I don’t post just photos very often but these are some of the more incredible pictures that I have seen in a while. All the photos were taken by Tom Carmody. These are Pawtucket firefighters shortly after venting the roof and returning to the ladder, this happened on their way back. All the firefighters ended up with minor injuries.
Tom has a large amount of photos from this fire, these are only a few of them. Please visit his site to see the whole fire.
Here is a link to Tom Camodys webpage
Now here is a bang up job and some great first due footage. You can nay-say all you want on this fire but to me this looks like an extremely professional and aggressive job done by these companies. Lines are flaked and put into service very quickly, door is forced and lines are advanced into the two most threatened areas of the home. Ground ladders are put into place on multiple sides of the home. Crew performs VES on the top floor. Truck goes to the roof and opens up the attic of a balloon frame that likely has fire in it. It is clear that everyone here knows their job and has a task, there is no one trying to figure out what comes next, or hanging back a little bit hesitating. Tactics are being done Proactively ahead of the need, not reactively because things are going downhill. Well done guys, great example to all.
Here is an interesting video that shows about as close of call as you can get. I just saw this over at http://www.workingthejob.blogspot.com/ . If you have not seen his blog yet check it out, it is a good one. The comments that workingthejob.com made pretty much cover my thoughts on this video, I am not going to repeat them all. But a few things I must say, I agree we are only seeing a small picture into a larger situation so I am not going to comment like I was there or pretend to know the whole situation. This obviously is a smaller department (guessing by the amount of white hats on the roof and fire ground), which may also have budget issues or are not issued the proper equipment. If you take a close look at the saw that is being carried off of the roof after the situation happens you can see that it is a smaller saw that is very under equipped to handle venting roofing materials. It appears it may even be an “echo” style homeowner brand chain saw. If we are assigned to vertically ventilate a lightweight pitched roof one of the safest things we can do is vent it quickly and then get off. Especially if this fire is already in the attic. Anyways I don’t need to describe the rest, you will see it for yourself.
IRONSandLADDERS.com 
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