Food Plant Fire In Ohio

This episode features Fire Chief (Ret.) Thomas Lakamp, Assistant Chief Scott Williams, Blue Card Program Director Josh Blum, and John Vance.

Thomas Lakamp, Fire Chief (Ret.), Fairfield (Ohio) Fire Department 

Chief Thomas Lakamp is the fire chief for the City of Fairfield, Ohio. He retired from the Cincinnati Fire Department as an assistant fire chief after almost 35 years of service. Tom holds an associate degree in Fire Science Technology and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Cincinnati. He also holds a master’s in homeland security from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. Tom is a graduate of the National Fire Academy Executive Fire Officer Program and was formerly a Task Force Leader for FEMA Ohio Task Force 1—Urban Search and Rescue Team. He is currently the commissioner for the Hamilton County, Ohio—Region 6 USAR Team. 

Scott Williams, Assistant Fire Chief, Springdale (Ohio) Fire Department

Scott Williams has been in the fire service for 30 years and is a certified Ohio State Fire and Emergency Service Instructor II and a Live Fire Instructor. He is a Blue Card instructor, a national registered paramedic and a trained IAFF Peer Supporter. He has served the Springdale (Ohio) Fire Department for 22 years, holding the ranks of firefighter/paramedic, chief fire inspector and fire captain before his current position as the assistant fire chief. Chief Williams oversees fire department operations and develops the department’s SOGs. He is always looking to better himself and the fire service, supporting continuous improvement of fireground skills and operations through regular and consistent training. He is known for his honest approach and for teaching others through his first-hand experiences.

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We break down the Koch Foods plant in Fairfield, Ohio and the lessons that come with a 600,000 square foot commercial incident involving thermal fluid, ammonia, multiple alarms, and critical injuries. We share how a regional command system, disciplined big box tactics, and drone intelligence helped protect firefighters and save most of the facility.

We discuss:

• Setting the scene at Koch Foods and the early alarm upgrade to a high hazard response
• The report of a worker still inside and the rapid shift to defensive operations after untenable conditions
• How a delayed roof report revealed extreme fire involvement and changed tactics
• Thermal fluid flash conditions and why fire spread outran parts of the sprinkler system
• Water supply challenges, extended FDC pumping, and coordination with public utilities
• Managing ammonia tanks, cooling operations, and air monitoring as a hazmat problem
• Building a scalable command team with Blue Card, unified command, HazMat and EMA integration
• Using a regional drone team for situational awareness, leak location, and aerial placement
• Cross-county mutual aid that works because of shared SOGs, training standards, and linked CAD
• Why big box fires require abandoning residential tactics and slowing down before entry

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Transcript

Welcome And Incident Overview

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Hello and welcome to the Beat Shifter Podcast. John Vance here today. I'm going to be joined by my uh normal co-host of tonight, Mr. John Gloom. And today we will be talking about a large big box commercial fire that occurred outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, in uh actually Fairfield, Ohio, at the Cook Foods Plant. Unfortunately, there was one fatality and three injuries at this incident, but fortunately, there were no more, and uh importantly, no firefighters were injured during this major operation at a food processing facility. So we're gonna bring on the chiefs right now. We have Chief Thomas Lake Camp. He is the recently retired fire chief of the Fairfield, Ohio Fire Department. He was the host agency for this and assistant chief Scott Williams. He's a neighbor, but they work very close together. He's from the Springdale Fire Department in Ohio, and they have put together really a best practice when it comes to cooperation, training together, and being on the same page. So let's uh toss it over to the Chiefs and find out about this event and what we can learn so that we can model best practices for a successful outcome or the best possible outcome as they did at this incident. Thanks to Chief Thomas Lakamp and Assistant Chief Scott Williams from the Springdale, Ohio Fire Department. Of course, Chief Lakamp from the Fairfield, Ohio Fire Department recently retired. So congratulations on that retirement. And I hope it's treating you well. I know a little bit of a rocky start, but hopefully the rest of the summer smooth sailing so you can enjoy your time because I know you've certainly put in a lot of years between Fairfield and the city of Cincinnati. So congratulations on that. And thanks so much for being here today to talk about this incident that happened at a food plant with a pretty major fire. So if you want to set the scene and tell us what happened that day and uh your response to that, and and we'll go from there because there's a lot of great lessons learned for us as far as regional response goes using the big box policy and and how every uh buddy cooperated that day and really came to uh probably, you know, you you would have rather had a different conclusion, but probably the best conclusion to an incident such as this. So I'll I'll toss it over to Chief Lake Camp to set the stage.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

