Early Thanksgiving morning, a neighbor in my building died when her bed caught fire. The woman, who was 87, usually took a sputtering old radio to bed at night, and fire marshals believe some fault in its wiring started the fire. She lived and died alone. No one else was hurt.
Beginning at 3:27 a.m., 60 firefighters from 12 units were sent to the building, in Upper Manhattan, and the fire never spread beyond the woman’s apartment, which was on the second floor. It was under control by 4 a.m.Many floors away, I slept through it all.Death by fire was once a scourge in the city, killing someone, on average, nearly every day through the 1960s and 1970s. So far this year, 47 people have died in residential fires, a pace that would mean the fewest number of such deaths since New York City began keeping reliable counts early in the 20th century.Today, smoke kills most people who die at fires because modern building materials and design can often contain the flames to a single room — if the door is closed.That leaves smoke as the most elusive danger. In December 1998, a fire that killed four people started in a West Side apartment where the family of the actor Macaulay Culkin lived. Fire officials said it began in a heater, spread to a sofa, then ignited a Christmas tree.The Culkins escaped the apartment. So did the smoke. Someone had used a mat to prop open the apartment door. Someone had also left open the hallway door to the stairs. The Culkin fire was on the 19th floor. The four people who died were nowhere near that apartment or the fire: they all suffocated between the 27th and 29th floors in the stairwell, which had become a chimney filled with hot gases because of the open doors.How to survive a fire in your home? The Fire Department provides educational material on its Web site at www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/safety/fire_safety_downloads.shtml.The department’s advice is tailored to the kind of building, but one common theme is that a closed door is a powerful ally. A door will slow the spread of the fire, and a wet towel or cloth at its bottom can block the smoke.Here are some other critical points from fire-safety experts.In nonfireproof buildings, like virtually all private homes, brownstones and low-rise older apartment buildings that have external fire escapes, the department says the safest approach is to get out right away. “That’s why you need a working smoke alarm, so you know at the first moment to leave,” said Lt. Anthony Mancuso, the Fire Department’s director of fire-safety education. If the door or exit route is too hot, he said, “close the door.” Only after the door is closed, he said, should people open an external window — and not one in a bathroom — if fresh air is needed.The thrust of the advice is different for modern buildings, which are fire resistant. That would include apartment houses that are 10 stories or higher, with two enclosed stairwells. People in a burning apartment should alert anyone else there, leave right away and then call 911. But the safest place for a vast majority of people in those buildings is in their apartments, said Francis X. Gribbon, a deputy commissioner in the Fire Department.“We call it shelter in place,” Mr. Gribbon said. Residents can place wet towels under the door, and can call 911. The dispatchers will get word to the chiefs about their location.Why is it better to stay in an apartment when the fire is elsewhere? The Culkin fire is one example of how dangerous a stairway can be.I learned about how risky hallways can be after noticing that firefighters had pried open two apartment doors on the same floor as the fire. The purpose was to create a refuge for the firefighters in the event that a ball of fire or hot gases blew out of the burning apartment when its door was opened. “You don’t want to be in a hallway or stairway with nowhere to go when that happens,” Mr. Gribbon said.At this time of year, the Fire Department is especially concerned about holiday lights and extension cords, he said. The department will send fire-safety education officers to a building without charge to give seminars. My building had one a few years ago. We will be setting up a refresher soon.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/nyregion/a-closed-door-the-best-ally-in-a-home-fire.html
