A fire in the occupied Cobblestone Ale House provides us with the obvious challenges of evacuation, search, rescue and, of course, the fire. Because it occurred on a Saturday evening in a college town at 10 p.m., predictable challenges were increased. The Keene, NH, Fire Department (KFD) faced the tough reality that multiple tasks were required of members immediately.
Our sincere appreciation goes to Chief Mark Howard, Capt. Jim Pearsall, Lt. Aaron Cooper, the members of the KFD, Diluzio Ambulance, the responding mutual aid departments (more than 90 personnel) and the on-duty dispatchers, Lt. David Whipple and Dispatcher David Bryce.
Trapped residents
Cobblestone Ale House typically is filled with college students. It’s less than 1,000 square feet inside and has two exits. The semester hadn’t started, so there weren’t as many patrons as usual for a Saturday night. Next to the bar is a Domino’s and then an ice cream parlor that was closed. Seven apartments upstairs are accessed via two stairwells. The building is ordinary construction and has forced notification alarms but no fire protection.
Fire was spreading upward rapidly and into voids between the floors and the roof.
On arrival, it was confirmed that a woman was trapped on the second floor. She was on the phone with dispatchers coughing/screaming that she couldn’t get out.
At this time, only the shift commander, two engines (one from each station) and two ambulances were on scene (10 personnel). The tower ladder arrived soon after (three off-duty personnel as call members).
Account from Cooper
At the top of the stairs, the smoke was black and about a foot off of the floor, with no heat. I used the TIC to check the hallway and saw a woman about 30 feet away from me. She was on her feet, but she wasn’t moving. I walked to her and grabbed her hand and instructed her to follow me. She wouldn’t move. I set down my tool, picked up the woman, put her over my shoulder and carried her down the stairs backward, leaving my firefighter on division 2 alone.
I brought the woman to the front of the building and placed her in the care of a police officer. I immediately went back upstairs to find my crew. I went into the first apartment that I came to and hit clutter.
I used the TIC again, but it wasn’t effective. I realized that I was disoriented. Most everything was white, with no contrast.
At this point, my vibra-alert sounded. I made one more loop around the room, and I found the bathroom door. I decided to call my mayday.
I felt calm and like I was in a training scenario. Howard advised me to look for a window, and I pushed through the debris, believing that I was headed for side A. I made it to the kitchen to what felt like a block wall, but there were no windows.
I went back down to the floor to start to conserve air. I had been communicating with Pearsall and had set off my PASS alarm manually as soon as I headed for the windows.
Soon after I made the decision to conserve air, Pearsall found me, and I saw his flashlight. We exited without issue.
After I came out, I immediately swapped my bottle and did a face-to-face with Howard and let him know that I was good.
Because of staffing, I went back to division 2, and we placed the hoseline in a good spot to protect egress for two members who were completing the primary search in the rear apartments. About at this point, command decided to move operations to defensive.
Looking back, I don’t like my decision to split up my crew, but it was what was needed at that moment. If one of them declared a mayday, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself.
Account from Pearsall
I had black smoke coming from the side, where a door to the bar was open. There was visible fire at the doorway, and fire was coming out of the C/B-side door, which also was open. Smoke and fire were coming from the bar area only. The fire wasn’t contained to the appliance.
I reported to dispatch that we had a working fire, struck a second alarm and directed Engine 1 to move around to the rear of the building.
A significant number of people were out on the street. While I donned my gear, I asked the crowd whether everyone was out, and they stated, “Yes.”
Walking back to A-side, I was in the process of giving directions when dispatch reported that it had a subject on the phone who was trapped on division 2. They also reported hearing multiple voices and that it was unknown how many people were inside. Crews were advised of the update.
Tower 1 had signed on responding and was instructed to position its truck on the A/B corner and was instructed to assist with rescues on division 2.
I struck a third alarm because of the lack of staffing and the increasing fire conditions and confirmed that victims were on the second floor of the fire building.
Howard arrived on scene and assumed command. As a result, I was reassigned to the command of search and rescue on the second floor of the building.
We didn’t have enough staffing to accomplish the multiple simultaneous tasks that were required.
The notification of trapped victims and the rapidly changing fire conditions happened in a very short amount of time.
On my arrival on the second floor, smoke banked down to the floor, and I barely was able to make out my own hand in front of me. There wasn’t much heat.
The incident commander (IC) reported that we now had fire on the second floor.
