By Bill Gustin
One of the most important safety lessons new firefighters can learn is how much fire can be over their heads with little or no indication below. I almost learned this lesson the hard way more than 40 years ago at a fire in a drug store. On arrival, we saw light gray smoke a few inches below the store's 12-foot-high tin ceiling. We assumed that there was a minor fire in a rear storage area and advanced a 1½-inch hoseline through the front door. We were about 100 feet deep into the store when a large ball of fire blew out of a ceiling heating-ventilation-air-conditioning (HVAC) register. This was our first indication that the entire cockloft was ablaze. We were very lucky. Had it not been for the ball of fire, we would have been clueless about the adverse conditions over our heads and more than likely would have been killed when the bowstring truss roof collapsed.
This article examines how fires originate and extend to attics, cocklofts, and other overhead spaces and the tactics to access and control them. It also examines hostile fire conditions, collapse, and entanglement hazards that lurk above firefighters' heads.
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