First-Arriving Engine at 5th Avenue and Pine Street
At 02:05, Engine 214 is the first-arriving engine at a fire in a two-story taxpayer at the corner of 5th Avenue and Pine Street. You approach northbound on 5th Avenue from the south. The building occupies the northeast corner: its address side faces 5th Avenue (west), and its north side faces Pine Street. It measures 80 feet along 5th Avenue and 50 feet along Pine Street. The chauffeur stops on 5th Avenue facing north, 40 feet south of the Pine Street curb; the hydrant is 30 feet behind the apparatus. Fire is showing from a second-floor window on the Pine Street side near the rear of the building, and smoke is pushing across Pine Street toward the east. The main entrance is on 5th Avenue, 20 feet north of the building's south corner. One interior stair runs up the rear wall. The rear of the building faces an alley to the east. Side labeling for this response: Alpha faces 5th Avenue, Bravo is to the right as you face Alpha, Charlie is the rear, Delta is the left.
1. Which labeled side is burning, and which direction is the smoke traveling? Show how the labeling produces your answer.
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Answer: The fire is on the Delta side, in its rear portion. Smoke is traveling east along Pine Street.
Reasoning: You face Alpha from 5th Avenue, which means you are standing west of the building looking east. Your right hand points south and your left hand points north. Pine Street is the north side, so Pine Street is Delta; the alley to the east is Charlie; the south side is Bravo.
The fire window is on the Pine Street face, so it is Delta. 'Near the rear' places it at the north-east portion of the building, at the Delta/Charlie corner - that is where a ladder will be needed and where the fire will try to run the cockloft toward the alley exposure.
Smoke pushing across Pine Street toward the east means the wind has a westerly component, driving products down Pine Street and into the buildings east of the alley. Any exposure line belongs on the Charlie side and on the buildings east along Pine Street, not on 5th Avenue.
2. Estimate the hose stretch from the apparatus to a second-floor line at the fire window, and state the route.
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Route: front door on Alpha, then along the interior to the rear stair, up to the second floor, then to the Delta-side window.
Estimate the horizontal runs: the entrance sits 20 feet north of the south corner, and the building is 80 feet along 5th Avenue, so the entrance is 60 feet south of the Pine Street curb. The apparatus is stopped 40 feet south of the Pine Street curb, which puts it 20 feet south of the entrance. From the door, the stair is on the rear wall, roughly 50 feet in - the building's depth from 5th Avenue to the alley.
Total: 20 (apparatus to door) + 50 (door to rear stair) + about 10 (stair to window) + 20 (vertical, two floors) = about 100 feet of travel. Add slack for corners and the stairwell and plan on 150 feet, laid with a 200-foot preconnect or a 100 plus a 50.
Check: a stretch that comes up short at the top of a stair is the classic failure here. Better to have a length left over at the door than to be 15 feet short on the second floor.
3. Ladder 118 arrives second and wants to reach the visible second-floor window. Where should the aerial or ground ladder go, and what should the engine officer tell the ladder officer about the building?
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Placement: Pine Street, on the Delta side, working toward the Delta/Charlie corner where the fire window is. Pine Street is the side with the visible fire and the side a trapped occupant would go to, so it gets the ladder regardless of where the engine's line went.
What to pass on:
- The fire is in the rear portion of the Delta side, second floor - the window they can see is the fire window, so the ladder is for rescue and for access to the floor above, not for horizontal ventilation of an unoccupied room.
- The only interior stair is on the rear wall, on the same side as the fire. If the stair is the engine's access route, the ladder company needs to know before they open the Delta windows, or they will push fire onto the crew on the stair.
- The smoke is moving east along Pine Street, which says the wind is at the Alpha/Delta corner; opening on Delta will draw the fire toward the rear and the alley exposure.
- Charlie is an alley with a cockloft exposure to the east - that side needs a line or at least a check before the fire gets into the void.