's always going to be vertical
(34:09):
fire, spread right, just likeany moose balloon frame If it's
in the attic, it's in thebasement, if it's in the
basement it might be in theattic.
So just having thatunderstanding of what that all
really means.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
You're going to have to time it out.
I got to go on a run.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
All right, hey, gary, thanks, gary, thanks, man.
Okay, be safe, all right weappreciate you, Gary.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Thanks Be talking to you soon.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
All right, thank you.
So, gary, there had to go on arun, but we continue on it.
He gave us some greatinformation, I think, about the
kind of construction they have,and it's just not germane to
them because that's all over theplace we can run into it.
I certainly see it with some ofthe older buildings in my
community.
(34:51):
You know not to speak for Gary,but, josh, do you know what
their particular fire problem is?
Is there a high likelihood inthe Woosta community that you're
going to get fires in these alot?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Yeah, I mean if you just look at their, if you look
at their history and then youpay attention, like we do, to
you know people who arecustomers of what fires are
going to.
Uh, they make a significantamount of fires in these
buildings and I had theopportunity to spend quite a bit
of time there and we'reactually, chris and I, are going
back there in june to do some,some other training with them
(35:25):
and we're going to spend sometime, uh, in the community and
take a look at some of theirbuildings.
But as you drive around, asGary said, you know there was
building after building afterbuilding of those and, as we
know, just the that densityalone leads to elevated fire
(35:46):
threat.
Right, that's Just with howmany people are living there.
And then you know Gary kind ofalluded to it Maybe they're not
taking the best care of thingsand they're throwing garbage,
you know, here, there andeverywhere, and it's not
necessarily everybody.
But if we look at some of theirline of duty, death reports,
their internal reports and theirother reports that have been
written, you know you can seethat some of those places had
(36:09):
been modified or cut up orweren't in the best condition.
So it is a big fire threat forthem.
And you know one thing thatthey do for sure is they put a
ton of resource there in a veryshort period of time.
But when you start thinkingabout their community and you
(36:41):
know four stories or threestories of wood frame that's 100
years old, with asbestos or notasbestos, but cellotex shingle
on the outside of it five feetapart, you either get right on
it or you're going to burn theblock down.
You either get right on it oryou're going to burn the block
down.
So, and you know as you drivearound up there, there's not a
lot of residential blocksmissing anywhere, because they
understand their threat, theyunderstand what they're up
(37:01):
against and they have adeployment model to address it.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Yeah, so they've got a.
In talking to Gary and talkingto the other folks there, they
have a very strong culture of wehave to get there and we have
to get water on things early.
Right, he talked to it aboutthe back porch fires and slowing
down the spread into the houseand into the attic space, but
(37:29):
then when that fire is on theinterior of the space is getting
lines in quickly, the lifesafety thing is critical for
them.
Absolutely right, these couldbe densely populated areas, but
it has to have a good balance,and they're talking about having
(37:51):
to have a good balance of we'vegot to get water on the fire
simultaneous to us looking forthe victims.
That we don't have.
We don't have the luxury oflooking around for folks and
then dealing with the fire.
We've got to coordinate theseactions either simultaneously or
incredibly close to one another.
And then, once they start tocontrol the fire is in order to
(38:12):
support those search operationsand maybe even victim removal is
they've got to have aneffective plan for some
ventilation, right?
And how are they going to dothat?
And it doesn't appear thatvertical ventilation very often,
definitely on the lower floors,is an option for them, right?
And so it's interesting.
I am looking forward to hearingmore about how they ventilate,
(38:33):
the role of hydraulicventilation has for them and
because you know, when you'vegot buildings so close to one
another you may or may not beable to hydraulically ventilate
effectively and depending on thewindow arrangement.
So they I know they have it.
I'm super interested in hearingyou know more about how they do
that effectively.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Well, we'll for sure get Gary back on because he's a
good guest.
We have labeled him a goodguest.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
You know what I'm I'm bummed.
He had to go Cause.
I wanted to ask, now that he'sactually been on the podcast
because he's subjected his kidsin the car listening to the blue
card podcast so much what hiskids are actually going
listening to the Blue Cardpodcast, so much what his kids
are actually going to think ofhim being on the podcast now.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
And I think his kids' names are Robbie and Joe, right
, and they get sick of hearingmy voice.
So now you get to hear yourdad's.
Yeah, that's good, all right,before we go guys.
Timeless Tactical Truth.
Yeah, all right, let's do itbefore we go guys.
Timeless tactical truth yeah,all right, let's do it.
Timeless tactical truth fromalan brunasini.
(39:40):
And today we have the two ofhearts and these are back in
stock.
We sold them all out, all ofthem were sold out, but now we
have them back in stock atbshiftercom.
Two of hearts.
The ic is responsible for allcommand functions all of the
time.
Simply, command functionsdefine the IC's job.
So it's interesting, gary wastalking about IC number one
(40:02):
getting off the truck and havingto instantly be in the mode
where they're now responsiblefor all eight functions of
command.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
The thought and consideration and maybe one of
the larger pushbacks we get,instantly be in the mode where
they're now responsible for alleight functions of command.
The thought and considerationand maybe one of the larger
pushbacks we get from you knowdepartments and individuals is,
you know we're asking too muchof the initial arriving company
officer.
