The Best Camera Is...

[flashback]

...The One You Have With You. Out walking the dog this morning and came across a house fire, arriving at the same time as the first truck. Anyway, all I had was my cell phone but I did get a number of interesting shots.
The first image, the ladder is up and the first Firefighter is heading to the roof (ventilation, rescue).



If you look more closely, in the first image, top floor, kind of in front of the firefighter, there's a white spot in the window. This second image is an enlarged crop of the first. The dog was in the arms of the resident.

The dog and owner (and all others) made it out of the building.

A couple of truckies taking out the windows. This allows for ventilation of the apartment but more importantly, ingress for the two firefighters on the fire escape and quick egress if needed.



Stretching the line.



In this last image there are probably crews searching all the floors to make sure no one is trapped. Meanwhile the engine company is getting a knock on the fire. The side window had just been vented and apparently there were pigeons roosting on the window sill. Imagine their surprise.

[Stagecoach]

An informative series Jack, thanks for sharing.

[Donald]

Great photo-journalism, Jack. Right place. Right time. And the presence of mind to compose good news-type pictures.

[IzzieK]

Remember all, Jack was and is a firefighter, apart from his many jobs...anyway, nice shots all and informative reporting as Grahame and Donald said...I like the one with the bird and smoke.

[FootLoose]

I like the first shot, Jack. That is quite a dramatic composition.

[Shadowman]

Nice captures.

[JR1]

i assume you have sent them to the local newspaper

[selig1656]

Great series, well taken.

[rpcrowe]

I totally agree that the best camera is the one you have with you. However a corollary that statement would be, carrying a good camera is the way to get good pictures. There are a number of pocket sized cameras which are easy to carry and which are better photo collectors than cell phones...

Nice images of sadly an all to often occurring site in NYC.

As a kid, I saw NY firefighters using a hose from a hydrant to cut down a fire. The temperature was well below freezing and there were ice formations on the hydrant, the hose and on the firefighters themselves. I was probably only five or six years old at the time but recognized this as a great photo subject. Unfortunately I didn't even have a Box Brownie camera.

[flashback]

Thanks Grahame.
Thanks Donald.
Thanks Izzie.
Thanks Greg.
Thanks John.
Thanks Jeremy. Honestly it never occurred to me to send them to the news.
Thanks Raymond.

For those that are interested, there were about 100 firefighters on that job (most of whom were fairly quickly released). Turns out the fire was on the second floor, so the two firefighters who were taking out the windows, made entry and were searching the most dangerous location; directly above the fire.
This type of job is bread and butter for the FDNY guys (and gals). There are multiple actions taking place simultaneously and what may look at times like pure chaos is in all actuality a fairly choreographed dance, with everyone knowing more or less what their assignments are. It's only when the feces impact the rotating impeller that things really become interesting.
[There were about a dozen (that's 12 for you metric folk ) apparatus on scene, plus a couple of support vehicles and a number of ambulances.]

[flashback]

Richard, can't argue the point of carrying a decent small camera but, like so many things, it is what it is.
It just seems like these fires occur all to often, but if you look at the response area for FDNY, 5 boroughs and around 8 million people well...things are gonna burn.
I can tell you from personal experience that winter time fires can just plain suck. Everything gets iced up, everything. Now picture taking up hose; shut down but not walked out so there's still some water in the lines, plus the outside jacket is soaked. Factor in temps single digits and you can end up with 100's (in some cases, 1000's) of feet of frozen pipe instead of flexible hose. They were lifted onto flatbeds, trucked back to the houses and allowed to thaw inside. Trudging through deep snow, ice everywhere, plus the additional risk of roof collapse due to heavy snow loads can increase the pucker factor by 5. But on in a twisted way it is fun.

[rpcrowe]

Jack...

I have all the respect in the world for firefighters throughout the world but, my special respect is saved for those guys and gals who battle fires in the ancient (when I lived in Brooklyn, my apartment house was built before the turn of the Century) tall tenement structures of New York City and other East Coast cities.

Remembering back, I am sure the the apartment that I lived in had many-many coats of oil based paint as well as other very flammable aspects)...

I attended firefighting school in the U.S. Navy and absolutely hated crawling through constricted spaces to fight fires AND I KNEW THAT I WAS SAFE and that many many guys had done the same thing with no ill effects.

[flashback]

Richard, you'll get no argument from me. 2 story residential structures are good enough for me. The tenement (and regular apartment) buildings are a trade in itself. Last Friday was the anniversary of Black Sunday; two separate incidents a couple of hours apart. In the first, 6 FFs jumped from the 4th story, 2 LODD, 4 injured (one died some time later), and then another FF killed 3 hours later. There's a reason so many departments try to emulate the FDNY; you learn from the best.
FWIW - I hate confined spaces.

P.S. Richard - today's fires burn faster and hotter, most everything is synthetic (read - made from petroleum products), combine with lightweight construction techniques and materials and buildings burn down a lot faster. Fewer fires today, but those that do burn, burn faster, hotter and are much more dangerous.