Baltimore City Fire Department, Independent Investigation ...

the plywood that was on the front door; the other member that ‘ah assisted
with throwing the 35 foot ladder was then gone to assist in throwing a 24 foot
ladder to the second floor. ‘Ah, we talked about some ‘ah truck operations;
talked about pullin’ the ladder off; which way to ‘ah turn it so how you
would be in towards…So I did some instructing first. ‘Um, explained
everthing to ‘em…
(Beeper sounding in background)
Interviewee: …told ‘em that there will be some difficulties with this structure because it
had an elevated front. It had ‘ah railings. There were some obstacles that
they had to overcome and ‘um went over all that. ‘Ah, asked ‘em if they had
any questions on what we were supposed to do. ‘Ah, and then we started.
‘Um, they ignited the fire. We went into operations. We threw a 35 foot
ladder. A member started with a hose, engine companies came up with hose
lines. The member assigned to open the door started opening up the front
door, which was plywooded. ‘Ah, another member went up. ‘Ah, as soon as
the hose lines were charged, he busted out the window…
(Beeper sounding in background)
Interviewee: …’Ah, he came back down. We, the second ladder was thrown, we opened
that up. I could see ‘ah on the second floor the flames ‘ah from the way it,
they put the ‘ah excelsior, it was to the north side, which would be the Bravo
side, was a little bit. So it came up that corner which I had looked through
the structure before we started our operations. It came across the ceiling.
You could see the fire ‘ah comin’ across the top of the ceiling. ‘Ah, we, then,
went in. The engine companies had advanced the hose lines upstairs. There
was some smoke on the first floor. We started bustin’ out the plywood there.
Then, ‘ah, I made my way to the ‘ah, actually, when I put my face piece on…
(Beeper sounding in background)
Interviewee: …everybody’s face, had their face pieces on first before we started the
operations. I didn’t have mine on ‘cause I was standin’ out instructing.
Once they completed, I put my face piece on. My face piece started to free
flow. It’s froze up. I took it back off. I shook it; put it back on. It started to
work properly. I went up to the second floor. The second floor had been
extinguished. There were some minor ‘ah hot spots. ‘Ah, I started
instructin’ the engine company that was up there to hit the hot spots. Then, I
heard on the radio that they had ‘ah a firefighter trapped…
(Beeper sounding in background)
Interviewee: …I think it was, there was some, there was some distress talkin’ on the ‘ah
radio. ‘Ah, there was a lot of people on the landings and on the stairways. I
tried to clear, sayin’ I was tellin’ people to move off the stairways and stuff
and ‘ah, ‘ah, basically that’s all I knew. I didn’t know anyone had gotten
injured or anything ‘cause I really, most of my operations, after the front
was ventilated and everything was on the second floor. There wasn’t much…
Interviewer: Right.
Interviewee: …‘ah, pullin’ the ceilins’ ‘cause already the ceilings were down and
everything.