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I was just looking for some information on the fire that was on the front page of firehouse.com today. It looks like it was a pretty big fire needing 16 fire depts and not having any hydrants for water. I was just wondering first of all how they evacuated all of the residents with no reported injuries (were they ambulatory?) and what challenges they ran into while using tankers for a water resource. Looks like a job very well done on evacuating 137 residents with no injuries.
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FFII/EMT-P -
Managed Care Facility
I am a member in the Western PA Area and what I am expressing is general knowledge that I have gained from TV Reports, newspaper articles, and listening to the call on the scanner.
The Concordia Health facility is partially a managed care facility. From what I understand, staff, EMS and fire all participated in the evacuations There were other facilities on the complex where the residents were able to be relocated during the initial stages of the call. It also helped that a number of the residents were out at church at the time of the call
From what I had heard, the fire started on the third floor and managed to gain quick access to the attic The fire occurred on a fairly windy day and once it hit the roof, it was pushed across the roof at a extremely rapid pace.
The Faciliy is located in a fairly rural area and there are no hydrants as mentioned in the article. The utilized a number of FD Tankers and I saw a number of swimming pool company tankers assisting as well. Considering the lack of water, high life risk, wind, size of the complex, it was truly amazing that there were no deaths and no significant injuries. While it is easy for people to Monday morning quarterback, I believe the responding departments did the best they could under the conditions they faced.
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