Well, I think the cost is toogreat not to put that
responsibility on them and, likeGary said, from the very
(40:29):
beginning, taking ownership ofthe incident, taking ownership
of the evaluation size up andall the elements then that
connect in a strategicdecision-making process.
So they're coming up with adecent plan from the very
beginning, based on someimportant critical factors that
they evaluated.
Not just that, they madeassumptions about to get people
(40:52):
in the right place to come upwith a plan and deploy companies
fast so that they're gettingwater where it needs to go early
.
They're getting the searchesdone early where they need to.
So we hear that argument or thatthat that you know pushback of
it's too much.
Well, I tell you what man.
(41:13):
You listen to Worcester and youlisten to a lot of other places
.
There are company officersshowing up, as I see number one
that are doing a hell of a joband they're hitting the bar and
they're going over the bar.
You know considerably becausethey, because it matters, they
care and they've actuallytrained to be that good.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
I think when we get that pushback sometimes of the
they can't do it, it's becausethe truth is they can't do it
because they've never beenexposed to a system to teach
them how to do it.
They glorified firefighters.
Right, I'm just responsible formy company, I'm just going to
do what I'm going to do.
(41:53):
Well, when the expectation isthat the organization says
you're the first due companythere and you're the first due
company officer and that you'regoing to establish command and
that you're going to be incommand until relieved by that
later arriving chief, and wetrained them, laid out an
expectation and we trained themto do that, then you know, we
(42:14):
see that performance on theother side of it and we've heard
audio from you know, worcesterand hundreds of other fire
departments now that are verysuccessful, with company
officers doing great size ups,developing great incident action
plans, uh, being prepared toassign three and four and
(42:36):
sometimes five companiesthemselves before a chief gets
there for, for whatever reason,out of the district, delayed,
you know, whatever it is, um, sothat I think that that that's
the piece, right, it's like it'stoo much, they can't do it.
And if I like to go back to the, well, if somebody's not there
(42:56):
making decisions, then what itgoes back to the.
You're freelancing.
I mean, it's a, it's afreelance.
Everybody's going to dowhatever they want to do.
So well.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Hey, we'd like to thank Gary Fleischer for being
with us.
He had to leave for a run, buthe gave us a lot of good
information while he was with usand we'll get back with him
very soon and continue thisconversation, because I think
there's a lot to be offered fromdifferent construction and then
definitely his department,their transformation into an
(43:28):
excellent blue card department,using these critical factors and
really talking about them and Ithink you know from the way
that Gary talks, you know thathis company officers and his
other chiefs know the buildingconstruction.
They're smart company officers,so now they have that system to
work within.
Hey guys, thanks for being heretoday Josh Bloom, chris Stewart
(43:50):
, thanks, jv, appreciate it, seeya.
And Gary Fleischer, thanks forbeing here too.
We'll talk to you next time onV-Shifter.
welcome to the b shifter podcast.
Today.
You have uh john vance here instudio, I've got chris stewart
and then uh from zoom, we've gotjosh bloom and gischer Gary.
You know what?
Let's start off with you realquick and just let everybody
know who you are, because thisis your first time on the B
(00:32):
Shifter podcast.
So we want to welcome you.
You're one of our leadinstructors, pivotal to the word
getting spread out on the EastCoast, but why don't you let
everybody know who you are andgive a little bit of an
introduction?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, thanks, jv.
So I appreciate you inviting meon here today.
My name is Gary Fleischer.
I'm a district chief with theWorcester Fire Department.
I've been a firefighter here inMassachusetts for about 30
years.
I've been in Worcester about 35years.
I've been in Worcester about 25years and we started doing blue
card here about four years agothree to four years ago and
(01:09):
coordinated that.
We're still doing the program,coordinated that program here
and became a blue cardinstructor last September Nice.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, february of 21, in the blizzard, in the middle
of COVID, what a time to do it.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah Well, we're really happy to have you here
today, gary, and thank you.
Thanks for sharing someinformation, and today we want
to talk a little bit aboutcritical fire ground factors
that, specifically, you have alot of experience with,
particularly because of the ageof the community that you serve.
But we think it's a greatconversation for all of us to be
(01:46):
a part of, because we have alot of these buildings in
different parts of the UnitedStates.
You could end up mutual aid atthem.
There are some differentcritical fire ground factors
that we need to consider whenwe're particularly looking at
some of these older typebuildings, and we just don't get
into it enough, but there areentire cities populated with
(02:08):
these buildings.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
I think if we just kind of talk about I think Gary
just describing kind of whatthese types of structures are,
for them it seems to be likethey're fairly common in his
neck of the woods, both in hisstate and his region, right, and
there's no shortage of fires inthese right.
So we need to be able to kindof talk about what's critical
(02:31):
about them, how they're puttogether, what causes us
heartache, what is criticalinformation we need to have
about them.
And then let's talk about someof the tactics that they
regularly deploy in these,because regardless of your
incident command system, you'vegot to put into play tactics
that match the critical factorsthe building and the fire and
(02:53):
smoke conditions and maybe thelife safety and maybe the
arrangement, because these arebuilt close together.
So all of those things kind ofgo into coming up with a decent
incident action plan.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Thanks, chris.
I think maybe the best thing Ican do is just to kind of
describe the housing stock thatwe have around here.
