Check out damage to North Hudson Ladder Company 1
The most interesting videos from yesterday’s (Wednesday) 5-alarm fire that destroyed a furniture store in Hudson County, New Jersey may be the ones that show the effort to get North Hudson Ladder Company 1 out of the line of fire. The aerial ladder was up when smoke quickly intensified, pouring out of the storefront where the large display windows had been removed minutes earlier by firefighters.
Ventilation from David F.M. Vaughn’s video
The ventilation and the later flashover are best seen on David F.M. Vaughn’s video here. It was broadcast live by Vaughn on Periscope (some Periscope videos expire after 24 hours, so make sure you watch it soon). At 8:30 into Vaughn’s video you see the furniture in the front of the store rapidly ignite and within seconds fire is pushing from everywhere.
Furniture in front of store ignites at about 8:30 in David F.M. Vaughn’s video
On Vaughn’s video and at about :30 into tornadochaser66‘s video (at the top of this page) and in the Hudson County TV video (immediately below) the operator of Ladder 1 is shown trying to quickly bed the ladder and move the apparatus — now facing an assault by a large amount of radiant heat. The ladder truck is initially moved with no one in the tiller seat. Eventually, a firefighter steers the rear by sitting beside the tiller cage, which apparently offered some protection from the heat.
In Mike Villanova’s (homer218) video, below, you see Ladder 1 has been re-positioned to a safer location.
