In the early morning hours of August 24th, 2009,
the Buffalo Fire Department was dispatched to 1815 Greene St. for a commercial
building fire with reported people trapped.
The building was heavily secured, but crews were able to access the
first and second floors to conduct primary searches which were negative. Access to the basement, however, presented
difficulties due to a heavy steel door with multiple deadbolts.
Thirty minutes into the incident, firefighters were ordered
out to regroup and make a specific attempt to breach the basement door on the
bravo side of the building. Lieutenant
Charles “Chip” McCarthy from Rescue 1 and two other firefighters entered the
first floor Deli area from the alpha side to verify that previous crews had
exited the building. McCarthy was ahead
of the other two firefighters and following a hose line when a collapse
occurred. The Lieutenant fell into the
basement. Shelves fell onto the other
two firefighters who also noted deteriorating conditions, and exited the
building, unaware that McCarthy had fallen into the fire below. Lieutenant McCarthy activated his PASS alarm
and made several MAYDAY radio calls, but his identification and location were
not known.
Firefighter John “Simeon” Croom of Ladder 7, part of the
rapid intervention team (RIT), reportedly believed he knew where the Lieutenant
was located and entered the structure while other team members worked on the
bravo side. Other firefighters followed
the hose line in on the alpha side and discovered the collapse.
Lieutenant McCarthy was identified as the missing firefighter
during the first accountability check, but Firefighter Croom was not identified
as missing until a third such check fifty plus minutes after the initial
MAYDAY. Ultimately, three alarms were
struck for the fire. For the next three
hours, a major effort was made to reach the collapse area. Fire conditions and structural concerns
limited the ability to reach the victims.
The wall on the delta side was breached to gain access to the collapse
area and the department worked to shore this exterior wall and the floor in the
deli area.
After control of the fire, Lieutenant McCarthy and
Firefighter Croom were located, side-by-side in the basement without face
pieces on and with SCBA bottles empty. A
subsequent NIOSH report included the following recommendations.
·
Ensure that all personnel are aware of the
dangers of working above a fire, especially a basement fire, and develop,
implement, and enforce a standard operating procedure (SOP) that addresses
strategies and tactics for this type of fire.
·
Ensure that the incident commander (IC)
receives interior status reports and performs/continues evaluating
risk-versus-gain.
·
Ensure that crew integrity is maintained at
all times on the fireground.
·
Ensure that the incident commander (IC) receives
accurate personnel accountability reports (PAR) so that he can account for all
personnel operating at an incident.
·
Ensure that a separate incident safety
officer, independent from the incident commander, is appointed at each
structure fire.
On
the third anniversary of their passing, may the brothers’ rest in peace.
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