Sure. So uh it was February 15th, uh, early in the morning. Uh we had actually responded to a structure fire at a multi-dwelling about 45 minutes or so prior to this. Uh, we were still on scene at that structure fire when the uh fire alarm came in for Cook Foods. Cook Foods is a 600,000 square foot chicken processing plant. Uh they received the chicken after the kill and go ahead and process it from there, turn out millions of pounds of chicken every day. It's a very large plant. They have two plants there, both of uh equal size, plant A and plant B. This fire was in plant B. Upon while they were responding, uh, we had one of our three fire apparatus that was able to get out relatively quickly and started making the fire alarm along with our automatic aid partners. In route, they were advised that there was smoke visible, at which point the company officer upgraded it to a uh a high-hazard uh one alarm response. When they arrived on scene, they had some smoke that they could see from the top of the building. And the our the first arriving Fairfield unit got there at a very similar time with the uh district from Springdale. The good news is we all speak the same language, we all have the same system, uh, we all use Blue Card and we're all operating off the same SOGs, especially for big box. So our company officer did his initial radio report and took command. The uh district from Springdale went ahead and did the command transfer and took command as the as the second IC. They talked to some plant personnel, a lot of plant personnel were outside the building at this time. This was a Sunday night, and they do maintenance on the Sunday night. Just routine maintenance every Sunday night. Uh, so that's they were actually changing a um thermofluid pump inside the building. They realized they had a working fire, started pulling lines, like they started setting up the big box procedure, sending an engine to the FTC and calling for a roof report. When they got to the front door or to the door they were going to make access, two of the occupants who had come out of the building uh reported to them that they had another worker inside the building and gave them a report of where they thought that he was. As they started to build their fire attack team, waiting for another crew and an on-deck company. They received the report, they received that report of a possible person trapped. At that point, the second they'd already asked for a second alarm. And uh my battalion, who was actually the third battalion on scene, was coming down the hill and could actually see the fire through the roof at that point. And he struck a third alarm on our main dispatch channel. Uh there was some communication between the fire attack team and command about you know they where they thought the victim was, and they made entry partially into the building and met with untenable conditions and quickly retreated out of the building. And we went defensive from there. When we finally did get the radio or the uh roof report, we had about a 75 yard by 75 yard hole through the roof of the building. So, you know, if we had had that roof report a little earlier, this would have they would not have made any entry at all uh into that building.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

And Chief, why did the the the the victim the the fatality end up going back into the building? So he uh he had evacuated at one point, but the but when he was. He had not.

SPEAKER_03 6:14

He he yeah, he there was you know they were very familiar with working with each other, the the four people that were inside the building. They had a fire, they had the fire, the flash fire, and yeah, obviously quite a significant fire. And they he met up with the other supervisor, and they may had a plan that he was gonna go and turn the ventilation system on to get rid of the smoke that was in the building. So that was the last conversation that they had, and he he was heading that direction. Whether he actually got there or not, we still don't know at this time, but he was not found in that that location where they thought he was.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

And there was other there was other people injured when they got there too, correct?

SPEAKER_03 7:04

Is that correct? We were faced with three individuals that were injured, two were transported to a trauma center uh with burns. Those were the two individuals that were actually working on the the fluid pump. One was burnt from the waist down, the other from the waist up. The third individual who had met with the deceased party had run back down and went actually up through an area of the of the plant that they call the doghouse and was chased up onto the roof, and he actually escaped across the roof and back down uh the exterior of the building because the fire had been chasing him through that part.

Thermal Fluid Flash And Fire Spread

SPEAKER_02 7:40

The the building has a fully functional uh fire suppression system in it. Uh, what what in in any determination that you can talk about caused the the spread of the fire to this extent?

