Major loss from fire at Grav-i-Flo – Sturgis Journal

Photo: Corky Emrick/Journal

A fire door is being credited with keeping flames contained at a Sturgis manufacturing building.

Just after 5 a.m. Tuesday, Sturgis firefighters were called to the building at Grav-i-Flo at 400 Norwood Ave. Police arrived first and saw flames shooting about 30 feet up from the roof, near the center of the building.

Because of the size of the building, assistance for aerial support form Three Rivers and Bronson was requested. Tri-Township firefighters also were called to assist.

Officials said the fire was contained to a machine room, which was constructed of cinder block and equipped with a fire door that was activated when temperature in the room rose.

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UPDATE: Open stairwell door helped smoke spread after fire broke out in Jane/Finch building – NEWSTALK 1010

afteThree people were found unconscious in a stairwell filled with smoke r a fire broke out in a Jane St. and Finch Ave. highrise building.

The blaze was reported around 11:40 Sunday night at a building on 2850 Jane Street, near Eddystone Avenue.

The fire escalated to three alarms and Toronto paramedics tell NEWSTALK 1010, a child, a woman in her 20s, and a man in his 30s were rushed to hospital suffering from severe smoke inhalation. 

They remain in life-threatening condition. 

Four others were taken to hospital suffering from minor smoke inhalation.

Fire officials say that the three people critically injured were found in a stairwell filled with dense, heavy smoke. The second-floor door to the stairwell was open, helping the smoke quickly spread through the building. The fire marshal’s office is now investigating not only the cause of the fire, but also why the stairwell door was open.

NEWSTALK 1010’s Justine Lewkowicz did a special report earlier this last month on the dangers of entering smoke-filled stairwells when there is a fire in a highrise (audio recording available by following the link above).

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Mother speaks of terror in Belfast flats fire – UTV

Click image below to watch video.

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Dozens Displaced By Suspicious East Columbus Apartment Fire – WBNS-10TV

It happened at Berwick Plaza Apartments in the 3000 block of East Livingston Avenue just before 5:00 p.m. Saturday. Firefighters said it started in the third floor common area.

They said the flames spread quickly on the third floor of the building because many of the people leaving their apartments left their doors open. By doing so, the fire spread further than it should have.

Anissa Mathews said when she head the popping sound of burning wood, she knew there was no way out.

“You couldn’t see and our hallways are lit, so it was just black. Just smoke everywhere,” said Mathews.

Those trapped by the smoke and the flames said they shouted out their windows to the firefighters below them.

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“Close The Door” campaign aims to increase fire safety – KRTV-3

Drake said, “So if there’s a person, if the fire’s out here, if the fire’s raging out here, and the person’s in here, if this door is closed, it’ll get 1800 degrees in this room where the fire is, and it will stay a less than 100 degrees in this room if the door’s shut.” 

Controlling the ember’s flow path is the goal as well as compartmentalizing the fire before flames rage throughout. 

A researcher who attended a recent Montana Mutual Aid conference gave Drake the idea to look further into the “Close the Door” campaign.

Interest also sparked from the Tennessee State Fire Marshal’s initiative to promote Close The Door awareness. 

Drake said, “Is there any reason why we shouldn’t be doing this and he said, ‘I can not figure it out. We need to do this Close The Door campaign and it needs to be coupled with working smoke detectors outside those doors.'” 

As Fire Chief Drake put it, the simple act of closing the door can save the lives and contents behind it. 

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A CLOSED Door, Great Dispatcher, Calm Boy, and VES = 2 Lives Saved! – Green Maltese

This dispatcher does an excellent job coaching this boy to close his door to save his and his sisters life!

This incident is an excellent example of good public fire safety education, a great dispatcher and well trained firefighters that knew how to properly preform VES when those we swore to protect needed us the most!

We have been preaching the CLOSED door message here for several years and and in our class we have identified that there are 5 major domains that need to address and champion this message to save lives!

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Close the Door: Small Towns, Big Impact – Fire Engineering

The information that could save somebody’s life is as simple as three words: “Close the door.” Simple, right? This has been known for quite some time. However, recent research has proved that closing the door can have a major impact on the conditions inside that room.

A fire needs three components to exist: heat, fuel, and oxygen (O2). If any one of these elements are taken away, the growth and direction of that fire is altered, if not eliminated completely. Also, more times than not, the actual fire is not the most lethal part of this event; in most cases, it’s the production of dangerous gases as well as the reduction of other gases that causes these events to become deadly.

A fire produces many dangerous chemicals that make up smoke. A major one is carbon monoxide (CO). Fires today burn much faster because of the heavy synthetics with which our furniture is built. With synthetics and the faster release of their fuel, the fires today are producing larger amounts of smoke and CO than ever before. Along with this faster release comes a limited time to escape.

The first part of this article’s objective will discuss closing your bedroom door before you go to sleep. Many fires as well as research burns show the life-changing conditions that can exist just by closing a bedroom door. For a fairly long amount of time, a simple hollow-core bedroom door can provide refuge and stop the progression of the fire into that living space.

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Tennessee House Fire Offers Valuable Safety Lesson – Fire Engineering

However, Lt. Bobby Morgan with Quint 1 (Q1) said the family did something right, too.

