3 well involved house fires on Portage st Highland Park MI fatal

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• published: 22 Feb 2013
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Called to report of a fire in an occupied dwelling around 9am. We arrived with a crew of 6, to find one house fully involved with the houses on both sides involved as well. As you can see here We dumped our monitor on the middle home while I stretched our bundles for each exposure home. With only one good hydrant in the area being right in front of the scene, our OIC decided to pump off our ladder so that we could use elevated stream for the middle home(which was to far gone to sustain life or make entry) and make an interior attack with hand lines on both exposures. While setting up tower operations our truck would not go into pump and it took several minutes to fix that problem. You will see me make a quick check on the 1st floor of the left side home for any occupants, was radioed outside as all occupants were accounted for. I then went to an exposure line which as you can see has no pressure at first. Knocked down some fire from the outside before making entry with firefighter Tikkanen into the right side exposure home. At this same time 2 other firefighters are making an interior attack on the home to the left, while tower operations are taking care of the middle home. We made entry through the window since the door was barred and locked together with several large chains. That door was eventually opened by one of the guys working exterior. We had heavy fire in the 2nd floor with part of the roof burned off the back side of the house, and heavy fire coming from the house next door. We knocked down most of the 2nd floor while attempting to hold off fire coming from the center home. Once both our low air alarms started to go off, our chief made entry to tell us we had fire in the basement which we assume came from the house next door when the outer walls fell down. My camera must not have had a full charge because I did not get anymore footage after changing my first bottle. Him and another firefighter made a push on the basement while we changed our bottles. Both firefighters from the left side home have finished up putting out that fire and have joined us in the right side home where we still have fire in the void spaces and attic. An attic ladder was brought in to knock down what was left up there, and we got reports from OIC that the basement had took off again. Myself and my Sgt went back to the basement where we found extreme heat and heavy fire towards that back side of the house. Unable to make progress pushing through the basement heat we went upstairs and put it out through a basement window. The 4 of us fighting this fire went through 4 and a half bottles each. We worked at this scene until 730pm mopping up hot spots. It was a long day Unfortunately shortly after our arrival we were told there was possibly a man in the center home who had not gotten out. We fully feel that the outcome of this fire could not have been different based on the conditions when we arrived. The center home was fully involved and through the roof. We did in fact find the body of a man, which you can read about on myfoxdetroit. We are very upset at the loss of one of our citizens and our thoughts and prayers go out to the family. This video was edited down from about 40 minutes of footage. I only take out some sound (language or sensitive material) and anything that you cannot hear or see for long periods of time. I used a FireCam 1080 to film this video. I did my best to explain this fire in order to maybe cut back on the Key board firefighters making their usual comments. I may have forgotten to mention some things. If you dont like the way we did or do something...dont do it were you work.