Remembering the “23rd Street Fire” October 17, 1966-2019; 53th Anniversary and Remembrances On October 17th, 1966, Manhattan Dispatch recorded an alarm from a resident at 7 East 22nd Street for smoke on the 4th floor of a brownstone. Box 0598 was transmitted at 2136 hours. Engine 14, 3 & 16, Ladders 3 & 12, Battalion […]

FDNY Brooklyn Box 4080: 17 Vandalia Avenue 12.18.1998

All Units standby for an important transmission; Thursday October 05, 2017 the premier episode of BuildingsonFire’s Taking it to the Street Launches on FireEngineering.com / Talk Radio. (Here) Host Christopher Naum leads a timely discussion on Emerging Trends in Building Construction and their Impacts on Firefighting Operations with scheduled guests; Battalion Chief Jerry Tracy, (ret) FDNY, Division Chief Peter […]

Lessons from the Fireground: The Strand Theater Fire Brockton (MA) 1941; 13 Firefighter LODD 1941-2017 The 76th Anniversary and Remembrance of the Strand Theater Strand Theatre Background The Strand Theater was first erected in 1915 on the site of a previous theatre which was destroyed by fire on April 7, 1915. The Strand Theatre opened […]

Eleven Minutes to Mayday: Lessons from 2008 Resonate Today

The Predictability of Building Performance must take into consideration that in the context of today’s fire ground, buildings and fire dynamics, small changes on initial compartment or structure conditions may often produce and result in large-scale or magnitude changes that affect the long term outcome of the incident. We have assumed that the routiness or […]

Before Making Entry, while in the street; Has someone completed or assigned the reconn for a 360 of the building? Have you looked at the Building and its Profile and Understood what you’re looking at? Made a Rapid Risk Assessment? Assessed the Building’s Anatomy? Considered the Compartment? Considered the Fire Dynamics? Assessed the Predictability of […]

Operational Considerations for Residential Basement Fires Basement fires in both residential and commercial occupancies are one of the most challenging tactical operations that present numerous risk factors requiring the highest degree of situational awareness, training skill sets and continuous incident monitoring and assessment to gauge building structural integrity, fire behavior and fire dynamics and corresponding […]

Buildingsonfire Lessons from the Fireground – NIST/Simulation of a Fire in a Hillside Residential Structure San Francisco, CA On June 2, 2011, a fire in a multi-level, wood-frame residential structure claimed the life of two firefighters of the San Francisco (CA) Fire Department. NIST examined the fire dynamics of this incident at the request of […]