So what we're kind of targetingin this podcast, I think, is
these two and a half to maybefour story wood frame
residential units wood frameresidential units, and I think
(03:29):
the key why this becomes soimportant to us is the
construction of how they wereconstructed and what we find
inside of them.
So, particularly with us, we'reknown around here for our
three-deckers, and in otherparts of Massachusetts they may
call them triple-deckers.
They're all basically the samething.
So what it is is a three-story,basically an apartment, three
(03:52):
apartments, and they all sitright on top of each other.
So the third-floor kitchen isabove the second-floor kitchen
is above the first-floor kitchen, and so on.
With all the other rooms.
They have a very smallfootprint.
They're generally on a verysmall parcel of land, so you've
got a lot of people that canoccupy a very small parcel of
(04:12):
land.
Now the key with the buildingsare they're pretty old.
I think the first ones we everhave heard of were around the
1870s, but primarily between1890 and 1920, they built just
the lion's share of these thingsand you find them in these old
(04:32):
New England cities and townsthat often had large mill
buildings or factories and theywere used for the staffing to
live there for the factories.
So of course, back, you know, in1900, nobody had cars these are
(04:53):
blue-collar workers they didn'thave horses, they had to walk
to get wherever they were going.
So these three deckers werebuilt very close together in the
neighborhoods where thefactories were.
These three-deckers were builtvery close together in the
neighborhoods where thefactories were and the people
were able to walk to work, andnot only that, but their kids
would walk to school, they wouldhave neighborhood stores, the
(05:15):
neighborhood barbershop, theywould walk to those.
And one of the phenomenons wesee is that generally immigrants
from certain countries all landkind of in the same
neighborhood and they end up allkind of working at the same
factory because they all speakthe same language.
So we have like, for instance,of vernon hill, where we have a
(05:38):
lot of these three actors is, uh, a big section of it is is
polish and they had a lot ofPolish people there, and so the
only time they would leave ifthey left the neighborhood to go
somewhere, they'd have to takea trolley or a streetcar or, you
know, take the railroad to gosomewhere.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Well, you could have fooled me, because you've
already busted one myth.
I always imagine those beinglarge homes that were then
chopped up into an apartment,but for the most part, they were
always intended to be separateunits within those triple
deckers, is what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
There's a couple differentstories of how they were built.
There are stories of thefactory owners actually buying
the land and building as many ofthem as possible and then
selling them back to their ownemployees for their own
employees to have a place tolive and two income apartments
(06:38):
where other employees of thatfactory could live, or
potentially some level of theirfamily, their family, their
brother's family or theirsister's family.
And then we've also heardstories about people buying them
on their own and then movingthe whole family in on three
different levels to pay theirmortgage together.
So there's a few different wayswe've heard they all got built,
(07:03):
but I believe the factory onesthe most, because they're all
concentrated on where there wasa factory at one point in time.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
So most of them on.
We've noticed like there'll bea consistent with the living
units on each floor.
Then you've got like an outsideporch or outside patio, I guess
, on each floor, right, and theytend to be towards the alley
side, right, gary, if I rememberthis correctly.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, they all have similar floor plans, but for the
most part there's usually afront staircase and often will
either have a front living roomthat faces the street or they
would have front porches thatface the street and then they
(07:51):
would have a back staircase thatyou can either find inside what
they call a shed and when I saythey I mean the people that
grew up in them.
They call it a shed so you wouldhave rear stairs, kind of
enclosed from the weather butnot heated, and then like a
storage room on their backporches, if you want to call
them back porches.
And then in other cases we havecompletely wide open porches
that are just made ofpressurized lumber, so the house
(08:14):
would take up pretty much thewidth of the lot minus maybe
five feet on each side, so wehave an extreme exposure
problems.
They're generally close to thestreet and the only yard area
they end up with is in the back,so they could use the back for
the kids to play or, you know,to have a cookout or even have a
garden, but that would be theonly open space that they would
(08:37):
have.
There was no need for adriveway because nobody had cars
most of them have basements andkind of the heating systems and
stuff like that down there.
We're in basement land Again.
You know these buildings built.
You know the most of them builtbetween 1890 and 1920.
The basements are calledfieldstone foundations.
(08:59):
So they're stone wallfoundations.
And they're called fieldstonesbecause the farmers would go out
and clear the trees and makefarms and that land would be
full of stones in their fields.
So they would clear all thestones off and builders would
take them, dig a big hole in theground, stack the stones up and
that would be the foundationfor that construction, for that
(09:23):
construction and typicallyballoon frame, or is there stops
on every floor for if there wasa basement fire?
No, you know what they'reballoon frame.
So let's you know, if we lookat it the way our company
officers look at it right,they're going to do a strategic
decision-making model every timethey arrive on the scene and
(09:44):
the first step in that is forthem is always going to be
sizing up the incident usingtheir critical fire ground
factors.
I won't go into all of them,but I think there's a couple of
really important ones.
So first is, before we get tothat construction, john, first
is the occupancy.
Almost 99.9% of the time theseare apartments that people live
(10:09):
in and oftentimes a lot ofpeople live in.
Generally they were built threebedrooms, one bath, but we've
seen that cut up to fivebedrooms, usually on one floor
or not usually, but sometimes onone floor.
Floor, or not usually, butsometimes on one floor.