Here is Morgan’s observation, in his own words:

“On the fire at 1207 Crutchfield St on 03/19/15, Q1 crew made entry through the back door for fire attack and search and rescue operations. We were met with high heat and rapid fire conditions, the temp at that time was not readable on the thermal imaging camera. We made an attack on the fire and was able to knock down the fire enough to get to the rear bedrooms for a search. The hallway temp was observed on the thermal imaging camera over 300 degrees. The door to the bedroom where CPD had pulled the occupants out of the window, was closed. Upon entry to the bedroom, the temp was 120 degrees at the ceiling and below a 100 degrees at the floor, with light smoke conditions. The door being closed held back the smoke and high heat long enough to allow the CPD officers to remove the bars from the window and rescue the occupants. I think the public should know just how important it is to close doors when in this type of situation. The door being closed by the occupants allowed that extra time that was needed for CPD to rescue them. We always talk about the importance of a working smoke alarm, but I think we should also let the public know just how important closing doors can be to Life Safety. In this case it helped save their lives.”

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Lives ‘put at risk’ after sheltered accommodation fire exit found taped up – Rossendale Free Press

Photo: Rossendale Free Press

Sheltered accommodation bosses said ‘lives were put at risk’ after a fire exit was taped up – preventing elderly residents getting out.

Police were called to Brandwood sheltered accommodation and found a fire exit door handle had been taped to a railing using masking tape.

A window had also been taped up at the complex, on Staghills Road in Newchurch.

The Regency Group, which is responsible for the site, said they are taking the incidents ‘very seriously’.

A spokesperson said: “We are sickened by the reckless behaviour which clearly put the lives of our residents at risk.

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Randolph Hotel: Flambe cooking thought to be cause of fire – Oxford Mail

Mr Cleary said: “My understanding from investigators is that staff were flambé cooking in the kitchen and the flames went up through the extractor fan.

“From the outside it would have looked like the whole hotel was on fire, because the flames were at the ground floor and the roof.

“But actually, from the kitchen, the flames travelled through the ducting and up the outside wall rapidly and on to the roof without affecting much of the hotel inside.

“The fire doors kept the fire in boxes, rather than letting it spread, so it was a perfect example of why we tell businesses to keep them closed.”

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911 Dispatcher credited for saving lives and homes in Thursday fire – ABC WAAY31

Fire officials say after an early morning fire Thursday, a dispatchers instructions saved a duplex unit from being destroyed.

Find nearby stories News Bayou
The fire started in the kitchen of a unit off Luckers Way in Athens. The resident tried twice to put the grease fire out himself.

“The smoke got too much for me,” Andrew Horton said.

Horton’s friend called 911 for help. The dispatcher, Taylor Shores, told the caller and Horton to shut the interior doors near the flames and get out.

By shutting the door it cut off the oxygen to the fire keeping it from spreading to other units. After getting out safe, Shores said the caller instructed other residents to do the same

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Lives of 650 Lincoln nightclub revellers “put at risk” after owners allowed fire exits to be blocked – Lincolnshire Echo

Part of a former Lincoln city centre night club was closed by fire officers after they declared there was an “imminent risk to life” at the premises, a court heard.

Officers served the Tokyo nightclub, on Silver Street, with a prohibition notice on the afternoon of April 1, 2013, following an inspection in the early hours of that morning.

Lincoln Magistrates Court heard on Wednesday, April 22, how the basement area was closed off to members of the public after serious concerns were raised about the access to emergency exits, the lack of emergency lighting and inadequate signage.

Keiron Davey, of Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue, said: “If a fire had occurred some people would not have reasonably been able to escape due to the fire exits not being available.

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Two years after Bangladesh factory collapse, a massive effort to improve – Omaha.com

But amid the daily garment bustle, another kind of work was also swirling. On the ground floor, engineers and construction workers climbed into a gaping hole around a concrete pillar sprouting metal rebar.

More than 30 concrete columns will be reinforced in this six-story building over several months. Holes punctured the ceiling where a high-tech smoke alarm system will be installed. And newly installed fire doors still had plastic wrapping around their edges.

Two years after the world’s worst garment factory disaster, Bangladesh’s garment industry is immersed in an urgent, massive effort to bring factories up to international safety standards. Inspections of more than 2,700 of 3,500 export facilities had been completed by the end of March. “Remediation” — fixing the litany of problems — is underway.

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Sandiganbayan denies appeals of Ozone Disco fire convicts – Inquirer.net

The court in its conviction said the officials conspired with each other to ignore the rules under the National Building Code.

For one, the building has a swing-in entrance door, a violation of the building code, the court said. The entrance door also served as the exit door, which jammed as hundreds of people tried to escape. The persons trapped behind the jammed door burned to death.

The exit door at the VIP lounge was also obstructed by a sofa and an LPG tank, the court said. The exit door also only led to a fire wall.

“Notably, the pile of dead bodies found at the point of entrance/exit of the main dance floor remains a standing testament to the violation [by] Ozone Disco Club [of] the safety requirements on the provision of an exit door,” the court said in its conviction.

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