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Hello Omega list,
I'm writing mainly in response to Jack Griffin's
statement in which he "condemns" F.D.N.Y. for not
"knowing" that the World Trade Center buildings were
going to collapse.
I'd also like to shed some light on the purpose of,
and limitations of fire sprinkler systems in response
to Mark Brown's post.
Jack Griffin wrote: Come on, the Fire Department
should have thought about it. So if you won't condemn
them I will. It was their job to know this (that the
WTC’s would collapse). It was even in the stupid
building design that the steel could only last 2 hrs
at best in a fire. They screwed up royally…
I am almost as stunned by the ignorance of this
statement as I am by the fact that men would fly
planes into buildings.
Jack, I assure you that the F.D.N.Y. did, in fact,
give some thought to the possibility of collapse.
Allow me to educate you about why we have Fire
Departments, and what their priorities are. The
acronym L.I.P. adequately sums up the FD’s incident
priorities. L.I.P.
stands for: L – Life safety. I – Incident
stabilization. P – Property conservation.
Upon arrival at the WTC incident, or any “typical”
building fire, the Incident Commander must weigh the
benefits versus the risks of sending firefighters into
the building. Probably the most important question the
IC has to consider is, “are there victims inside this
structure who can be saved by aggressive interior
tactics?” If the answer to this question is yes (as it
was at the WTC incident), then any IC worth their salt
will send firefighters into the building in an attempt
to save lives.
Basically, if there are lives to be saved,
firefighters will put themselves in harms way to save
those lives. Even if building collapse is a
possibility. There was no way to “know” that the WTC
towers would collapse so quickly.
Although most people intuitively understand this, Jack
apparently fails to get it.
Imagine the following scenario. It’s 2:00 am, the
kitchen, living room, and attic of your parent’s home
are completely involved in fire, and the rest of their
home is being charged with thick smoke. Your parents
are asleep behind their closed bedroom door, and
because of carbon monoxide, they fail to awaken at the
sound of the smoke detectors going off. When the fire
department arrives, they decide it’s too dangerous to
try to enter the home and save your parents because
there is a possibility the roof might collapse due to
the lightweight truss construction in the attic. How
would you feel about this fire department after your
parents died in their bed of smoke inhalation, their
bodies untouched by fire? At that point, do you think
you might become a fan of aggressive fire department
tactics?
The F.D. at the WTC was faced with similar decisions,
on a massively larger scale. What if the fire
department didn’t go into the WTC towers, and they
didn’t collapse, and thousands of people died in the
fire? What would you think then?
Jack, it’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback,
after a ballgame or a tragic incident. Until you’ve
worn a set of turnouts and crawled around in a burning
building, you don’t have the right to condemn any fire
department, because you don’t know what you’re talking
about.
Moving along…
A typical fire sprinkler will discharge approximately
25 - 35 gallons of water per minute when activated.
Fire sprinklers are activated by a fusible link that
opens the sprinkler head when the temperature reaches
a given level. Only those sprinklers in direct contact
with the fire's heat will react.
When jumbo jets slammed into the WTC buildings, most,
if not all of the sprinkler heads on multiple floors
were probably activated. But it didn't make a single
bit of difference. Why? Because 25 gpm per sprinkler
head against TONS of burning jet fuel would have about
the same effect as trying to put out a raging house
fire by pulling out your Johnson and taking a whiz on
it. The water would turn to steam the instant it
exited the sprinkler head due to the immense heat.
This is why airport crash fire/rescue apparatus are
equipped with foam systems rather than simply water
tanks.
The tiny little sprinkler heads embedded in the
ceilings we walk under everyday are designed to fight
small Class A (wood, paper, etc.) combustible material
fires. Common sense alone should tell us that these
tiny little sprinkler heads are not designed to
extinguish large commercial aircraft that are burning
out of control.
Hope this helps. Good day to all,
-Lance
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