The smoky blaze reported at about 10:30 a.m. injured 38 people, including five firefighters, said FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh. Two tenants of the building at 429 E. 52nd St. had life-threatening injuries.
Two dozen residents escaped to the roof of the smoke-filled building, between First Ave. and Sutton Place — and ended up stranded there, as firefighters battled the blaze 17 stories below, on the building’s 20th floor.
The fire broke out when a lithium-ion battery attached to an e-bike exploded by the front door of a 20th-floor apartment, said FDNY Chief Fire Marshall Daniel Flynn.
Two tenants unable to escape by the front door — their only way out of the apartment — instead tried to go out a window.
Video posted to Twitter showed a woman hanging from a window ledge of the apartment as the blaze raged inside. Her left arm was wrapped in a drape, said witness Ken Gunsberger.
“(There were) massive amounts of smoke coming out of a window,” Gunsberger said. “(The tenants were) literally choking from smoke.
The women hung on for her life for five minutes, Gunsberger said. “I didn’t know how she was going to stay there,” he said. “I’m like, ‘If they don’t grab her, that’s it.’”
The rescue was “a Herculean team effort” that involved lowering four firefighters with ropes from the apartment just above the site of the blaze, said FDNY Chief Frank Leeb.
A firefighter from Ladder 16, Belvon Koranteng, was lowered down to the apartment first, “and got valuable intelligence,” Leeb said — including the fact that the dangling woman’s clothes were caught on the apartment’s window guard, which is meant to protect children from falling.
Then, Firefighter Artur Podgorski, also from Ladder 16, hanging from a rope, grabbed hold of the woman. He and another firefighter hanging from a rope freed her from the window guard, Leeb said.
Then Podgorski and his colleague were lowered with the woman to colleagues waiting at the open window of an apartment one floor below.
“In my ENTIRE life I’ve never seen anything more #HEROIC than what i witnessed from #NYC apt.,” said Patti Ryan as she tweeted out video of the rescue.
Firefighters used the lifesaving rope to pull one more tenant from the burning apartment. A third person in the apartment was rescued from the inside as the blaze was knocked down, said Leeb.
A rope rescue “is a last resort in the FDNY,” said Leeb. “It was an incredibly dangerous situation, to put our members on a rope from the 20th floor,” he added. “Training and preparation is what it’s all about.”
“It was 100% teamwork,” said Darren Harsch, one of the four firefighters who roped down to the scene. “It’s an extremely rare type of rescue to put four members on a rope. Today is pretty special.”
The rescued women were handed to the care of EMS workers, who took them from the scene “within a few minutes,” Leeb said.
“Our firefighters, EMS and dispatch did an extraordinary job rescuing civilians, including an incredible roof rope rescue,” said Kavanagh. “I cannot emphasize enough the incredible work that they did today.”
Other firefighters went door to door to evacuate the building, while 911 dispatchers responded to numerous calls of people trapped in their apartments.
On the 20th floor near the apartment where the blaze broke out, resident Craig Geller was awakened by his parents, who were visiting from Florida. “I did not hear an alarm,” Geller said.
Firefighters “told us to shelter in place for a while and put wet towels under the door,” Geller said.
As Geller and his parents waited for help, the “smoke kept getting much more thick,” he remembered.
“It was pretty terrifying,” he said. “Then the firefighters came, and we went down the stairs — but they were wet, and my father tripped. So now he’s in the hospital.”
Fire Marshal Flynn said a tenant in the apartment where the fire erupted ran a business repairing e-bikes and scooters. Charging e-bike or micro-mobility device batteries are blamed in nearly 200 apartment fires so far this year, he said.
“We recovered at least five e-bikes from this apartment,” the Flynn said.
Firefighters responded to the building within three minutes, Flynn said — but the fire was already raging, said Flynn.
That is common with lithium-ion battery fires, Flynn said — the batteries quickly erupt into flames.
“When they do go on fire, they are so intense that all combustibles in the area will catch fire,” Flynn said.
“This is not what we have seen traditionally where fires are slow to develop. We are encountering a fully developed fire when firefighters arrive on the scene.”
Fires sparked by lithium-ion batteries are responsible for six deaths so far this year, Flynn said..
There have been twice as many e-bike and e-scooter battery fires so far this year than in all of 2021, the Fire Department says. Last year, 104 fires were sparked by lithium-ion batteries, resulting in 79 injuries and four deaths.
A warden with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources said the woman sustained head and neck injuries and was med flighted to the hospital.
Baraboo Fire and Rope Rescue were dispatched to the scene where they utilized technical rescue methods. This means they would either carry the patient out in a basket or use ropes to bring them to safety.
Baraboo Assistant Fire Chief Mark Willer said the department responds to anywhere from 20 to 30 calls at Devil's Lake each year. He said majority are for injuries like a sprained ankle, but more serious injuries aren't uncommon.
It can be slippery due to dust or water or just the smoothness of the stones because of how many people walk on them," Willer added.
Willer said his team goes through intense training to prepare for emergencies on the rough terrain. He said they learn rope rescue techniques which are often used when someone is hurt further off the trail.
To avoid being on the other end of that rope, Willer offered a few recommendations before hitting the trail.
"You definitely want to plan your trip ahead, you definitely want to take a partner, or let somebody know your going and where you're going," he explained. "We want people to know their limitations so they don't get caught in a position where we have to come out and rescue them."
A warden with the Department of Natural Resources said the last known condition of the woman hurt on Monday was serious to critical.