At about this point, Cooper called a mayday and gave his location and conditions. I tried to call Cooper directly to ask him whether he could hear me hitting the floor with a Halligan bar, but there was no response from him. Through his communications with the IC, he believed that he was on A-side somewhere.
I started the search on the right side of the room, and something caught my attention. I crawled to it, and it was Cooper. I grabbed him by the SCBA strap and radioed to command that I had him and that we were on our way out.
I went back up to make sure that everyone was coming out of the second floor. I met with Seymour, and he reported that he was the last member. We all came out of the building and were accounted for.
Over the past year, members of C-shift have trained on search and rescue, maydays and a live fire training, during which all of these skills were practiced. With multiple probationary firefighters being assigned to the shift, the crew has had a lot of training on basic skills.
Comments from Howard
- Run cards are set with two RIT teams on second alarm. Neither unit was on scene at the time of the mayday.
- Fire conditions at the time of the mayday: 50 percent of the fire that was seen on arrival on floor 1 in the bar was knocked down, but the fire already got into the voids of walls and ceilings. There was no fire in the other two stores or above at the time of the fire, but it was auto-exposing to floor 2 from the front windows at A/B corner.
- Because of staffing, I assumed command on arrival and directed the captain to pack up and assist with rescue on division 2, because there only was a three-person crew there. Two lines already were in operation from Engine 1,
- and they were making progress. Tower 1 (crew of three) also was directed by the IC even before its arrival to get to floor 2 to assist with search and rescue.
- Cooper was very calm. It reminded me of us training in the training tower and the role-planning scenario with the IC, etc., over the radio. I could hear his vibra-alert. He reported that he believed that he was on A-side in a room.
- In the time that it took to report to dispatch on the primary channel that we had a mayday and to dispatch the fourth alarm, the captain who was on floor 2
- called and reported that he had the missing firefighter and that they were walking out. It was approximately two minutes.
- The problem was in the first few minutes of the incident, and other crews weren’t on scene. Two in and two out is important, but in this case, our available members were making searches because of reports of more than one civilian on floor 2, which later proved to be inaccurate. Our members did very well, and the problem was cleared quickly. Under worse conditions or if there was entrapment, we would have had trouble because of the needed resources not yet being on scene.
Comments from Goldfeder
The KFD was staffed with 10 personnel that night. When you calculate the required tasks, they were very fortunate to have a successful rescue, secure a mayday and stop the fire from spreading farther.
There are many historic examples when that wasn’t at all the outcome. Neither Keene nor any other community can count on that to be a predictable outcome.
Mutual aid is critical in most areas. Unfortunately, as good as any volunteer department might be, North America is in a crisis related to the reliability of unstaffed volunteer firehouses. Between extreme recruitment and retention challenges and turnout times that are affected by available members not being in quarters—or not available—the fire will win in almost every case. Just listen to the radio and look at the statistics for proof.
The Southwestern New Hampshire District Fire Mutual Aid dispatch center is focused on being a fire-centric operation. It understands field operations and trains and prepares for that. Its professionalism was proven at this fire.
Call for help the moment that you believe that you might need it, because it can be too late to call for it when you actually do need it. Build heavy first and additional alarm assignments to get more staffing than you might need.
ICs should ask the questions, “What if things turn bad right now? Would I be able to handle the fire, rescues and a mayday simultaneously?” Unless you are a department in a metropolitan city, the answer is no—and even metropolitan departments have been challenged.
Plan your alarm assignments based on the reality of what will show and how quickly. Have at least as many firefighters “on the bench” as you have operating.
I recently had division A at a working fire of our own, and I had to go a few minutes without resources in staging or on deck. It wasn’t a good feeling.
Gear up on fire runs
Firefighters are expected to be professional, not comfortable. The fire department is expected by the people who live in the community that it serves to be ready, fit, educated and prepared to address what’s making the day the worst day of those folks’ life. Arrive ready, fully geared, with the right tools. If the KFD crews weren’t ready and trained, this would have been a different story. “Oh, this won’t happen to us” is a myth.
The KFD members are proud that they train daily and gear up on fire runs, and they focus on the run being a fire—and having victims—until they confirm differently. They are aware of the challenges that they have related to staffing on duty and mutual aid. Although they learned much during the course of this incident, much was reiterated, and this is an incident that we all should review using our own scenarios and local response plan.
This time, the fire was all that the members of the department could imagine, and although challenged, they were able to take care of the customers, both public (trapped victim) and internally (firefighter mayday).
