布里特尼·梅吉亚（Brittny Mejia）
Los Angeles Times
(TNS)
The firefighter lay unconscious in the frontyard of the burning home. His crew pulled off his soot-covered equipment and started CPR, pumping down hard with their hands on his chest, over and over again.
The ambulance was more than five minutes away.
蒂姆·拉西斯（Tim Racisz）从兰乔·帕洛斯·维尔德斯（Rancho Palos Verdes）的塔拉帕卡路（Tarapaca Road）对面，看着火焰吞噬了他的家。一个邻居计算出胸部压缩的数百个 - 在堕落的消防员身上进行。
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“This is hopeless,” the neighbor, a doctor, told Racisz as smoke billowed. “You can’t give somebody that many compressions without just destroying them. They’re not going to come back.”
Jonathan Flagler,一名21年的资深消防员，再也没有回来。验尸官后来发现两个人的父亲被窒息而已。他呼吸器中的坦克已经用光了。
Even in a place as vast and combustible as Los Angeles, Flagler’s demise represents something rare: the death of an urban firefighter battling a structure fire.
Over the last three decades, 14 members of the L.A. County Fire Department have died while on duty, according to data kept by theU.S. Fire Administration.Only three of those firefighters, including Flagler, were battling structure fires.
In a confidential report obtained by The Times, Fire Department investigators reconstructed what happened in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 6. Relying on interviews with firefighters on the scene that night, deputies’ body-worn cameras, recordings of radio transmissions and an examination of Flagler’s protective equipment, they stitched together a minute-by-minute accounting of how the tragedy unfolded from the moment Racisz’s wife reported smoke in their four-bedroom home to the call of a “firefighter down.”
The report does not name the firefighters involved. But, combined with Racisz’s recollections, it exposes failures that cost Flagler his life. Firefighters underestimated the extent of the fire. A firefighter was left unaccounted for in a burning home. Fire crews missed a mayday call.
当消防部门寻求答案时，弗拉格勒的家人也是如此。他的妻子死了追悼会，leaves a “hole in my heart that will never fully heal.”
“All it took was one date, and I knew he was the man I was meant to spend the rest of my life with,” Jenny Flagler said. “I didn’t get the rest of my life, but I got the rest of his.”
As Jonathan Flagler got dressed to leave his San Clemente home on Jan. 5 at 5 a.m., his wife asked him to call in sick.
The couple had been suffering from congestion, a cough and fatigue. Neither one knew at the time that they had COVID-19.
“我很好，宝贝，我会没事的，”弗拉格勒向他的妻子保证。“我只有一天要走了，然后我回家了。”
然后，他开车超过60英里到达83消防局，在那里他被雇用了一年。在那里工作对这位47岁的老人感到怀旧。该车站是他参加Explorer计划的地方，该计划将青少年和年轻人介绍给消防部门的职业。
Jenny didn’t worry when Jonathan headed there for a shift. She was concerned, she said, only when he went out on wildland fires. Those felt more unpredictable and dangerous. She’d go hours without hearing from him.
Jonathan was busy that Wednesday at the station, only able to text Jenny a couple of times. That evening, as usual, he called his wife to recap the day. The conversation was shorter than normal.
“我们整天都在打电话。我很累，”乔纳森说。“我希望我们今晚没有任何电话，我可以入睡。”
His shift wasn’t scheduled to end until the next morning, around 8.
“I hope you can get some rest,” Jenny said before they hung up. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Racisz and his wife smelled the acrid smoke before they saw the fire.
He was asleep in the bedroom while his wife watched TV in another room. As she got ready to go to bed, she caught a burning smell wafting through the more than 2,000-square-foot house on Jan. 6. Soon after, the smoke alarm woke him.
Racisz, who had lived in the wood-frame and stucco home off and on for more than 40 years, began to search the familiar rooms for the source of the smell. There wasn’t much more smoke than there’d be if you burned something in the kitchen, he said, but the awful stench seemed to permeate the house.
His search came up empty.
Racisz, 63, got dressed as his wife called 911. At 2:01 a.m., the Los Angeles Communications Center dispatched engine companies to Tarapaca Road with a text that read: “FIRE IN ATTIC, SMK CHARGING ROOM”.
拉西抓住他的钱包和眼镜。他的妻子接受了iPad和投资组合。他们跑了出去，将前门打开，站在常春藤覆盖的车库上。Racisz看不到黑暗中的烟雾。
Within minutes, a truck arrived from Station 83, less than two miles away, along with sheriff’s deputies. A captain from the station, engineer, patrol firefighter and Flagler went inside to investigate and found a small fire around the back of an end table in the master bedroom. The patrol firefighter used a 2.5-gallon water extinguisher to douse the flames.