So definitely doing searches isgoing to be high on our
(10:30):
priority list when we get those.
And we do have some buildingsthat on the lower floor, whether
it's the first floor orsometimes the basement.
That's where they had theseneighborhood businesses like I
talked about earlier the localbarbershop, the market they were
(10:56):
in the basement of these.
Or the first floor of thesetenements, these three deckers,
and you know what?
Very often bars.
They just made bars out of thebasements of these things and
they were very popular, you know, even at 7 o'clock in the
morning when they guys got offthe night shift from the wire
factory and they would streaminto somebody's basement bar,
but that's.
We still have some of those,some of those businesses are
still around, but now everybodyhas cars so that the
(11:18):
neighborhood markets and stuffaren't nearly as popular as they
used to be.
So that's pretty much the mostof our occupancy.
Critical fire ground factors,john, like you were asking, then
construction becomes a huge onewith these.
So if you can picture the turnof the century, we had so much
(11:42):
lumber available in New Englandthat it was a very cheap way to
build.
And this is virgin, old growthlumber, really thick, sturdy
pieces of wood.
And they would build the shellof these buildings with two by
fours Now that's nominal size.
(12:04):
That is literally two inches byfours.
Now that's nominal size.
That is literally two inches byfour inches.
No kiln, dried, no planing orsanding.
These are rough, cut big, twoby fours and they're 30 feet
long and they'll bring.
I don't know how they did it,but they would build a wall 30
feet tall and they would standit up on top of this field stone
(12:24):
foundation, tie all those fourwalls together and that would
give you the exoskeleton of thatbuilding.
And then, instead of having, youknow, platform construction
like we have now, you build thefirst floor, you build the
second floor on top of it.
What they would do is theywould literally hang the floors
(12:45):
off of those outside studs.
So, as you can see in thispicture here, there's a ribbon
board that they would miter intothe 2x4s the ribbon board was a
1x4, and they would miter itinto the inside of the 2x4s and
then they would rest the joistsright on top of those and nail
(13:06):
them into the studs, and theywould do this for every floor.
So what that leaves you is thisplenum space, this vacant space
in that stud wall that would gofrom the basement all the way
up to the eaves in the attic,and that's, you know, that is
our balloon frame constructionand that is one of the biggest
(13:28):
issues we have with this, and Ithink you know, you guys know,
from your parts of the countryyou probably have some form of
balloon frame construction,correct?
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yeah, you know a ton of the conversion of, you know,
homes that regular one-story orsingle-family homes that were
built in that same time framebut are now being converted to
two or three or four apartmentsjust because people aren't
necessarily wanting to live inthose homes.
So tons of balloon frame andthen other vertical shafts in
(14:01):
there, right, because they'retrying to get other types of
HVAC systems and all that roominto there.
So it's that construction andvoid space and understanding
what that really is.
So you pull up on somethingthat's original, with plaster
and lath, still, that was 90years old.
We're going to have to handleit and deal with it and have a
whole different set of criticalfactors than something that's
(14:21):
that old but been gutted and nowit's four separate apartments.
So I think we're seeing thatfrom well, where you are all the
way to, as we talked about alittle bit earlier, in
California, san Francisco andsome of those other places all
around Seattle.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Gary, with the way the floors then are set and kind
of hung in there, how does theroof truss and the roof system
then go on top of the walls?
Is it basically sitting onthose four exterior walls or how
does it tie in?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah, it's.
Basically it sits on the top ofthose walls.
It overhangs.
Most of these buildings haveusually a pretty good eave, and
where we run into trouble iswhen the eaves are not made of
solid wood.
When the wood's been removedwhich is really common here in
the Northeast to reduce icebuildup, what they'll do is
(15:18):
they'll remove the eaves andthey'll put in a vented soffit
there and they'll cut a ridgevent along the top of the roof
to allow the cold air to flow upunderneath the roof so that
none of the snow on these roofsmelt and then refreeze into ice
and cause ice dams.
(15:40):
So that's obviously a perfectplace for propagation of fire,
especially with auto exposure onthe exterior.
If you have a fire on the secondfloor, a bedroom window, and it
pops out that window and startsburning up the exterior, we
know that we're going to end upin the attic in this place, like
(16:03):
Josh said, we have all thethings that he mentioned.
You know the wet walls, thepipe chases, the chimneys, these
, you know these were built.
They had big, giant, behemothcoal furnaces in the basement,
wrapped in asbestos, and itheated steam that heat the whole
house.
So there's a chimney that runsright up through the middle and
(16:25):
before I was again on the firedepartment.
I was an electrician'sapprentice and doing a work in a
three-decker is so easy becauseyou can just drop the wire
right down next to the chimney,go from the attic all the way to
the basement.
That's exactly where you knowwhere our fire's going.
There are some other issues too.
I mentioned auto exposure,right.
(16:45):
So what they used to side thesehouses with through the years.
I don't really know the timeframe, but we still have houses
that are sided with asphaltsiding.
It's just like a roof material,but they put it on the side of
a house and you can imagine howthat burns and it's pretty ugly.
(17:07):
So what do they do?
They cover it with vinyl, whichreally doesn't do anything for
us.
So what do they do?
They cover it with vinyl, whichreally doesn't do anything for
us.
