One of the more difficult fires to extinguish is a fire in multi-family residential buildings. The main hazards resulting from the development of such a fire are smoke emerging and rising in a convection column. Particularly during fires on the lower floors of a building and in basements, smoke cuts off the escape route for people living above.
Smoke displaces the air, and people exposed to such an atmosphere suffer poisoning. To fully experience such a fire, three apartments in buildings on an abandoned estate—inhabited many years ago by Soviet troops—were prepared for the exercises. These buildings were constructed approximately 50–60 years ago using the so-called large-panel system. The five-storey buildings had withstood more than 20 years without residents relatively well.
The exercises, held in mid-September, began with a discussion of safety rules. The objectives of the exercises and the individual planned scenarios were also discussed. The arriving crews were assigned specific tasks. At the exercise leader’s signal, combustible materials previously gathered in the apartments were set alight. Groups of crews were successively deployed to the operation. Each of the three groups was tasked with securing the scene, conducting a detailed assessment of the situation, particularly with regard to people present and at risk in the building (including casualties), extinguishing the fire, and preventing it from spreading during these operations.
During these operations, one designated crew that was not taking part in the exercise formed a safety team. Each section also had to conduct a water-supply assessment and simulate operations related to disconnecting the building’s electricity and gas supply. The exercising rescuers used respiratory protection equipment, deployed firefighting hose lines and applied streams of water to the burning materials. In the final scenario, dry chemical powder was also used while extinguishing an apartment.
After each scenario, the firefighters jointly discussed conclusions and observations arising from what they had seen. Not only observers spoke, but also those who had taken a direct part in the operations. It should be noted that critical comments were not avoided, and all participants understood that the errors identified during the exercises had to be eliminated, which would improve performance during real-life operations.
Everyone agreed that the best way to learn effective firefighting is through exercises that reflect the realism of actual operations.
Janusz Gabryś/ii; the title comes from the editorial team and refers to a video about Pstrąże near Bolesławiec (Bolesławiec commune) made by brothers Marek and Darek Hoffman from Poznań, creators of the popular YouTube channels AdBuster and SciFun, this time as Tube Raiders. More on the subject can be found in the article Pstrąże, or the “Post-Soviet Ghost Town,” through the eyes of Tube Raiders