弗拉格勒用热成像摄像头检查了房间中的墙壁和天花板温度。但是他不知道房间的壁板和隔热材料降低了相机的有效性。
他说没有明显的发现。
Around 2:10 a.m., the fire captain radioed the dispatch center to report that his team had encountered a small fire. He said they would be able to handle it with one other crew already en route. Several units were canceled.
Flagler grabbed his breathing apparatus from the engine, pressurized it and put on his face piece before going back into the house. The fire engineer soon followed suit.
他们没有在主卧室里感到火灾。但是，当打开灯光时，他们看到天花板上的烟聚集。他们打开了滑动玻璃门，以通风房间，然后移动加利福尼亚国王床以清理一条路。
Racisz watched as one of the crew members exited the house with the smoldering nightstand. The couple was told it had been pinpointed as the source of the fire.
“We’ll show up with some fans and blow the smoke out,” Racisz recalled being told. “Things are under control.”
But Racisz hadn’t seen the nightstand on fire as the house filled with the smell of smoke and he and his wife raced to safety. It wasn’t the cause, he said, just the effect.
不久之后，在卧室内，工程师发现了令人担忧的原因：在一个高5英尺高的灰烬壁板上烧焦，在电源插座附近，这可能表示火灾蔓延。
When a camera showed no significant thermal readings, Flagler left to grab an ax. On the front porch, he told his captain that he was going to use to the tool to check for fire in the wall.
弗拉格勒（Flagler）反复用斧头击中了壁板，最后成功地在插座附近创建了一个小孔。在里面，船员在墙壁的底部发现了火焰。巡逻消防员用尽了2.5加仑的灭火器，试图将其淘汰。
很快，黑烟开始在房子里蔓延。工程师和巡逻消防员意识到他们需要更多的水来撒谎，因此留下了软管。
Flagler stayed behind.
Three couples huddled together across the street from the burning house.
Deputies had moved Racisz and his wife there, away from the garage. Neighbors from two houses to the south also were evacuated, for fear that the fire could spread.
“L.A., Engine 83, can you start the full assignment again?” the fire captain called over the radio at 2:23 a.m., his breathing heavy. He indicated that the engine companies that had been turned back should return to the scene of the blaze. “I do have a fire in the attic.”
附近，弗拉格勒车站的巡逻消防员试图将软管拉向主卧室。大火阻止了他的路。同时，船员工程师将一条软管拖到房屋的侧面，那里有明显的光芒。
Raciszes叫911后25分钟，一名机组人员从消防局106到达。机组人员发现火焰爬过屋顶。不久之后，大火碎了一个窗户。
Then, the alarm on Flagler’s breathing apparatus went off, warning him that he was low on air. By that time, he had been alone in the house for nearly 10 minutes.
Outside, the Engine 83 engineer pulled a hose uphill toward the nearest fire hydrant. A captain and firefighter paramedic sprayed water through the rear sliding door and window openings.
Inside, Flagler depressed and held a red button on his breathing apparatus to activate an alarm. Lights on the apparatus flashed red, and alarm tones sounded from its front and rear mounted speakers.
But there was no one else in the burning building to hear them.
It was 2:31 a.m.
A minute later, Flagler activated the emergency trigger on his radio and transmitted a mayday, alerting others that he was low on air. The corner of the house near the master bedroom was engulfed in flames.
Outside, the Engine 83 captain, Flagler’s commanding officer, was on the radio. He told dispatch: “If you haven’t started an ambulance, start one.”
He was the man tasked with his crew’s safety.
而且他听不到弗拉格勒的帮助。
大约一英里之遥，发动机56中发出了高曲线的音调，这表明塔拉帕卡路的现场遇险中有一名消防员。卡车的船长试图从83号发动机上登上机长，但不能。
As the Engine 53 fire crew navigated switchbacks on Palos Verdes Drive East, where signs urged speeds of no more than 20 mph, they too heard the emergency signal. But they were still five minutes away.
At the burning home, the Station 106 captain heard the warble tone and looked around for his crew, counting heads, making sure everyone was safe. The firefighter paramedic from 106 saw Flagler’s emergency alert and told the captain that there was a man in trouble.
The report does not specify what was said. But instead of turning his attention to rescuing Flagler, the captain kept battling the fire at the back of the house.
消防员护理人员跑到发动机83，告诉上尉，弗拉格勒的空气较低，警报尚未偶然引起。
发动机83巡逻消防员 - 与弗拉格勒一起在房子里，但离开了大楼 - 问另一名船员弗拉格勒在哪里。
没有人知道。
Flagler had sought shelter in a small bathroom off the hallway. His ax rested outside the door.
When the Engine 53 captain found him, the alarm on his breathing apparatus was sounding. His flashlight and thermal imaging camera were on. He was out of air, unconscious and, as the report described him, “apneic,” having temporarily stopped breathing.
The Engine 53 captain yelled for his firefighter to help him. The two moved Flagler down the hall, pulling him by the shoulder straps on his breathing apparatus. The Engine 56 captain soon joined them and helped carry the downed firefighter out the front door.
