Portrait of a flashover
I hear sirens coming from Jefferson Parish and go outside to see if I can figure out where they are coming from. It sounds like they are going to Old Metairie, so I grab my camera, and drive over there. I cross the bridge and see a foggy scene along Metairie Road and follow the smoke to the fire. It is right across the street from my sister’s house on Englewood Parkway. The are was heavily flooded after hurricane Katrina, so no one is living in the home as repair work is performed, the owner tells me at the scene.
Monday, March 13, 2006
It appears firefighters are in the house from what look to be flashlights shining in the window, but this is a reflection of lights from the fire truck. There are six fire trucks on the scene. At this point the men are fighting the fire is in the bathroom of the second story above the front door near the flames.
Something happens and the south wing of the home blows up - fire ignites the hot burning gases that must have been accumulating in the attic adjacent to the upper bathroom. Tongues of ignited hot gases spew out several feet from the eaves under the roof line...
Here’s a link to a breaking news story about the fire in the Times Picayune:
This event appears to be what firefighters call a ‘backdraft’, where you have a sudden blow-up as accumulated hot gases, near their kindling point, spontaneously erupt when oxygen is introduced, according to the JPFD. When the gases burn out the backdraft subsides as quickly as it erupted...
But for the firefighters outside the concern for the house subsides, understandably, as they rush in to help their colleagues caught in the blow-up. They rush the front door...
And they pull their fallen buddies from the house and get them clear...
The fire takes the opportunity, when the firefighters are concerned with their fallen comrades, to resume its pursuit of the Weinmann home.
A medical triage area is set up in the street in front of the burning home, in the glare of the headlights. I’m chocking up - moved to tears - the firefighters are clearly in extreme pain and I’m almost ashamed to be taking their pictures, but I want to capture their heroism, and the risks of their duty, putting their lives in harm’s way for a home where none of the residents are in danger. I don’t use a flash - don’t want to blind them in their work.
The backdraft has ignited some very flammable material in the attic of the south wing of the home. A firefighter later shows me that there are several faces evident in the column... the face of ‘the beast’.
© Copyright 2006 - P. Gibbons Burke Jr. - All Rights Reserved
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