Now there's one picture herethat John can show you, where
there's two of these buildingsside by side, and the one
closest to you with the brownstripe that's an asphalt-sided
building.
So you can imagine if we had anoutside fire there, it's going
to run right up that asphaltpretty quick right into the
(17:29):
eaves.
But the building that's justpast it.
It's kind of a brown colorright.
That building has asbestossiding, so it's the complete
opposite.
You couldn't light it on fireif you tried, um, and in any
case, a lot of times it wasinteresting to find these two
next to each other that somebodyhadn't covered in vinyl siding.
(17:49):
We see a lot of the vinylsiding hides what's actually
underneath there, and I guessthe only other thing maybe to
point out is you kind of lookthrough the pictures is these
three and two, three and fourstory buildings as you move
closer to the coast.
(18:10):
So Boston and some of thesuburbs, primarily these are
flat roof buildings, which meansthey have a drain in the roof
that goes down through thosepipe chases all the way out into
the sewer line.
The drain roofs up.
Now in central Massachusetts,where we are, we have a heavier
snow load here.
(18:30):
So most of our buildings areeither a gable-end roof or a
hip-shaped roof and we can kindof tell you know when we go to
them, how much difficulty theattic's going to be, based on
the type of roof that we have.
If you can imagine, agable-ended roof is pretty easy
to get into and use for storage.
A gable-ended roof is prettyeasy to get into and use for
(18:51):
storage.
So it's going to have plankflooring which is very difficult
to overhaul from the thirdfloor.
If we have a hip roof, thoseare very difficult to get into.
You're bent over and crawlingaround.
So there's generally not a lotof storage up there and very
little flooring that you wouldhave to worry about.
(19:12):
So that's basically some of theoh and the arrangement.
Right, you had mentioned thatearlier, chris.
That was the other issue.
A lot of these are very, veryclose together.
We have a picture here of threeof them that are side by side.
This was in Boston somewhereand you can see how tight they
are together.
Incidentally, that one in themiddle of this picture, this
(19:35):
came off a wheeler's websitethat sold for $1.35 million for
one of these things, so I hopeit has gold faucets.
I'm not sure why you'd buy onefor $1.35 million.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
So when you guys start responding on these like
you do regularly, even thesimplest fire you know, a
kitchen fire, food on the stove,pot of meat, whatever that is,
even that you can you're at adistinct disadvantage where you
can easily get fire extensionjust from those types of things
(20:10):
right, and so that being superdiligent about checking for
extension, even on somethingthat you show up that actually
may have nothing showing it,becomes a pretty significant
thing for you guys.
Am I guessing correctly?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah, any substantial fire.
We have a lot of ceilings topull and a lot of walls to open
up, and it's not, of course it'san old building, so it's not
just sticking your hook throughsome sheetrock.
You know, it's mostly plasterand wood lath, which is a lot of
work.
In some cases we have the metallath.
(20:47):
We don't see it as much, thankGod, because that stuff is
really difficult.
But yeah, I mean that's, youknow, the critical fire ground,
the critical fire ground factorof the fire really.
And where is it originatingfrom?
You know, because if that fireis originally in the basement
(21:10):
and it has reared its head in athird floor bedroom, it just
goes to show you how importantit is for us to do those 360s by
our first arriving companyofficers.
Look at conditions in thebasement, because that could
have started on any floor andpopped out on any floor.
Same thing with a lot of thefires we have in these buildings
(21:33):
originate in either the frontor the back porches and if you
don't get there quick enough andput water on it, a front or a
rear porch fire is going to theattic.
There is no doubt about it.
That is where it's going to endup If you don't get some water
on that thing fast.
To end up if you don't get somewater on that thing fast.
(22:01):
So as far as our tactics forthese, we got to get quick water
on them.
As you do almost anything, wehave to get water very quick on
them.
We've been fighting these firesfor a long time, long before
people talked about FRSI.
You know, attacking from theoutside, transitioning to go to
the inside.
We've had company officers foryears.
When I came on and was a newguy, they would tell you hey,
(22:24):
pull 50 feet at two and a halfoff that one guy.
You're going to knock thisoutside fire.
You know, fire down from theexterior and the rest of the
crew is going to take an inchand three quarter and advance it
to the alpha side.
When we're going to knock thisoutside fire down from the
exterior, and the rest of thecrew is going to take an inch
and three-quarter and advance itto the alpha side.
When we're ready to go, youjust shut that off, drop it and
you're the fourth guy on theline or the third guy on the
line.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
To go back to something you said about 360s
and size up.
So, with these being as closeas they are together, what's the
normal operation for getting a360 if you've got them this
tightly?
Do you have to depend on otherfolks other than the initial
company to get the 360, or isthere opportunities for them to
do that?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
We still push the company officers to do 360s.
Generally you're I mean they'renot attached.
There's always room between thetwo.
It could be anywhere from five,maybe five feet on the smallest
.
It's maybe a little bit bigger.
It's usually enough for bothhouseholds to have a be able to
(23:26):
walk down the side of the houseto a little bit larger.
A lot of people have putdriveways in, probably in the
30s and 40s when cars becamemore affordable.
So outside of maybe fences,there isn't too much usually to
stop you from doing a 360.
It certainly isn't big enough.
