Defensive House Fire, Sedalia, CO 2/20/14

[Guest]

At 8am West Douglas County Volunteers were dispatched a reported house fire on Cathedral Rock Drive.  Automatic aid from South Metro, Littleton & Jackson 105 was also requested on the initial dispatch.  Upon arrival crews found heavy smoke showing from the roof.  An interior attack was initiated and crews found a working attic fire.  The nearest water supply was several miles away which required a tender shuttle.  Crews worked inside for around 20 minutes before flames self vented from the roof and were wind driven.  A withdraw order was made and defensive ops began.

   

[Guest]

After all firefighters had withdrawn from the house it didn't take long for the roof to collapse.

   

[Guest]

South Metro Safety Officers discuss the plan with the Battalion Chief

   

[Guest]

South Metro Battalion Chief Hendrix was the incident commander, but a unified command was established with West Douglas.

   

[Guest]

MetCom Incident Dispatcher and West Douglas Chief's.  The Incident Dispatcher has full CAD functionality with the iPad and can dispatch more units directly from the scene.

   

[Guest]

West Douglas Volunteers try to keep the fire out of the garage which had several large propane tanks, acetylene & oxygen tanks inside.

   

[Guest]

The wind was too much and the garage attic became involved, eventually collapsing.

   

[Guest]

The entire 5,800 square foot home was destroyed.  Most of the homes in this area are surrounded by tall oak brush, luckily this one was not.

   

[Guest]

When defensive ops began, additional tenders were requested from Franktown & Larkspur Fire.  Quite a long drive for both.

   

[Guest]

Once the fire in the garage started rolling a 200' danger perimeter was established and the tanks were allowed to vent.  Several exploded.  A blitzfire was placed on the alpha side and the remaining garage fire was knocked before firefighters were allowed near the structure again. 

   

[Guest]

South Metro Tender 39 and the attack pumper, Engine 40

   

[Guest]

The Colorado Division of Fire Prevention & Control had contract units similar to CalFire.  West Douglas has two of them, Brush Tender 134 is pictured left and Engine 133 on the right.

   

[Guest]

And lastly... Larkspur Tender 161 bringing in more water.

   

[hank]

Good photos!

 

tHANKs

[gmuhr]

Great stuff!

[npfd801]

Always impressed by the Colorado stuff.  Especially enjoy the insight to the operational side of things.  The Incident Dispatcher is a great concept from my limited understanding.  We're about twenty years behind something like that here in our county.  At least our department is putting tablets in the rigs in the next few weeks, so we'll have mapping, preplans, hydrants, etc. at our fingertips.  Great posts!

[Guest]

Always impressed by the Colorado stuff.  Especially enjoy the insight to the operational side of things.  The Incident Dispatcher is a great concept from my limited understanding.  We're about twenty years behind something like that here in our county.  At least our department is putting tablets in the rigs in the next few weeks, so we'll have mapping, preplans, hydrants, etc. at our fingertips.  Great posts!

 

Thanks!  The IDT concept is still fairly new here and only a handful of agencies have created one.  There is a huge benefit to having IDT on the initial response especially for our wildland interface fires.  Congrats on getting the tablets with pre-plans!  Safety and planning wise I don't know what we would do without that information.