Despite the fact that catastrophes may happen at any time and place, it is impossible to overstate the necessity of fire safety measures, especially in professions where there is no guarantee of perfection. Firefighters from the Charleston Fire Department were called to a blaze at a local company. Interior staff were disoriented as black smoke poured from the roof to the ground and filled the showrooms (Menchaca and Smith). One of the dock employees is believed to have dropped a cigarette in the dock where furniture was being kept, which sparked the blaze. Nine firemen were killed, and 18 others were wounded in the blaze. Fire quickly spread throughout the shop due to the presence of highly flammable furnishings. To release trapped oxygen, firefighters shattered windows to extinguish the blaze, which accelerated the growth of the flames.
Firefighters went inside to put out the flames and then conducted a main search once they arrived. Upon entering, rescuers were told the victims were trapped inside. This resulted in many other firefighters who had been killed and a lack of clarity as to whether or not they would continue. Hot smoke from the unburned fuel found its way through a suspended ceiling into the main showroom, where it produced a heat layer under the suspended roof. The firefighters in the shop had not yet realized how far the fire had gone into the interstitial area (NIST). It is illegal to build a loading dock on the land. Thus, it must be checked out after a set amount of time. When firefighters could not flee the building due to its size and lack of exits, it was likely because of its combustible materials and lack of exits.
Structure
The original grocery store structure, measuring 125 ft × 130 ft (38 m x 40 m), was built probably in the 1950s or 1960s. It had a flat corrugated metal deck roof supported by lightweight steel bar joists (trusses) on top of a concrete slab, with steel beams and columns supporting the brick front and concrete block side and back walls. As recently as 1998 or 2001, a 4-inch thick coating of sprayed-on polyurethane foam was added to the original grocery store building’s roof v. Because there was a suspended ceiling under the flat roof support beams, the interstitial void spaces in the main showroom ranged from 5 feet to as low as 2 feet 6 inches in the East and West showrooms. It served as a commercial furniture shop and warehouse at one point in its life.
Contents
The level of intervention with the excavating process is determined by how the company is built. Because it was closed, the store’s exit door could not be accessed during excavation. It put a halt to excavations going in just one direction. The windows have also been smashed, spreading the fire rapidly and efficiently (IFE). The building’s enormous amount of furniture and combustible items were not included in the pre-fire strategy. Heat might cause the collapse of a steel truss in around twenty seconds. In addition to the design, installation, and functioning of sprinkler systems, the crew’s understanding of safety problems will be evaluated as part of the assessment. Inspections must be conducted in accordance with national standards by a person who has been appropriately trained and authorized.
Before the incident, the institution had broken its own regulations. Despite the business’s flammable products, there were no automated fire sprinklers in the Charleston Super Sofa shop. A shop that sells these items should take all necessary precautions. Due to its size and potential for calamity, the Sofa Super Store could not have been described as a multi-family house. The facility’s fire dangers met the minimum standards set by national building and fire rules. An automated sprinkler system or a firewall system should be employed to create functional fire compartments (NIST). This fire might have been restricted to the loading dock with sprinklers installed. There were nine firefighter fatalities in 2008, and the Charleston Fire Department took responsibility.
Fire Behavior
At that same time, the fire department discovered the situation was more complex than anticipated. Steel bar connections in the hollow areas between the roof and the ceiling were crucial to the spread of the fire. There was around a 5-foot-high empty area above the ceiling, and the concrete roof deck’s lightweight steel bar joints were enclosed. Firefighters at the shop would have been able to see the danger of a fire in the showroom if the spread of the fire had been made obvious (NIST). There was enough fuel to go around, as shown by the fire behind the showroom and the gas leaking from the suspension ceiling.
Overall, the Sofa Super fire teaches us the importance of the fire safety system and the need to have a basic awareness of fire prevention. Because of this, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has implemented comprehensive safety regulations, including those relating to fire safety. Unauthorized building installations and the incapacity of the fire department to undertake, among other building safety checks, caused the accident (NIST). The great fuel economy of the building’s furnishings, as well as the loading deck’s availability of hazardous items, were both factors in the accident. The fire’s exact cause is unclear, but based on reports, the building structure contributed highly to the quick spread of the fire and the difficulty of putting it off. With the building housing furniture which catches fire easily, it would have been better if the store had implemented fire safety measures beforehand. With safety measures, the losses experienced could have been avoided.