SPEAKER_03 7:52

Not sure. There was obviously some type of flash event from thermal fluid. Uh there are no open flames, they don't use any open flames to cook the chicken in this building. They were when they were moved taking the the bolts off the flange, is when that that thermal fluid atomized, and that's when they had the the fire.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Chief Williams, you you were part of the the command team for this. What when did you get there and and what did you see on your arrival? And what was your role on the command team?

SPEAKER_01 8:25

So I arrived about 30 minutes into the scene. I was coming from home. This is about one o'clock in the morning when the call went out. I had was monitoring the multi-dwelling dispatch that they had just gone to. And then when this just came out, I made the response to it. Uh, when I arrived on the scene, I just became a command aide at that point. He already had a couple of aides in the car, one of the Fairfield deputy chiefs with him. And then I just kind of supported him as kind of that senior advisor role handling things that he needed, making sure we got apparatus in the right place, aero devices around the building, and then just ensuring that backfills were happening at the mutual aid departments because there was so much mutual aid that was called in, and then just trying to make sure we had everything built out appropriately for the big box procedures.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

The the picture that we're looking at, if you're joining us on YouTube, has a pretty good idea using the UAVs on the extent of the fire. This building was not a total loss, though, at the at the end, right? There the the fire was contained to a certain area and there was still usable parts of the building, I understand.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Correct. There's 75% of the building that still will be able to be utilized. Uh, they had offices on uh and some administrative portions that were pretty much unscathed and and will be able to be utilized as well.

Water Supply Strategy And Sprinkler Support

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Was there any water supply problems uh on this uh location? Because this is going to take a lot of water to put out. So, what were you guys looking at as far as water supply go?

SPEAKER_03 10:01

So, Cook Foods in just by themselves uses a lot of water. Matter of fact, the city had before they built plant B, constructed a new above-ground water storage tank within a mile of Cook Foods. They they are the largest water user in the city. So initially we had a lot of water, but we drained those tanks fairly quickly. We did cross tie to the Butler County water system, and we had several water main breaks throughout the event that I can't say enough about our public utilities system and the relationship that we have with them for them to respond to the scene and make sure that we had the water that we needed. We ended up pumping the FTC for over 14 hours at that at the fire.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

My understanding is like you can kind of see on both sides of the fire where the sprinkler system, where those heads you know had gone off and the where the water was flowing and it was uh like past those, my understanding. Like not much fire went past the where that line of sprinkler heads kind of held it from where the main fire was. Is that is that accurate?

Ammonia Hazard And Cooling The Tanks

SPEAKER_03 11:01

Yeah, I would say that's accurate. You know, we this was um you know obviously it had such a head start and had gotten past the the sprinklers before we got there. But you know, like I said, we we kept pumping them, and I believe that that was a significant contributing factor to saving as much of the building as was saved. I can't say enough about the the cooperation and the hard work of the guys that responded that day.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Now that this also was a hazmat incident because the ammonia that was used and and how how did that play into things and when did you discover as a command team or or through CAN reports, or how how did you discover, you know, we had an ammonia leak and and how did you start to deal with that?

SPEAKER_03 11:40

So Scott, I don't know if you want to take that, but you know, yeah go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Yeah, so is you know, it was probably that first hour within the incident. We started getting just working with the building people there, the RPs, and they started giving us information. And the the ammonia tanks, they can hold up to 282,000 pounds of ammonia, but they have about a hundred thousand on site at that time, 100,000 gallons. So we knew we had a major problem, but it was inside the building as well. The tanks were within the A side of that building. So we had to go offensive in a portion of the building on the alpha side just to continue to cool those tanks because the fire was impinging on that room. It was actually coming through the they could see it coming through the uh ceiling from the warehouse area, the production area, if you will. So we had to put master streams and crews in that room with the division boss and an aid with them to keep those tanks cooled before because we were gonna have a major problem if that those exploded or things got worse. We did have ammonia leaking, and the only way that we were able to pinpoint that was through the drones. So the building is so tall, and where you're positioned on the alpha side of the building, you couldn't see the flames through the roof like that. That's why when Fairfield's battalion was approaching the scene, he was elevated and he could see the flames through the roof just like I could on my vantage point. But as they're in front of the building, you couldn't see that. So putting those drones in play allowed us to see the significance of the fire, helped us place those aerial devices where we needed them, but also allowed us to see where the ammonia was leaking so we could work on that plan.

