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148<br />
Fire at 62 Watts Street<br />
The New York fi re service received a call on 24 March 1994 to say that<br />
smoke was coming out of a chimney on a three-storey house in Manhattan,<br />
New York. 42 The building contained four apartments, with one<br />
on each fl oor. All the apartments could be accessed from a common<br />
stairwell, apart from the apartment at basement level, which had a separate<br />
entrance. The building, which dated from the end of the 19th<br />
century, but had been recently renovated, was considered to be very<br />
exclusive. Figure 112 shows a sketch of the building.<br />
When the fi re service arrived at the scene, with three fi re engines<br />
and two ladder engines, smoke was coming from the chimney, but there<br />
were no other visible signs of any fi re burning. The fi refi ghters were<br />
instructed to open the roof hatch at the top of the stairwell and two<br />
crews of fi refi ghters with breathing apparatus were instructed to enter<br />
the apartments on the ground and fi rst fl oor respectively using the<br />
same stairwell. The crew on the ground fl oor opened the apartment<br />
door and noticed air being drawn in to the apartment. This was followed<br />
by a hot outgoing current of air, which caused a backdraught<br />
with fl ames reaching from the door right out into the stairwell. The<br />
fl ames then stretched from the ground fl oor even right up through the<br />
roof hatch in the stairwell and lasted six and a half minutes. The crew<br />
on the ground fl oor managed to duck and get themselves back out<br />
through the stairwell. The crew on the fi rst fl oor did not have any<br />
escape route and the three fi refi ghters perished in this backdraught.<br />
This example illustrates that caution is required, even during operations<br />
which, on the surface, seem to be routine and familiar. There may<br />
be factors involved which mean that the operation will have devastating<br />
consequences if the usual measures are taken in wrong situations.<br />
Where did all the fuel come from that was able to sustain the fl ames for<br />
so long? A sketch of the ground fl oor is shown in Figure 113.<br />
The apartment owner had left home at around 6.30 AM. He had placed<br />
a bin liner on the gas hob, which was switched off. But it was probably<br />
the cooker’s pilot fl ame which ignited the bin liner. The fi re then spread
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