Specifics of the Fire and the Results
The blaze that broke out at the Sofa Super Store in Charleston swiftly spread from the back towards the front of the lead showroom and into the western and eastern exhibits. A fire broke out in a stockpile of packing materials and old furniture outside a closed loading dock terminal from an unidentified cause. The fire progressed from the loading dock’s outside to the inside, which was utilized for stage furniture for distribution and furniture repairing. The fire started in the loading bay and swiftly extended to the retail exhibit and storehouse. The fire could not get enough air initially, which halted its progress. The fire generated enormous amounts of somewhat pyrolyzed fuel in terms of smoke and combustible gases, given the lack of adequate air to facilitate complete combustion. Large amounts of unburned gasoline poured into the area beneath the roof and beyond the suspended ceiling of the central retail showroom. The scorching smoke crept through the ceiling tile into the big exhibit as the extracellular space swelled with unburned gasoline, forming a heated smoke layer underneath the suspended ceiling. Firefighters inside the store had no idea how far the fire had gone further into the interstitial area until this point.
The fire progressed from the holding facility towards the back of the lead showroom, where it ignited extra fuel, making it more apparent to fire crews in the central showroom. The inferno in the rear of the major exhibition was still ventilated, and the oxygen deprivation retarded its spread. The fire injected additional hot, unburned fuel into the smoke layer beneath the suspended ceiling as it burnt in the back of the lead showroom. The incomplete combustion fuel throughout the smoke layer was unable to ignite due to a lack of oxygen. More oxygen flowed through the front panels, along with floors, and to the back of the exhibit once the front panels were smashed by the firefighters, providing airflow to the fire.
The extra oxygen caused the fire’s heating rate to quickly accelerate, igniting the layers of unburned fuels underneath the drop ceiling. The fire immediately spread from the back towards the front of the central showroom, then spread to the eastern and western showrooms. The extreme heat from the prolonged burning of merchandise in the lead showroom compromised the roof trusses and beams, resulting in the collapsing of a piece of the ceiling over the central showroom around 13 minutes after the front windows caught fire and the firefighters arrived 40 minutes later. Before the flame was extinguished, the furniture and items in the displays and warehouse burned for another 140 minutes. The inferno spread so quickly across the main and western showrooms that six firefighters were trapped inside the central exhibit and three inside the west exhibit. Although the strenuous heat from the fire crippled the super-light steel support beams and caused the roof to collapse partially, the firefighters were killed from burn injuries and smoke inhalation, rather than compression concussions that might have been related to the breakdown.
The maximum fuel furniture load, the absence of sprinklers extinguishers, the open floor design, and the concealed construct of combustible gases and smoke between the roof and drop ceiling in the central showroom were factors in the fire’s rapid progression, according to NIST experts. The fire would have been contained to the loading bay area if automated sprinklers had already been installed. The Charleston fire service was also held responsible for the fatal outcome. Lack of organization, training, structural infractions, communications concerns, and water issues were all mentioned as important contributors to the terrible, disastrous fire.
Works Cited
IFE. “Incident Directory 2007 – Sofa Super Store, Charleston.” The Institute of Fire Engineers, 2017, https://www.ife.org.uk/Firefighter-Safety-Incidents/2007-sofa-super-store-charleston/41970.
Menchaca, Ron, and Glenn Smith. “Trapped: The Story of Nine Charleston Firefighters’ Deaths.” Post and Courier, The Post and Courier, 20 Aug. 2020, https://www.postandcourier.com/news/special_reports/trapped-the-story-of-nine-charleston-firefighters-deaths/article_77e54845-5718-584b-8a4b-1dd9a1689d66.html.
NIST. “NIST Releases Final Report on Charleston Sofa Store Fire.” NIST, 8 Jan. 2018, https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2011/03/nist-releases-final-report-charleston-sofa-store-fire.
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