Unified Command With Hazmat And EMA

SPEAKER_02 13:23

It's took a lot of support as far as a unified command and and and setting up a command team. Let's talk about the command team and and how that worked, what worked and maybe what didn't, or any lessons learned from from setting up the command team.

Why The Regional System Works

SPEAKER_03 13:38

So we obviously we had a potential hazmat incident. So we needed a hazards materials team. Fortunately, Butler County uh has a hazmat cooperative that the departments contribute resources and personnel to. It's the same guys you see on mutual aid fires, so you're very familiar with them. I cannot speak enough about the uh the service they provided that day and that morning and that day, uh, along with our EMA. Our EMA was vital in put pulling other resources together that that that we needed throughout the day. They were able to integrate right into our command structure. You know, we were able to set out uh area rays so we could monitor the uh the ammonia within the air surrounding the plant, as well as you know, the the drone team to be able to get up top and really get a good situation awareness of um what we actually had going on.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

Well, first of all, let's talk about the IC because because we there was a you know an initial radio report, follow-up report. Then pretty quickly after this, you we had IC number two arrive. Let's talk about IC number two's positioning and how they ramped up the command team.

SPEAKER_03 14:50

So IC number two was actually from Springdale Fire Department. Like I said, you know, we are a we are truly one regional fire department, if you really want to get down to it, and we're all tied together by our command system. You know, he was a, I believe, Scotty, he was a lieutenant riding above grade as the district for the day. He did a phenomenal job. But it's all because of the system. You know, he it was all because we knew how to communicate. Uh, he knew he he needed help and he called for that help. And you know, when when everybody's playing on the same sheet of music, it goes a whole lot better. And that's and that's the way this region has put it together. None of us can put a 1710 compliant response, especially for a commercial structure from our own department. So we have to have a system that ties us together and and uh along with procedures, regional procedures. And and those were that that was huge on this fire.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Yeah, and one of the other things that we have done in our region over the last three years is setting those requirements to ride in the battalion or district vehicles. And this lieutenant, this is his first fire he had ever commanded by himself. We had he had been promoted a little over a year before this. We ran him through, he goes through a whole one-year packet with us. We ensure that he has the big box class, the Mayday management, the sector division, he has to be IC certified. All these classes he has to get completed before he could ride above grade. He completed all that, and in the last four months of his training, he either rode in the battalion vehicle with me or his captain to get the training that he needed. So when he pulled up on this, he had had a lot of all that training and knew what he needed to do. He knew the system well. We train on it often, and he just followed the big box procedures, used the blue card system, and was able to manage this very well.

CAD Linking And Cross County Dispatch

SPEAKER_02 16:47

We understand that also even some of the companies were using the vernacular that they learned in the big box classes about you know building their attack team and wanting to get that roof report before they go in. And you know, speaking of the roof report, that this had an unusual roof system too. It was tilt walls, but the roof was not really attached to those walls. Let's talk about the construction and the layout a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 17:13

Yeah, so this the structure was built during COVID or post-COVID. So plant A, which is the 600,000 square foot building uh to the front, is all steel bar joy joys truss, where the you know it's tied into the tilt slab wall for roof support. When they went to build build plant B, they were unable to guilt any of the uh metal bar joys uh uh roofing components because Amazon had bought them all. So they the the structure was actually 18 to 24 inch steel I beams in 50-foot pots, you know, much more uh substantial construction than any of us thought. We thought plant B was built exactly like plant A. Unfortunate for us it wasn't, but we didn't know that, right? So while the tilt wall didn't was not a structural component per se, it still will fall on you and kill you if you have if you have degraded the connections. So we were very cognizant of staying out of the collapse zone of those tilt wall structures.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Talking about the response profile a little bit, then you know, you say did you say it went to a third alarm?