(23:46):
If you run into a fence on oneside, you're just going to have
to go back around the alpha anddown the other side and you
should almost always be able toput eyes on Charlie because it's
a staircase.
It's regularly used, so it'susually very accessible.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
That makes sense.
That makes it nice to have abetter idea of what's actually
going on before you're steppingfoot in the building.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
What's the access like to the individual units?
Is it outside, inside?
How do you access eachindividual unit then?
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So generally the front stairs are finished stairs
that are usually completelyenclosed.
They're not in a heated spacebut they're completely enclosed
and they usually wrap a littlebit up and then there'll be a
apartment door at each landingand then the staircase continues
(24:42):
up to the next floor.
You know, as you look atpictures of these, you'll see
the front corners of thebuildings that you don't see any
windows, or you see a verysmall rectangular window or a
specially shaped window.
That's where your staircasesare in front.
The back staircases are theones that we really have
difficulty with, because some ofthem can be inside that shed
(25:06):
enclosure, some of them can beoutside external porches made of
pressurized lumber, but if youcan imagine, when you don't feel
like taking your trash out,that's where it's going to end
up.
And there are some apartmentsthat are extremely difficult to
access from the Charlie's sideand, in fact, some cases where
(25:28):
they never use them, so they mayput the refrigerator in front
of that door.
Ultimately, those are probablythe most challenging ones that
we have, when we know what wegot to do, we know where we got
to go and we're getting therequickly, but we're hindered by
something that's blocking ourway that we don't expect.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Based on conversations that you and I
have had and then you've hadwith other folks here is, when
you get fires in these, you andyour department have had to
really kind of resource and beable to deploy, based on being
able to cover a lot of tacticalpositions you know in a quick
(26:11):
amount of time, right, and so sotalk a little bit about how you
guys respond to these and whatkind of what your priorities are
with getting folks into thebuilding and and because I
vividly remember you saying whenI, when I first asked you about
it, he goes well, think abouthaving fire in the in the
basement, first, second andthird floor in the attic and
(26:32):
trying to get to them allsimultaneously You're like, oh
okay, yeah, I get the problemRight.
So talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
It can.
Yeah, again, it can be verydifficult.
Uh, if it's in a place that youknow, if it's a fire that's
started externally and when Isay that I mean, like you know,
the rear, the rear porches,which are more or less outside
um, sometimes it's a little biteasier because you know that you
could put a line on the outside, put some water on it, maybe
(27:00):
prevented it from getting intothe attic.
But, uh, you know, as we know,it's balloon frame construction,
so, just as easy as it can, itcan come up from the basement
and go into an apartment or gointo the attic.
It can just as easily come offthe rear porches and go into the
apartment as well.
So we have to get primary allclears on those.
Um, so what it basically meansis, uh, doing your best size up,
(27:23):
doing your best 360, trying todetermine the lowest floor of
fire, advancing a hand line tothat and quickly having you know
while you're advancing the hoseline, you're doing primary
search and fire control andhopefully you have another
company with you, especially ifyou have smoky conditions, to do
a more thorough search whileyou're trying to track down if
(27:46):
you have a fire in thatapartment or if you have
extension, so hopefully we'regoing to have another.
It usually ends up being aladder company or our heavy
rescue company.
We try and do assignments toget a search crew on every floor
and we try our best to makesure we have a hose line
(28:06):
available to protect them,because over the years we know
about our line of duty deathsbut we've had so many near
misses and guys jumping out ofwindows and we really need to
make sure we get those lines upthere and they're not
preoccupied by something else.
So where it's really importantfor us and where I like to try
(28:27):
and influence our companyofficers is we want smart
thinking company officers andthe key is when they pull up in
their first due.
We want them to own thatincident.
We want them to do a qualityinitial radio report in the
truck.
And then, hey, once you openthat door you don't know what's
(28:49):
going to happen to you next.
Is Mrs Smith going to comerunning up to you and tell you
that her child's on the secondfloor?
People are going to be pullingyou in different directions.
So you give that initial radioreport so everybody's clear what
you have going on before youstep out and get distracted.
Your company knows exactly whatyou guys are doing, what your
IEP is doing, and then you'vegot to break free and get that
(29:12):
360 done after you get somecritical information from
witnesses.
But of course they want to tellyou what they had for breakfast
before they tell you exactlywhat they see in that building.
It's real difficult.
It's the hardest job here is tobe that number one IC and then,
as they're doing their 360, wereally want them to start giving
(29:37):
assignments while they're goingaround the building before they
get in the IDLH and they'retalking with a face piece on.
We know we have a lot of tasks,chris, you just said it.
We're task saturated at thatpoint, start giving out some of
those tasks.
So if you're IEP plus two plusthree plus four, that's great.
You know that if you didn't tagwater supply you're going to
(29:58):
need one.
Get that right out beforeyou're done in 360.
If you've got a ladder companycoming up right behind you, spot
to your advantage, set up thetruck and have your crew meet
with my crew for primary searchof floor two, whatever floor
you're going to, and maybe eventhe next company coming in to
take a line off our truck andadvance it to the floor above us
(30:21):
, primary search and firecontrol.
So I mean, some of these are,hey, every fire is different,
but a lot of those first fewthings you do are the same all
the time.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Yeah, you're referring to the slide that
shows up regularly in day one.
Our presentation right thosestandard conditions.
