16 hour Tanker call yesterday

[silverunicorn]

Finally had "the big one" for the year yesterday. Mutual aid assist (Bucks County Tanker Task Force) for Plainfield Township, Northampton County, PA.


Building fire at a plastics factory. They brought in raw plastics, and converted them to pellets for recycling.


Inital alarm was struck at approximayely 05:00. We were dispatched at 07:27 and staged at Northampton County 911 operations center until they called us in at 11:42. We were released at 22:17 and after clean up and refueling, it was 23:30.


These photos were taken during our response from the 911 center, which, keep in mind, was approximately 6 hours after the initial dispatch.

















We were busy, but a slideshow of the videos I took is here:


Fire 08/02


News coverage can be seen here (with much better phtos and video than I have):


Hundreds Of Firefighters From 6 Counties Battle Fire At Plastics Plant - Regional News - Lehigh Valley Story - WFMZ Allentown


I have to give props to Northampton County on this. This was a MASSIVE incident. I am not sure how it was before we arrived, but when we were there, things seems fairly organized given the scope of the event. They had good dump sites esablished with easy routes to refilling. Food and water was readily available, with ES on 4 wheelers delivering to sitting trucks. There are always things that could be better, but all in all, I feel they did a VERY good job managing tis scene given the logistics of a fire this size. They had heavy equipment to break up the contents so they could be watered down, something that was absdolutely necessary in this situation. The fire load of this building was massive, and they did a very good job here from what I saw.


over 200 firefighters from 6 counties and 2 states assisted in the call. Our tanker hauled 34 loads (@ 3,000 gal each). There were 26 tankers at the call ranging from 1,700 gal to 7,000 gallons per tanker. Each truck made a similar # (if not more) trips as we did.


Feel free to ask any questions, I will answer what I can for you.


Chris

 

[vonirkinshtine]

Where was the closest water source? From the news pictures it looks like it was a pond?

 

[silverunicorn]

Where was the closest water source? From the news pictures it looks like it was a pond?

There were 4 different fill sites, all about 2 miles from the fire scene. There were sprinkllers in the fire building, and a hydrant on the fire property, but neither worked. The first in engine hit the hydrant and ran out of water, and the fire was off to the races at that point .


We filled from both a hydrant approx 2 miles from the fire scene and a spring fed pond, also about 2 miles from the scene. They tried t have multiple fill sites due to the amount of equipment and to eleminate traffic jams.


There were trucks going in every direction, which was a but chaotic, but it worked out.


Chris

 

[fire1]

There were 4 different fill sites, all about 2 miles from the fire scene. There were sprinkllers in the fire building, and a hydrant on the fire property, but neither worked. The first in engine hit the hydrant and ran out of water, and the fire was off to the races at that point .

We filled from both a hydrant approx 2 miles from the fire scene and a spring fed pond, also about 2 miles from the scene. They tried t have multiple fill sites due to the amount of equipment and to eleminate traffic jams.


There were trucks going in every direction, which was a but chaotic, but it worked out.


Chris

As long as nobody was hurt. Kind of wondering what happened to the hydrant & sprinklers. why were they dry?

 

[silverunicorn]

As long as nobody was hurt. Kind of wondering what happened to the hydrant & sprinklers. why were they dry?

I do believe the investigators were asking the same questions.


Chris

 

[Tritonhoward64]

Must of been a long day, but sure interesting to see alot of diffrent fire apparatus that you don't normally see? What was the dept with the 7,000 gal tanker?? And what depts out of New Jersey?? I know that Tunkhannock Township fire dept in Long Pond, PA (Pocono Raceway in there first due area) was dispatched for a tanker. The pictures are awsome, wished there were more.

 

[silverunicorn]

Must of been a long day, but sure interesting to see alot of diffrent fire apparatus that you don't normally see? What was the dept with the 7,000 gal tanker?? And what depts out of New Jersey?? I know that Tunkhannock Township fire dept in Long Pond, PA (Pocono Raceway in there first due area) was dispatched for a tanker. The pictures are awsome, wished there were more.

Stuartsville NJ was there, and there was another NJ truck that I can't remember. The 7,000 gallon tankers (2 of them) were from a local landfill run by Waste Management. They are normally not on-road rigs, but they came over to assist. I think you can see one in the news clip. They were yellow Volvo rigs that articulated in the middle. They were geared really low, and were quite slow on the road, but they held alot of water and could get into the fire scene and had water cannons on them and were just all around kick ass


Chris

 

[TCO]

that call was different,we (Bucks county) ended up sending 6 tankers and 5 engine companies to the job not including the companies that got dispatched to covers in county for the away game

 

[silverunicorn]

that was a different call,we (Bucks county) ended up sending 6 tankers and 5 engine companies to the job not including the companies that got dispatched to covers in county for the away game

Which was a different call?


I am confused


Chris

 

[TCO]

different as in majority of calls it is usually a truck or 2 for mutual aide out of county and they dont require covers assignments,,that call we had 11 trucks over there and a couple companies with covers

 

[VFVFCo.68]

I didn't hear much about this call other than Montco dispatching 41 for the canteen units to run into Nazareth somewhere.

 

[NPS Ranger]

The TV news said that 80 departments responded, mainly tankers.

 

[C420sailor]

The TV news said that 80 departments responded, mainly tankers.

Reminds me of the Riverwalk Apartments fire in Conshohocken, PA in 2008. I've never seen so many fire companies at one job in my entire life.