SigEp Fire - Devistating

What a horrible experience. This fire was so big that I was scared most of the time I was watching it. Many people don't realize what kind of problems happen when fighting a fire. If you look at the video you will find good examples of what I'm talking about here. First off, the water pressure wasn't high enough around here, possibly because of well #12 being shut off recently, although I can only speculate that having 5 or more fire hoses running full blast takes more pressure than a city water system is really made for. When I got back to my dorm at around 2:15 the water pressure was still low; and I was still am covered with soot from standing on the other side of the street for a half hour. On the soot note, not only do I still smell like smoke, but a friend of mine who lives a block away from the fire said that he thought his building was on fire because he saw smoke coming under his door from the hallway! I am not looking forward to walking to class tomorrow; and it's a final at 8am.
Now, the hoses that were running were pumping out some power. No hose has less than two people at it. These hoses are not your typical garden hose; They're at least 5 inches thick. Heck I'm not sure any normal houses have water pipes this big. There's roughly a gallon in every foot of that pipe.
The nozzles on those things are pretty crazy too. They are known to have serrated blades (yea, the same kind of serrated blades you would find on a steak knife) that pulverize the water into a fine mist to help cool the air - important because of the extremely hot fumes coming from the fire. If you watch the videos, you can see that every once and a while the fire disappears and for a second you feel at ease. Too bad, the fires just building up heat inside. The water doesn't really cool the air, just the ground it reaches. As the air gets hotter, more things in it are able to burn, then you get a jet of fire spewing from the building. It's very sudden, and almost always accompanied by a gasp in the crowd.

Those of us standing in the crowd quickly realized that the air quality had bottomed out. Every once and a while I felt like I was breathing in soot. This picture was taken from my dorm a few blocks to the North-East. You can see a water jet from the Ladder that was on the scene. This must have been a particularly tricky fire to fight because it was mostly focused on the back. There wasn't very good access to that angle.

At some point in the video, you can visibly tell that the firefighters were focusing on preventing the fire from spreading. It's a little hard to watch because even though you know they are wetting down the other buildings to protect them, you're left watching the fire go somewhat unchecked. The papers have already reported that the building is a complete loss. Also, at least one firefighter has been brought to the hospital, but the residents are all reportedly safe and healthy.

Don't mistake the streetlight for a flame. It lights up the mist and smoke to look like a giant blaze sometimes.


If you are interested in the original photos or video, please e-mail me. These photos have only been cropped and zoomed, not adjusted in any other way.