凌晨2:42，机组人员卸下了弗拉格勒的设备并开始了CPR。Racisz震惊地看着马路对面。
“We have a firefighter down,” the captain from Engine 83 said over the radio. He asked when the ambulance would arrive.
凌晨2:54，弗拉格勒被装入了吉尔尼和救护车上。他的身材超过16％的三级烧伤，并从疯狂的努力中摔断了肋骨，以使他通过CPR复活。18分钟后，他到达了苏联医疗中心。
He was pronounced dead at 3:26 a.m.
当门铃响起凌晨5点左右，令人震惊的珍妮·醒来时，她的第一个直觉是打电话给丈夫。然后又响了。然后再次。
The people outside told her through the door that they were with L.A. County. Confused, Jenny wondered if there was a fire in her backyard or possibly a water leak. When she opened the door, she said, the news was evident on their faces.
She crumpled to the ground. All that moved her were the screams and cries of her two teenage sons, who had overheard the terrible news. She ran upstairs to hold them. The three fell to the ground crying.
“不，妈妈，不是爸爸，”一个儿子说。“请不要让它成为爸爸。”
The following days passed in a blur. At Flagler’s memorial service on Jan. 21, friends, family and fellow firefighters shared stories.
To Jack, 13, Flagler was the type of father who kept Jolly Rancher candy in his truck and in his pocket to pass out to his friends, earning him the nickname “Uncle Jolly.” To Brody, he was the type of dad to trade shifts with work buddies so he could watch football with his 15-year-old son every Sunday.
To Jenny, his wife of nearly 19 years, Flagler was her soul mate. She considered herself “one of the lucky few that found him on the first try.”
As the service neared its end, Dave Gillotte, the International Assn. of Fire Fighters Local 1014 union president and a fire captain, said Flagler “selflessly and bravely did his job well.”
“John’s legacy will carry lessons learned for his brothers and sisters,” Gillotte said.
Those lessons were painstakingly detailed in the internal report, known as a “green sheet.”
Flagged in the report were mobile radio programming problems that could cause personnel to miss emergency activations. The need for captains to be accountable over crews in the field. And having firefighters stay in teams of two or more in case of an emergency.
报告说：“在剩下的机组人员退出结构之后，弗拉格勒独自一人处于[立即危害生命或健康的环境中。”“‘两英寸，两分'规则程序，包括在两个或多个团队中运营，应在存在[立即危害生命或健康状况]的紧急事件中实施。”
Investigators found there was never a full assessment of the house’s exterior or a thorough investigation of the interior, which could have helped firefighters understand the extent of the fire.
The report found that the fire was caused by an electrical malfunction in the wall separating the master bedroom and laundry room. The fire smoldered in the wall until it burned through the plastic electrical outlet cover in the master bedroom. It then spread into the attic space and into the room, where it ignited materials around the rear of an end table.
“Personnel conducting initial investigations shall thoroughly check for and rule out all potential sources of fire before cancelling resources,” the report stated. “The readily apparent fire may not fully indicate the extent of fire.”
The fire spread out of the wall space and throughout the house, “due to construction anomalies, a significant fuel load, and natural ventilation resulting from open front double doors, an opened sliding glass bedroom door, and holes created in the wall,” the report said. Investigators recommended more training on fire dynamics, live fire and personnel accountability.
Curt Floyd, responder technical lead for the National Fire Protection Assn., does not comment on specific cases, but he noted that firefighter deaths have dropped over the years due to a number of factors. Among them are improved training and education and increased quality of protective equipment.
“We used to see firefighter fatalities in the 100s not too long ago and those have dropped down,” Floyd said. “Unfortunately, it is a dangerous job and sometimes you just don’t know what you’re getting into until you get there.”
Flagler’s family plans to file a lawsuit over his death on the job, according to an attorney representing the family. The defendants in the lawsuit have yet to be determined. The attorney declined to comment on the report.
消防营负责人查德·萨尔贝尔（Chad Sourbeer）在一份声明中说，该部门“无法对预期诉讼造成的塔拉帕卡事件的情况发表评论”。
But since the fire, Sourbeer said, every chief in the department has gone through training to reinforce policies and procedures and look for new opportunities to improve emergency operations. He added that there is a plan in place departmentwide for the next six months “to take those lessons and reinforce our policies and procedures with our membership.”
“The department continues to be committed to thorough reviews of major incidents, as they are an integral component in assessing how to improve emergency operations and provide better service,” Sourbeer said.
In an interview with The Times, Jenny Flagler said she doesn’t want her husband’s death to be in vain.
“What we’re going through is awful,” she said. “If I can protect any other family from having to go through this, I’m going to do everything I can.”
And that, she said, is how she plans to honor her husband.
This story originally appeared inLos Angeles Times。
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