So there's a typical standardthing that your officers are
evaluating in these incidentsearly on and then they're
starting to apply that standardaction of getting companies in
the right place.
(30:53):
The fire can be in you know anygiven spot of the building, but
it becomes that fairly standardprocess of getting them in
place to manage all the placesthat you kind of expect it to go
right.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah, definitely.
And again, the fires aren'talways the same.
So you know, if we wanted tobase people's functions on their
arrival order, it's just it'snot going to work for us.
Because you know, if you sayyour first two ladder company is
going to go to the floor fireand do a primary search, and
(31:27):
while that first Duke companyadvances in there they realize
hey, this fire is actually onfloor one, not on floor two,
then you know they're moving upinto a spot of you know where
they're not going to beprotected by a line.
So they need to be told by the,you know, incident commander
hey, we need you on thisparticular floor.
And you know the other issue wesee is typically here the
(31:49):
second-due company isresponsible for water supply and
then your third-due company,almost always just by
happenstance, is pulling thesecond line off the truck.
So if you're not first-due'susing TLOs, there's a real good
(32:12):
chance that that water supplygets missed.
Because you know, hey, who wasnumber three, who was the third
guy in Three engine companyofficers all raised their hand
at the same time.
I was there, I was there, I wasthere.
So that's why we like to doorders using TLO and directing
it to where the necessity is.
(32:33):
Where's the first location andfunction we need to handle?
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Gary, you said something earlier, I think, in
what you just mentioned thereabout making sure you're giving
assignments in TLO and, beingspecific, that first new company
officer owns it, right?
So, uh, I was.
I had some time earlier and Iwas perusing through this.
(32:59):
It looks pretty new yeah 1946,uh series of books and
specifically I was looking atthis reading some things that I
bought this when I was 18 yearsold, became a fireman, but it's
the entire series of uh,firefighting tactics, engine
company operations, all of that,um, and in the firefighting
(33:24):
tactics piece it says theincident commander must organize
and assign companies based offof what they see, the facts, the
facts that they can identifyand what they perceive.
And it's like that was 1946 fromLloyd Layman, right, and it's
like it circles right around.
So there's nothing new thatwe're talking about here and it
(33:46):
goes back to that thinking pieceof what is the problem and
what's keeping us from solvingthe problem, and that's where we
need to use our resources.
So I think that's reallyimportant for people to think
about and consider, because afire on the first floor, one of
these three or four storybuildings, is different than a
fire on the third floor.
And then considerations thatit's always going to be vertical
(34:09):
fire, spread right, just likeany moose balloon frame If it's
in the attic, it's in thebasement, if it's in the
basement it might be in theattic.
So just having thatunderstanding of what that all
really means.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
You're going to have to time it out.
I got to go on a run.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
All right, hey, gary, thanks, gary, thanks, man.
Okay, be safe, all right weappreciate you, Gary.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Thanks Be talking to you soon.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
All right, thank you.
So, gary, there had to go on arun, but we continue on it.
He gave us some greatinformation, I think, about the
kind of construction they have,and it's just not germane to
them because that's all over theplace we can run into it.
I certainly see it with some ofthe older buildings in my
community.
(34:51):
You know not to speak for Gary,but, josh, do you know what
their particular fire problem is?
Is there a high likelihood inthe Woosta community that you're
going to get fires in these alot?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Yeah, I mean if you just look at their, if you look
at their history and then youpay attention, like we do, to
you know people who arecustomers of what fires are
going to.
Uh, they make a significantamount of fires in these
buildings and I had theopportunity to spend quite a bit
of time there and we'reactually, chris and I, are going
back there in june to do some,some other training with them
(35:25):
and we're going to spend sometime, uh, in the community and
take a look at some of theirbuildings.
But as you drive around, asGary said, you know there was
building after building afterbuilding of those and, as we
know, just the that densityalone leads to elevated fire
(35:46):
threat.
Right, that's Just with howmany people are living there.
And then you know Gary kind ofalluded to it Maybe they're not
taking the best care of thingsand they're throwing garbage,
you know, here, there andeverywhere, and it's not
necessarily everybody.
But if we look at some of theirline of duty, death reports,
their internal reports and theirother reports that have been
written, you know you can seethat some of those places had
(36:09):
been modified or cut up orweren't in the best condition.
So it is a big fire threat forthem.
And you know one thing thatthey do for sure is they put a
ton of resource there in a veryshort period of time.
But when you start thinkingabout their community and you
(36:41):
know four stories or threestories of wood frame that's 100
years old, with asbestos or notasbestos, but cellotex shingle
on the outside of it five feetapart, you either get right on
it or you're going to burn theblock down.
You either get right on it oryou're going to burn the block
down.
So, and you know as you drivearound up there, there's not a
lot of residential blocksmissing anywhere, because they
understand their threat, theyunderstand what they're up
(37:01):
against and they have adeployment model to address it.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Yeah, so they've got a.
In talking to Gary and talkingto the other folks there, they
have a very strong culture of wehave to get there and we have
to get water on things early.
Right, he talked to it aboutthe back porch fires and slowing
down the spread into the houseand into the attic space, but
(37:29):
then when that fire is on theinterior of the space is getting
lines in quickly, the lifesafety thing is critical for
them.
