BY KEVIN A. GALLAGHER
Jerry Knapp's report on the fire in West Haverstraw, New York (in this issue), determined to be caused by discarded smoking material near the front porch, appeared to me to be déjà vu. In 2008, the Acushnet (MA) Fire & EMS Department (Acushnet) responded to a reported porch fire at a two-story Colonial house. In the four minutes it took the first-arriving police officer to get on scene, the structure was fully involved. That fire made us—and the fire service—aware of the dangers posed by certain techniques used in residential modular construction. Our findings served as the basis for my article "The Dangers of Modular Construction" (Fire Engineering, May 2009, http://bitily/1cXdci9). These findings also served as the foundation on which additional information and experiences have been added for several Fire Department Instructor Conference presentations on this topic.
The Acushnet and West Haverstraw fires, along with fires across the country, including the fire in May 2012 in Carmel, New York,1 that killed a police officer and members of his family (caused by ash from smoking material that ignited plastic lattice near the front porch), demonstrate the intense speed at which fire can spread in a modular home. For several years now, we have worked to address several construction techniques unique to the modular industry we believe are inherently dangerous to building occupants and firefighters when a fire moves beyond the contents and finds its way into the structure.
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