Worcester Fire Department

Transcription

On December 3rd, 1999, tragedy struck the community of Worcester, Massachusetts, a tragedy that would not only affect the community, but shake the foundation of the American Fire Service as a whole. I'm Daniel Bermudez, reporting on the cold storage warehouse fire that took the lives of six of Worcester's finest ten and a half years ago. It was a cold Friday evening in Worcester. Just after 6 PM, when an alarm went out, dispatching seven apparatus and thirty firefighters to 266 Franklin Street, where a passing motorist had reported smoke coming out of the abandoned cold storage warehouse building. The window-less structure was made of thick brick and mortar construction with steel and concrete floors. The building was divided in half by a party wall, with one side called building A and the other building B. The building had served as a food refrigeration facility from 1906 to 1989, when the building had been shut down. The second floor where the fire had originated had, at some point in the building's history, been converted into an office area. This office area had been constructed of combustible materials, which allowed the fire to grow quickly and fill the building with smoke. When units first arrived on the scene, no fire was visible due to the lack of windows. This revealed no information about the structure layout or where the fire was located to the fire crews. Due to the heavy smoke, however, a second alarm was immediately dispatched, bringing in an additional four apparatus and twelve firefighters. An interior search was made to locate the fire, which was quickly discovered when a large door was opened, reveling an inferno on the second floor of B building. An attack was immediately put in place to control the blaze, as it appeared to be restricted to this one area. Then, things began to unravel. At 6:24 PM, the incident commander was informed that two people were believed to be located inside the building. The IC ordered a crew from Rescue 1, located on the roof, to make an immediate search of the structure, working down floor-by-floor, while another Rescue 1 crew went up from the bottom of the structure. As the rescue teams moved through the structure, they reported heavy smoke, but no fire. Little did they know that because of the smoke, they could not see that the fire was spreading quickly up the structure and engulfing the third and fourth floors of B building and spreading into A building. As the search progressed, the attack on the now well-vented fire was making little progress and the situation appeared to be getting worse. A third alarm was requested, bringing in another three apparatus and twelve firefighters. While these units were in-route, an attack was being attempted to control the fire that was spreading to the third floor. But due to the heavy smoke, firefighters had difficulty locating this fire. Then, things got bad. A distress call went out from the rescue team coming down from the roof. "Rescue to command. Rescue to command. We need help on the fourth floor. One floor down. We're running out of air." Then they quickly corrected themselves by saying, "Two floors down from the roof." No one, not even the trapped men, knew for sure how many stories high the building was, making the lost team's location completely unknown. Other firefighters reported that the entire second floor was flashing over. Communications were bogged down due to over usage, making communications with the downed team difficult at best. The incident commander sent in search teams from Engine 3, Ladder 1, and Ladder 2 to locate the men lost somewhere in the building. A fourth alarm was issued, bringing three more apparatus and nine firefighters and the department chief. Mutual aid from departments outside of Worcester were also requested. As search teams battled their way up the structure, a desperate transmission was sent by the missing team. "Get people up on this floor now or we're going to die. We have no air and we cannot breathe." Then, things went from bad to worse. Firefighters on the second floor, who had been requesting to evacuate the structure, reported that their five, two and a half inch hose streams were having no effect on the fire. The burning ceiling was crashing down around them, and some of the men became entangled in wires that had fallen. The ventilation crew reported that the tar on the roof was bubbling and and men on the ground reported that tar was raining down on them. Then, total disaster struck. Search teams themselves reported that they could not determine their location. It appeared they were becoming the next victims. Explosions could be heard inside the building, putting the entire structural integrity in doubt. A fifth alarm brought two engines with special rapid intervention team equipment, including a thermal imaging camera. But due to the extreme heat, the camera was overloaded and failed. Then, the last straw came. Soon after the ventilation crew was ordered off the roof, a huge flame erupted out of the structure, reaching thirty to forty feet in height. Just before eight PM that evening, apparatus horns were blown, ordering all units out of the building. Six firefighters were unaccounted for, and presumed dead. Over the next twenty hours, an exterior attack was maintained with massive streams pouring on water non-stop. Almost the entire structure collapsed. On Sunday morning, the first body was recovered. It would take another six and a half days before they would find the last. During that time, firefighters worked around the clock, sifting through the debris, searching for their fallen comrades, while battling the occasional flare-up and pockets of fire. On December 9, a memorial service was held for the fallen six, with over 30,000 firemen from around the globe attending, as well as such dignitaries as President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry among others. Most of the Worcester fire department did not attend, as they insisted on finishing the job of finding the remains of the fallen men. Finally, at 10:27 PM, December the eleventh, the emergency was declared over, eight days after the fire had started. An investigation was launched, and it was determined that the fire had started sometime earlier that Friday between four thirty and five forty five PM, when two homeless individuals living in the structure got into an argument and knocked over a lit candle, lighting debris on the floor on fire. These two individuals were the people in question who had been reported inside the structure and instigated the original search that the firefighters had been lost on. The reality was that, after the fire had started, they had fled the building long before any fire personnel had arrived. These individuals were later arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter, but the charges were later dismissed because of the defendants' limited mental capacity. The Worcester fire shook the American fire service by its roots, and caused many major changes in firefighting. No longer were abandoned buildings attacked directly like occupied ones. The phrase, "We will risk a lot to save a lot. We will risk little to save little," became a standard phrase in many departments. Other important lessons were that fire departments should know the layout of all buildings in their district, both abandoned and occupied, and fire prevention efforts should also be doubled for both abandoned and occupied structures. Nine years after the tragedy, a new fire station was constructed on the site of the cold storage warehouse. Next to the station, a memorial now stands, dedicated to the memory of the immortalized Worcester Six. This is Daniel Bermudez, signing off from Worcester, Massachusetts, site of the worst fire disasters in U.S. fire service history.