SPEAKER_03 18:31

Yes, it was a third alarm. We ended up having 19 separate fire departments and 98 firefighters.

Drone Team Value And Structural Specialists

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Oh, so that that's a huge response. I mean, that and and coordinating all of that takes a lot. So talk about the work that that went in. You you alluded to it early on, just the cooperation, but the work that went into this before the response to have that cooperation, that training, that the common language, the common platform for communications, understanding what resources are there, information sharing, you know, how how does that look before the call even comes in?

Incident Duration And Extended Operations

Ditching Residential Tactics For Big Box

SPEAKER_03 19:05

I I think the initial the thing was the commitment to the system, right? They the the commitment that you know we are going to run out fires using this command system, and all of the chiefs agreeing to that, and and not just agreeing to it, but insisting upon it. You know, I can go back three and a half years when I came to Fairfield, and one of the questions I asked the battalion chiefs that I just asked him how he ran a fire. And he kind of looked at me and and and was like, Well, I I don't know that I know how to describe that. It's pretty much what we've done in the past. And so that was the the key for for us to to to adopt and go with Blue Card. And you know, we were pretty much playing catch-up with the rest of the region, especially where Fairfield sits, so you know, in southern Butler County and you know northern Hamilton County. That that has gone a long way in this region for fire ground communication and organizing a fire ground and organizing essentially one fire department with a whole bunch of different names on your sleeve. And and so the the commitment of the chiefs collectively to agree that these are the procedures we're going to use. This is the system we're going to manage a fire with, and it and you know this was the perfect example that it doesn't matter what it says on the side of the fire truck when the second IC or even the first IC arrives, as long as you're playing on the same system. And it is so much better service for the community. It really is. Because they don't care what it says on the side of the fire on the side of the fire truck, right? As long as you get there, you provide good service and and you do a good job. And the only way we do that is we all play on the same uh with the same playbook. And then we have to insist upon it. Right? It's one thing to say, yes, this is what we're gonna do, and here's here's the rules, but then you have to be able to critique your your work, right? And and critique each incident that you go on. You know, every structure fire dispatch in Fairfield gets a gets a critique on how we did, not just with you know following our our command system, but also how we did with deploying the lines and our tactical uh activities as well. Scott, you want to go on that?

unknown 21:36

Yeah.

Training Discipline And Preplans For Big Buildings

Final Takeaways And Listener Call To Action

SPEAKER_01 21:36

And so Fairfield is in Butler County and Springdale is in Hamilton County. So we're we're crossing those county lines. And without those that standard command system and the policies that we have adopted in Hamilton County, we have eight regional policies just for the structure firefighting and stuff that we're following now. Those policies, Butler County. Has adopted those same policies. So when we respond to these fires, we're all operating on the same system. We know what's expected. We've worked with our communication centers to link the CADs together. We used to have a significant delay in being dispatched to Fairfield, even though we're right, they border our city. It would take four to six minutes sometimes to get the dispatch. Now the CAD systems are linked together. When that dispatch goes out, Fairfield's dispatch knows our units are available. We get the call the same time they do. And that's how our district car can it, depending on where the fire is in their city, will arrive before their battalion. And then it does it, the system is the system. So when you arrive, we just plug you into the system. So if Fairfield's battalion arrives in my city first, they're going to be the incident commander. And then we're just going to fill a division role. So when our district car would get there. So we just all work well together. We do an after-action review, like you said, after every fire. We look at that and use the blue card after action system. And we're able to send that out. And everybody's able to look at those fires and look at the lessons learned. And like Chief said, we look at it at the task, tactical, and strategic level. What did we do well at those three levels? And what did we what do we need to improve upon?

