02.21.09 – 3rd Alarm Apartment Building – 212 N. 5th St. Allentown, PA
At 09:40 Comm Center transmitted the box at 5th & Turner Sts. for an address of 210 N. 5th St. for an apartment fire. Engines 4, 9, 6, 13 (RIT), Truck 2 and B/C 4 (Grim) responded. On arrival, B/C 4 reported heavy smoke and signaled a working fire to the rear of 212 N. 5th St. At 09:44 B/C 4 struck the 2nd alarm. Engines 10, 14, Air 1 and cars 40, 41, 45, 47, 48 responded. With crews encountering heavy fire working from the first floor up and an exposure problem on the Delta side, B/C 4 struck the 3rd alarm. Truck 1 responded. With all hands working, Engines 11, 5 and 8 were special called. Off-duty firefighters were called in to man Engines 5 & 8. The building was demolished around 16:30 by a demolition crew called in by the city. Numerous Volley companies were called in to man the city stations to run other calls. It took over 3 hours to contain the blaze. In all, about 5 firefighters sustained injuries.
Video Rating: 5 / 5
These were vacant buildings?
Tactically this fire was tough to watch.
ceiling fell on his head knocked him backwards down flight of stairs into the wall – hosptal releases aok – 5 other firemen hurt, all released
at 5:30, what happend, did he fall? you cant see
Right from the beginning of this video there are exterior streams operating. Why is it that 3/4 of the way through the video we start hearing the official sounding of the ‘run away air horn medley?’ If you choose to go defensive, then you must not have firefighters inside the structure. Also if you go defensive, you should not be using anything smaller than a 2 1/2″ line. Most of what’s seen here is 1 3/4″ hose with 45 degree fog patterns and nozzle firefighters with the bale closed 1/2 way. Very poorly done … I suggest that folks who own buildings in Allentown make sure that their fire insurance is paid up on time, their smoke detectors function and they have more than one way out. I say this because if there’s a fire, it’s unlikely that this cast of characters are going to come inside to get you, let alone come inside and extinguish the fire …