Chief Defends Deployment of Firefighters into Burning Building

Jun 20, 09:40 PM

Current Headlines: CHARLESTON, S.C. _ Charleston Fire Chief Rusty Thomas on Wednesday defended the deployment of firefighters into a burning furniture store where nine of them died, citing a report that a store employee was trapped inside.

But the fire chief declined to provide details of the sequence of events leading to the greatest single day loss of life for firefighters in the nation since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, deferring questions as the department prepares for memorial services and federal agents investigate the fire's cause and origin.

Still, another firefighter described a dramatic rescue of a store employee and air horn blasts from fire engines signaling an immediate evacuation just minutes before a rolling ball of flame and gas swept through the Sofa Super Store, apparently trapping firefighters.

Firefighters working from outside the building located store employee Jonathan Tyrell in a rear workshop as he banged away with a hammer to make noise. They pulled him to safety after using fire axes to chop a hole in a metal exterior wall, said Assistant Fire Chief Larry Garvin.

"The room was full of smoke," Garvin said. "A few more minutes, and I'm sure he wouldn't be with us."

A timeline published in the local paper, The Post and Courier, which cited unidentified fire department officials, indicated Tyrell was pulled from the building five minutes before the fire exploded through the store.

On Wednesday, Charleston continued to mourn the loss of the firefighters. Police cars and fire engines served as escorts as hearses moved the remains of the firemen from a county morgue to funeral homes in preparation for burial. A citywide memorial service has been scheduled for Friday.

Rain hindered an investigation of the fire's cause by the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. A spokesman said the ATF investigators would wait until dry weather permitted operation of a crane to remove the furniture store's collapsed roof and rendered the site stable enough for agents to enter and gather evidence. City officials and investigators said there is no initial indication of arson.

During a brief interview in the fire chief's office, Thomas explained the firefighters' presence inside the burning building by referring to a 911 call that Tyrell made.

Asked why the firefighters were inside, Thomas replied, "There was a 911 call that there was someone trapped in the building." Tyrell spoke to fire officials on the scene after being patched through by a 911 operator.

At the time, 17 firefighters were inside the building, Thomas said. Eight made it out safely.

Robert Duval, senior fire investigator for the National Fire Protection Association, a professional standard-setting organization, said commanders on a fire scene typically weigh a number of factors in deciding whether or not to remain inside a building to fight a blaze. That includes the possibility that people are trapped inside, as well as the type of structure and the speed it is spreading. Upholstered furniture is highly combustible and the building had no sprinkler system.

Another official from the organization quoted in The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C. was more pointed in his assessment.

"It would seem like they probably should have been out of the building long before they were," Carl Peterson, director of the public fire protection division for the National Fire Protection Association, was quoted as saying. Peterson could not be reach on Wednesday.

Garvin, who was initially the senior fire official at the scene, described a blaze that rapidly progressed from an apparent trash fire to a conflagration.

"In 34 years of fire service, I've never seen a fire travel that fast with that magnitude," he said.

Garvin said firefighters arrived with a report of a fire in either a trash heap or trash bin located between the furniture store and a separate warehouse in the rear.

Leading a team of firefighters into the store to check for fire, he said he noticed "a little tad of smoke" seeping from a seam in the ceiling at the rear. After checking the doorknob to a back room and finding it was not hot, Garvin said he started to pull on the door and the force of gasses from the fire blew it open.

"I couldn't close the door," he said.

Garvin said he entered and left the building three times, with the store packed with "wall-to-wall furniture" and full of heavy black smoke on his final time inside.

Garvin said the dead firefighters were found in teams away from their hoses, indicating something happened to cause them to break from firefighter training to follow hose lines to find their way out of a smoke-filled building. Possibly, the fire might have traveled through the ceiling, he said.

"That just tells me the fire came in behind them," Garvin said. "When they realized the fire was on them, it was too late and they took off running."

After the front windows of the store blew out, firefighters outside the building broke open more windows to permit escape, Garvin said.

"You could see the fire coming, the gasses rolling in front of it. It was just a few seconds before the building was an inferno," he said.

Charleston County Coroner Rae Wooten released autopsy findings Wednesday indicating all nine firefighters died from smoke inhalation and burns.

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