THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 19, 1997 TAG: 9701210436
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: RANDOM RAMBLES
SOURCE: TONY STEIN
LENGTH: 78 lines
``I guess people wonder,'' says Thomas H. Cooke, ``why anyone would want to be a firefighter. While everyone else is running out of a burning building, they're going in.''
And they're going in to confront a mean, tricky, downright deadly enemy. Cooke knows. He's served in the Chesapeake Fire Department for 28 years. Now he's the city's fire marshal, the man in charge of fire prevention programs and investigation of suspicious fires. He came up through the ranks, though, and spent 18 years on the firefighting front lines.
``A fire,'' Cooke says, ``is a very hostile atmosphere.'' It's a professional phrase to describe temperatures that can melt the helmet off your head, flames that can engulf you without warning and smoke that can choke you to death.
Inside a burning house, the temperature can rise to between 1,000 and 1,300 degrees. That kind of heat turns water to steam, and Cooke says steam burns were common firefighter injuries until fully protective gear became standard issue. Even so, there's an argument about total coverage. It cuts down on the ability to sense heat and that ability can provide important clues to the firefighters.
There's an electronic heat sensor on the market, but the price tag hovers between $15,000 and $20,000. Very expensive and not holding up too well in fire situations, Cooke says.
Heat in a burning room does worse than create steam. As a layer of heat builds up in a room, the whole room reaches a temperature at which it can ignite. Flames suddenly seem to jump across an open space in an effect called ``flashover.'' Another vicious trick fire can play is called ``backdraft.'' As the fire burns out the available oxygen, it may die down. But then a door or a window is opened and the rush of fresh oxygen creates a fireball with the force of an explosion.
Laymen tend to think of smoke as sort of neutral by-product of a fire. Bad mistake, says Cooke. ``Smoke is fuel,'' he says. ``Gases build up in it and a backdraft can be a smoke explosion.''
It used to be that firefighters would set up fans to suck out the smoke. Now, says Cooke, they use a technique called ``positive pressure ventilation.'' The fans' blast is directed inward to compact the smoke. It helps increase visibility and protect the firefighters.
Outside a burning building, the hose streams are straight flows to get penetration into the building. But when the firefighters go inside to attack the flames, they use a fog pattern. The mist not only knocks down the fire; it gives them what Cooke calls ``an umbrella of protection.''
Even though the breathing apparatus the firefighters use has a 45-minute capacity, about 30 minutes is all firefighters can handle before the intense heat and the stress of heavy gear wipe them out. Heart conditions are a common result of the profession, Cooke notes. ``Your heart's pumping three times as fast as normal. You go from dead still to 110 percent in an instant.''
In the old-timey fire stations, that burst of activity started with a slide down a poll from the living quarters to the engine floor. Never mind that it looks smooth and easy in pictures. It was a nifty way to break an ankle or leg, Cooke says. In Lynchburg, Va., there was a fire station built when horses pulled the engines. It had a pole, and I asked a firefighter why they didn't just put the firefighters' beds and the horses on the same floor. Dead-pan, he said, ``the horses objected.''
The poles are gone along with the horses. So are the traditional leather fire helmets with the peak in front and the long part in back. Modern fire helmets are rounded, shielded and made of space-age plastic. They have better suspension, too, so they sit more lightly on the heads that have to wear them through what might be a long fight with flames.
Being winter, it's a busy fire season, Cooke says. Watch those space heaters, he warns. Kerosene and electric types should be at least two feet from any surface that can ignite. And if you are dumping fireplace ashes, always do it in a metal bucket. Then douse the ashes with water. If you don't, they can stay hot enough to kindle for as long as two days. If you have a stove insert in your fireplace, it creates a closed system that tends to build up creosote. Have the chimney cleaned every year, Cooke says.
For sure, you don't want a professional visit from a Chesapeake fire company. ``There are,'' Cooke says, ``very few scenes more depressing than the aftermath of a bad house fire. Even if no one is hurt, possessions that cannot be replaced are gone. You may be able to buy new appliances and furniture, but you can't replace the memories.''