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Chief, I think a big thing on this in this after action, like 95% of everything that's in that after action is educational from a stance of reinforcing good behaviors, and this is what it should look like. And I think it's important that when we when we talk about actually having the discussion, especially when we're working with our neighbors and having that relationship, that the after action isn't a what went wrong. The after action is, you know, what can we reinforce to make sure we continue to do and do well? And then, you know, just as you said, where are areas for improvement or that we could share with other people who may not know where we can do better? So I think that's a that's a huge factor when we look at this regional response of, I don't know, probably 50 something fire departments now between three or four counties that are operating on a similar, similar playbook, right? And and and if they're not all totally there, they're they're getting there or they're going to get there at some point. And then that just makes it that much better with with that after action reporting fees, I think, of everybody's everybody has the same expectations, everybody's trained the same way. So there's not a question of what we were supposed to do when when we evaluate an incident.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

Yeah, and I think you know, you you you you can't over-emphasize being trained the same enough, right? You know, Chief Williams and I, you know, worked really hard to make sure that our our they call them districts, we call them battalions, same rank, same thing, our you know, second arriving ICs are are trained the same, right? Because that makes it very a whole lot easier for me to go to my city manager and say, hey, you know, we had this fire. Springdale's IC ran it, and here's why, right? He beat our our guy in. I know how he's trained, I know the training he's received, you know, we train together, and and it it makes it a whole lot easier to justify why you know my battalion was not necessarily in charge of the of the fire. Uh, it just provides a better service, and and you know, since we're all playing on the same uh system and training the same with the same qualifications, it it just makes it seem less to for a regional approach.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

So you got your your lieutenant is IC number two, even as well trained, even if he was very, very experienced, this incident of this magnitude is going to overwhelm any IC if they're going it alone. Talk about how the command team was set up and then some of the challenges they had, because in addition to a hazmat, then there was also some other special operations issues that came in. You were dealing with emergency management, you were dealing with some EPA and some contamination issues. So, how was that that all dealt with from the command post and how did you support IC number two?

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Well, we got the uh Butler County command van there and was able to get that set up on the alpha side and and have some more logistical help there, right? And we're in a better environment where we all could be together because initially there's three or four people in an SUV, which became, you know, had its own challenges. So once we were able to move that up to that command van and have those extra the extra help there, we got the USAR team there with the drone in the air and working with all those people, having a representative in the command post, giving the instant commander the live view. We were able to then give information out to the tactical bosses, which were then able to give it down to the companies at the task level to make sure the work was being done. One of the other things that you have to consider here is when they pulled up initially, they've got three patients right off the bat, plus the victim in the building. Right. So when you got critical burn patients and stuff, those medics are gonna need drivers. So how are you gonna get them a driver for that transport? And so they did a very good job with that. They had four medics on the initial dispatch and three patients. So they just the one medic split up and put drivers at each of those first two medics dead to burn victims. And then the the fourth medic took the medical patient that did not have the burns, and we were able to get them transported and give them the appropriate care that they needed. This was by far one of the most complex fires I'd been on in my 30-year career. And for the lieutenant to get it on his first fire as an incident commander by himself, he'll never top it again. But we all just sat there together, worked together, and and supported him. Not one time did anybody take the radio from him or anything. He he held on to it till the next morning when we swapped out crews on the scene, and they gave it to the oncoming Fairfield Battalion chief at that point, about eight o'clock the next morning.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Let's talk a little bit about regionally how how those positions are are filled with response chiefs, because we we hear that a lot of you know, how how did you fill all those positions? We don't have that many people available, and you know, I think it it's it's important to share that message.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

We we did not used to have a lot of district chiefs on or battalions on the initial alarm, right? Now we have them on, we put three minimum on the initial dispatch, and then we add additional districts or battalions to each alarm assignment to make sure we have supervision there to make sure the work is being done. Again, we set those criteria or what those minimum requirements are, and then we have a list of what we suggested uh requirements we'd like to have them have. So there's eight classes altogether we want those uh battalions and districts to have. And when they do that, you're able to manage these fires of this magnitude. Go ahead, Chief.

SPEAKER_03 29:06

Yeah, I in you know in Fairfield, you know, we had uh three deputy chiefs and and me, and we rotate call. So somebody was always on call after after hours and on the weekends. So, you know, any structure fire dispatch, you knew you all automatically had you know you have your three on the initial dispatch, but then you also have a a staff officer coming from home. I happen to be at my cabin about two hours away, so I was I was pretty delayed in in getting there for the fire. But then you know, we also have other regional battalions that if you know they're sending sending an engine, they send the battalion with them. So there's sometimes we will get at least three and maybe even more on that initial dispatch. And you know, it's nice to be able to put a support officer or support at aid with that initial alpha uh uh sector boss.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

So you end up calling the USAR team in, the uh urban search and rescue technical rescue. What was their role there? How did they coordinate and and why were they called? What was their function?

