Video of the helmet camera of a fire in a residential structure
CJ Gardin
06/12/209 – Estes Rd, Union, SC. I had just joined Philippi’s Fire Department, which was the area I actually lived in (previous videos I was just a member of the Lockhart Fire Department, which is the closest city). I had previous reservations about joining this department, but it was where my house and my in-laws lived, so I was invited to join there. As shown in previous videos, you can see the members of that department operating and, unlike these videos, I got water very quickly while I was in gear (because I drove the engine myself and put it on the pump before letting the fire chief take over control) The problem is that I had very little pressure, as shown, and the fire continued to push back at us. With only a total of 4 internal firefighters (with their PPE) in place, a second line was only pulled after a hole was burned in our first line and during the course of these operations I received third degree burns on my left ear, burns second degree on the lower legs and first degree burns on the left shoulder, arm, chest and upper back. The owner of the house who barely managed to escape just before our arrival was transported for smoke inhalation and minor burns. When the fire was extinguished, a search was finally conducted and we also discovered that his dog had died under his bed. To make matters worse, the fire chief at the time did not report any injuries to the media at the scene. At the next meeting, I brought up the problem of low nozzle pressure and was told that we should never pump a hand line over 100 pounds because “are you trying to kill the man holding the line?” To make a long story short, I left that department and the administration is no longer in charge either.
If anyone can learn anything from my videos, it is that the basic training that we all must have and practice regularly is often overlooked and either the citizens, ourselves or both will pay the price for negligence. Don’t take my criticism as voluntary criticism, because I grew up and still participate in the Union County voluntary system when I’m not working elsewhere. I will be launching training videos in the near future, where I will train with volunteers to prevent problems like these from happening again.
Union County, SC is a 100% voluntary system outside the city limits. At the time of the fire, I was a member of the Philippi Fire Department, located between the city of Lockhart and the city of Union. The helmet camera used is the FireCam 1080 mini.
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