Absolutely right, these couldbe densely populated areas, but
it has to have a good balance,and they're talking about having
(37:51):
to have a good balance of we'vegot to get water on the fire
simultaneous to us looking forthe victims.
That we don't have.
We don't have the luxury oflooking around for folks and
then dealing with the fire.
We've got to coordinate theseactions either simultaneously or
incredibly close to one another.
And then, once they start tocontrol the fire is in order to
(38:12):
support those search operationsand maybe even victim removal is
they've got to have aneffective plan for some
ventilation, right?
And how are they going to dothat?
And it doesn't appear thatvertical ventilation very often,
definitely on the lower floors,is an option for them, right?
And so it's interesting.
I am looking forward to hearingmore about how they ventilate,
(38:33):
the role of hydraulicventilation has for them and
because you know, when you'vegot buildings so close to one
another you may or may not beable to hydraulically ventilate
effectively and depending on thewindow arrangement.
So they I know they have it.
I'm super interested in hearingyou know more about how they do
that effectively.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Well, we'll for sure get Gary back on because he's a
good guest.
We have labeled him a goodguest.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
You know what I'm I'm bummed.
He had to go Cause.
I wanted to ask, now that he'sactually been on the podcast
because he's subjected his kidsin the car listening to the blue
card podcast so much what hiskids are actually going
listening to the Blue Cardpodcast, so much what his kids
are actually going to think ofhim being on the podcast now.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
And I think his kids' names are Robbie and Joe, right
, and they get sick of hearingmy voice.
So now you get to hear yourdad's.
Yeah, that's good, all right,before we go guys.
Timeless Tactical Truth.
Yeah, all right, let's do itbefore we go guys.
Timeless tactical truth yeah,all right, let's do it.
Timeless tactical truth fromalan brunasini.
(39:40):
And today we have the two ofhearts and these are back in
stock.
We sold them all out, all ofthem were sold out, but now we
have them back in stock atbshiftercom.
Two of hearts.
The ic is responsible for allcommand functions all of the
time.
Simply, command functionsdefine the IC's job.
So it's interesting, gary wastalking about IC number one
(40:02):
getting off the truck and havingto instantly be in the mode
where they're now responsiblefor all eight functions of
command.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
The thought and consideration and maybe one of
the larger pushbacks we get,instantly be in the mode where
they're now responsible for alleight functions of command.
The thought and considerationand maybe one of the larger
pushbacks we get from you knowdepartments and individuals is,
you know we're asking too muchof the initial arriving company
officer.
Well, I think the cost is toogreat not to put that
responsibility on them and, likeGary said, from the very
(40:29):
beginning, taking ownership ofthe incident, taking ownership
of the evaluation size up andall the elements then that
connect in a strategicdecision-making process.
So they're coming up with adecent plan from the very
beginning, based on someimportant critical factors that
they evaluated.
Not just that, they madeassumptions about to get people
(40:52):
in the right place to come upwith a plan and deploy companies
fast so that they're gettingwater where it needs to go early
.
They're getting the searchesdone early where they need to.
So we hear that argument or thatthat that you know pushback of
it's too much.
Well, I tell you what man.
(41:13):
You listen to Worcester and youlisten to a lot of other places
.
There are company officersshowing up, as I see number one
that are doing a hell of a joband they're hitting the bar and
they're going over the bar.
You know considerably becausethey, because it matters, they
care and they've actuallytrained to be that good.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
I think when we get that pushback sometimes of the
they can't do it, it's becausethe truth is they can't do it
because they've never beenexposed to a system to teach
them how to do it.
They glorified firefighters.
Right, I'm just responsible formy company, I'm just going to
do what I'm going to do.
(41:53):
Well, when the expectation isthat the organization says
you're the first due companythere and you're the first due
company officer and that you'regoing to establish command and
that you're going to be incommand until relieved by that
later arriving chief, and wetrained them, laid out an
expectation and we trained themto do that, then you know, we
(42:14):
see that performance on theother side of it and we've heard
audio from you know, worcesterand hundreds of other fire
departments now that are verysuccessful, with company
officers doing great size ups,developing great incident action
plans, uh, being prepared toassign three and four and
(42:36):
sometimes five companiesthemselves before a chief gets
there for, for whatever reason,out of the district, delayed,
you know, whatever it is, um, sothat I think that that that's
the piece, right, it's like it'stoo much, they can't do it.
And if I like to go back to the, well, if somebody's not there
(42:56):
making decisions, then what itgoes back to the.
You're freelancing.
I mean, it's a, it's afreelance.
Everybody's going to dowhatever they want to do.
So well.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Hey, we'd like to thank Gary Fleischer for being
with us.
He had to leave for a run, buthe gave us a lot of good
information while he was with usand we'll get back with him
very soon and continue thisconversation, because I think
there's a lot to be offered fromdifferent construction and then
definitely his department,their transformation into an
(43:28):
excellent blue card department,using these critical factors and
really talking about them and Ithink you know from the way
that Gary talks, you know thathis company officers and his
other chiefs know the buildingconstruction.
They're smart company officers,so now they have that system to
work within.
Hey guys, thanks for being heretoday Josh Bloom, chris Stewart
(43:50):
, thanks, jv, appreciate it, seeya.
And Gary Fleischer, thanks forbeing here too.
We'll talk to you next time onV-Shifter.
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