SPEAKER_03 30:06

Okay, so it was the Hampton County Urban Search and Rescue UAS team. It's the drone team. Uh, they are a part of Hampton County Urban Search and Rescue. That's what actually I wrote my thesis on it about putting a uh a regional drone team together, and you we we were finally able to do it. But they were requested for uh situational awareness. It it helps that it's a separate organization outside of the fire department so that you're not robbing firefighters from the fire department to to operate drones, right? They they come in, they were able to give us a live feed into the mobile command. We were able to make you know some some a lot of our decision making was made due to the the information and the data that we were getting straight off of the the the drone feed. At any one time we had up to four drones, I believe, up in the air with infrared. That was super helpful. Uh so we could find you know not just where the fire was spreading, but then we could also pinpoint where we had uh piping leaking uh with the with the regular cameras. You know, there's tons of and and miles of piping throughout, as you can imagine, through a uh plant like this that not only has to do refrigeration, but it's also doing all the the thermal oil as well as the heating oil being piped throughout the the plant. You know, the plant had five independent uh uh processing lines and getting ready to put another one online. So the the drone unit is a is a regional asset. It'll go in the in the any of the six counties within southwestern Ohio. Uh and you know, this is not the first fire that that they've been called out to, but they're really able to provide that overview and the situational awareness for the incident commander right in the command post. They could put it to his phone if they wanted to. It also helped that through the USAR team, I was able to procure two structural specialists to come in and kind of give us a good idea of to evaluate the structure where we could and couldn't go after we had the fire contained. They were incredibly invaluable in dealing with the um corporate uh people from Cook as well as their building managers and plant managers to discuss the construction of the building. And it really allowed us to make the recovery once the fire was contained.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

You had mentioned 15 plus hours of pumping the sprinkler system in all, how what was the duration of this incident?

SPEAKER_03 32:36

So uh it came in at midnight on the 15th. We had the fire under control by I'd say noon, and we we started releasing units and got down to uh pretty much just fair field units. We you know, obviously we backfilled, we had a recall until eight or nine o'clock on the 17th, the morning of the 17th. But most of that was just standing by and just seeing if anything flared up.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Chief, you've been at this, Chief Lake Camp, you've been at this a long time. And if you look at how this was this operation went, and you compare it, and it's not to throw stones, but it's it's really the more we know now compared to what we knew even 10 or 20 years ago. What what improvements do you think? I mean, besides the relationships to to make this uh the most successful outcome as possible?

SPEAKER_03 33:28

It's the the the abandonment of residential tactics at a commercial fire, right? You know, I can tell you years ago we'd have we'd have grabbed an instant quarter or a two and a half thinking we were gonna go in there and put this fire out. And you know, like I said, had this building been built like plan A, we'd have been wearing it. It's the the it's this the the big box procedure that we actually have a procedure for buildings like this now. We didn't have that. We haven't had that until just a few years ago, right? We kept just kept doing things the way we were doing things and applying residential tactics. You know, uh viewing the fire suppression system as firefighters on the ground, right? You know, anybody that's heard Chin Ray talk, he talks about the you know, the the eight little firemen that are in there putting water on the fire before you're even out the door, realizing that and then supporting that, right? You know, getting there and making that priority before you ever cross the sill that you're pumping the FTC, right? You've got that roof report, you've got your fire attack team, and you got your on-deck company. You know, having a having a system, having a process, having a procedure. Uh we didn't have that 20 years ago. I would say we didn't have that 10 years ago, or maybe even five years ago. It's it's it's a way to go to go to work at these buildings. That that I don't know, we just didn't think of it before. Or we're actually you know putting it all together now.