]]>In January 2014, VFRS rolled out training programs that enhanced the technical skills of the firefighters. The first step was to ensure that each firefighter had the basic skills and knowledge for technical rescue. VFRS was the first fire service in the province to have all 300 firefighters tested by the Office of the Fire Marshal and Emergency Management (OFMEM) to NFPA 1006, Chapter 5 – otherwise known as the core requirements to enter into any NFPA 1006 discipline-specific technical specialty program, such as confined-space rescue, trench rescue, water rescue, or rope rescue.
All 300 VFRS firefighters wrote a one-hour, 100-question exam proctored by the OFMEM, which covered a range of topics from incident command to helicopter signals, and mass casualty triage protocols to rope equipment. A minimum score of 70 per cent was required to pass the theory exam. The practical exam was graded on a pass/fail basis; there was no notification about which specific skills from the job-performance requirements would be part of the test. Candidates were allowed to be unsuccessful on one attempt and retest to pass the skills portion. A second failure would result in a failure for the entire skills-testing portion of the exam.
“We are proud of all our firefighters who have gone through the testing process, and who have increased their professional standing in order to remain credible to their colleagues, city officials and the public they serve,” said VFRS Chief Larry Bentley.
The practical testing of performance objectives was conducted by the OFMEM to ensure that the skills proficiency was evaluated by a third party. All firefighters showcased their manipulative skills to a third-party evaluator by demonstrating specific skills and objectives safely and competently.
NFPA 1006 is the professional qualification document that details what knowledge, skills, and abilities individual rescuers need to know. NFPA 1006 identifies job-performance requirements for a variety of technical-rescue environments including rope rescue, confined space and water rescue. The purpose of NFPA 1006 “is to specify the minimum job-performance requirements for service as a rescuer in an emergency response organization.”
The VFRS has 10 fire stations, 12 frontline apparatus, and a minimum of 50 on-duty firefighters on each 24-hour shift. Four of the stations are designated as specialty halls, covering technical-rescue disciplines including rope rescue, water rescue, vehicle and machinery rescue, confined-space rescue, structural-collapse rescue, and trench rescue. Four other stations are designated as the backup for each of the specialty teams.
While firefighters graduate from training programs or colleges and are hired with NFPA 1001 (Standard for Firefighter Professional Qualifications), NFPA 1006 core competency training builds on that knowledge and expands on operational tactics used during an incident.
With more diversity in the types of technical rescue that fire departments are performing, and with new, specialized equipment, procedures and regulations, there are greater demands on rescue personnel to possess increasingly complex skills.
NFPA standards have become the norm for those who respond to technical rescue incidents, with the goal of providing a common framework for rescue training and operations, and limiting liability. Training is paramount to successful operations at incidents; this is why the VFRS decided to focus on the NFPA 1006 certification process.
The City of Vaughan is rapidly growing, with a population of more than 314,000; there are three major 400-series highways, the CN Rail yard, which is the largest rail yard in Canada, and the CP intermodal line, on which goods and people travel through the city’s borders every day. All of these factors contribute to call volume and the wide range of incident types.
With intensification within the city and a population that is expected to continue grow at a rate of 20 per cent over the next 15 years, the demands on the VFRS will undoubtedly increase. In addition, Mother Nature has tested our resources, equipment, personnel and rescue skills with the 2009 F2 tornado that affected 600 homes, the 2011 York Region flooding, and the 2013 ice storm.
Bentley says increasing the capacity of training and operations links the department’s level of service to its philosophy: “treating our citizens as customers, deserving of the highest quality of service.” That’s why, Bentley says, the VFRS expanded beyond fire suppression to the technical-rescue skills it provides.
Thirteen trainers selected from the floor were trained by Spartan Rescue Inc. to NFPA 1006 Chapter 6.2 (technical rope rescue), and these instructors rolled out the program in their own platoons. Regular committee meetings were held to address training and equipment issues, future training, and continuation of the training as an instructor group.
The skills-verification process is also about firefighter safety. Though the NFPA standard sets out job-performance requirements outlining required skills a rescuer must be able to perform, there is little guidance as to how to safely and efficiently perform the skills.
Having the OFMEM provide an external verification of skills added a layer of accountability to the level of competency maintained by members of VFRS. Management, VFRS firefighters and Spartan Rescue collaborated to create training resources including video tutorials, course guides, a photo library and practical training lessons to provide a consistent level of competency among all 300 members. Equipment staging, department response SOGs and tactical worksheets were then created to provide a consistent level of customer service in technical-rescue emergencies.
“This training program is one of the many successful initiatives in a series, all of which has been attained with far less procedural turbulence than anticipated,” Bentley said.
Bentley said co-operation with the firefighter association was key.
“As a newly appointed fire chief . . . I reached out to the labour group. This has truly proven to be a defining move for us in the fire service. The leadership of the labour group had also recently experienced a change, and together we have entered into an open, honest and accountable partnership based on trust and respect for each of the respective labour/management factions.”
Although VFRS is proud to be the first fire service in Ontario to have all of its firefighters certified in NFPA 1006, Chapter 5, the true goals of the VFRS were to increase the level of health and safety of our firefighters, to establish a commitment to the technical disciplines we provide, and to ensure we deliver the highest level of service to the citizens of Vaughan. The VFRS has been successful in achieving these goals by working together as a team.
]]>The CFD technical rescue team set up a tripod above the opening so that a firefighter and CFD fire response paramedic could be safely lowered down into the shaft to assess the patient. Air monitoring of the confined space was performed to ensure adequate air quality for the safety of the patient as well as the two rescuers. The patient was then secured so that he could be safely lifted out of the hole. Once the patient was removed, his care was then transferred to waiting EMS personnel where he was then rushed to an area hospital.
Occupational Health and Safety has been called to the scene to investigate this workplace accident.
]]>