SPEAKER_02 34:57

Thank you so much for sharing this because I I think it's a great lesson learned for all of us how the system comes together, particularly among 15 fire departments, 98 firefighters, prolonged incident uh length, you know, best possible outcome. Unfortunately, there was a fatality, but I think in the after action, it was determined really nothing could have been done to help that person in spite of any efforts that had happened. So, in closing, you know, what input do you guys have for us or anything else you'd like us to know about this incident that you'd like to pass along to the V shifter listeners?

SPEAKER_03 35:34

I I think you know, if you have these structures, if you have these structures in your jurisdiction or in your neighboring jurisdictions, you have to do a couple of things. One is you have to train on them, you have to have a policy, you have to have a policy that not just your department knows about, right? That you know, had we just had a a City of Fairfield policy, this outcome would have been much different, and this fire would have been much different. You know, get the information, right? Get to the big box class. You know, that that was a hugely uh educational uh class for me after 30 some years in the in in the fire service. If these buildings aren't going away, you know, we actually have uh an app with cook foods that will go to the iPad on the on the usually first arriving company that tells them where the fire is and how far it is away from the the closest door so we can evaluate our stretch. And we need to hopefully be able to share that with our our our partners, sharing that information, sharing the pre-plan information and uh getting out and and looking at these buildings and getting in them as often as you can.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Yeah, and I think with without having the training that we did from the big box workshop and this what Shane had taught us, all those things were going through my mind as I'm standing in front of this building and helping our command team make those decisions. Not only do you have to make sure that you have a policy, but you gotta follow it, right? You give you give those assignments out, and you got to make sure things are done before you make entry. Just because you assign somebody to the FTC, just because you assign that roof report, you got to make sure you get those reports back, you have to have confirmation the FTC is supplied before you make entry and just being disciplined. We just have to really slow down on these buildings, and it's hard for us to do. We're we want to fix things, we want to go to work quickly, and it's not a residential building, and we just have to remember those things. And when you follow what we've been trained to do, you see the you know, majority of this building was saved, and they're gonna be able to rebuild it.

SPEAKER_03 37:43

Yeah, and I would even you know comment on that that you know it's not in our nature to slow down, it's just not. However, this is the building where you have to slow down. This is a high this is a hazmat building. This is a it was literally a hazmat building, but you got to treat it like a hazmat run. Right? You need to slow down, get your things in place before you ever make make entry into that building. You know, we've added to our tactical worksheet, you know, we have a box in the corner of of the the you know, the checkoffs of what we have to have on a big box before we actually cross that sill. So we've added that. And it it it just a just a as just a reminder, or just a as a memory job to check those off.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

Josh, do you have any other questions or thoughts for the Chiefs before we wrap it up today?

SPEAKER_00 38:33

No, yeah, just thanks for thanks for sharing this. And just because I'm still in this region, I think I hear about them here more than anywhere else. But uh I think there's been a dozen or more big box fires probably in the last 18 to 24 months. And I think we've all learned something from all of them. Or or when I say learned, it doesn't have to be that it's something new, but I think we've learned that the the system and the process that we have indeed works. So it's just reinforcing that. So these these policies, procedures, guidelines, training has has has truly been tested under fire now, and we we know that we know that they're working and we're we're seeing good outcomes. It doesn't mean that we're not gonna look to change when we need to change based off of other other critical factors or or things coming about, but it it's nice to see when the when the system all comes together and when the system works and we all are there providing service to the community, which is why, which is why we exist. And that's that's the only reason we exist.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

Chief Thomas Lake Camp recently retired. Thank you so much for being here, Assistant Chief Scott Williams. Thank you. Also a blue card lead instructor, so you know the system well and you know how well the the system was applied. No firefighter injuries at this, which I think is really a big win because when we end up uh injuring firefighters, particularly when we're in defensive operations, there's no need for that whatsoever. So you you guys were able to keep your folks safe while also treating the patients that you had and containing the fire, and still 75% of the facility was usable. So that's another win. So thank you so much for sharing this with us today and uh sharing the application of the blue card system. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Beat Shifter podcast. Please make sure to like and subscribe, pass this on to your friends, and we'll talk to you next time on Beat Shifter.