Sofa Superstore Fire in Charleston SC Case Study - 14

Sofa Superstore Fire in Charleston SC - Case Study Example Within approximately three minutes of the alarm, the Charleston firefighters had already arrived at the scene, followed closely by the St. Andrews Public Service District firefighters. The primary attack mainly focused on putting out the fire at the loading dock region, with a second effort to evacuate and search for people trapped inside and prevent the fire from spreading to the warehouse and showroom. It was reported by the teams entering the showroom that they initially encountered clear visibility with only very light Smokey puffs observable near the back of the showroom ceiling. Shortly after that, an outside door was opened in proximity to the raging fire. Attempts to close the door failed, permitting the fire to breach into the showroom. There was an order for the firefighters to extend two hose lines into the showroom to mitigate the spreading fire; unfortunately, the initially connected line was not enough. It needed some firefighters to leave the building again in order to increase the sections of the hose and to hold off the growing fire they had to leave only one small hand line. Fire dispatchers about this time notified the crews on the ground that they had got a distress call from an employee still trapped in the warehouse, which forced some of the firefighters to re-direct their attention towards the rescue. To eventually save the trapped employee, the firefighters had to breach an exterior wall to reach the victim (Routely, et al., 2007). Despite efforts to extinguish and confine the fire, it persisted and spread into the building structure and kindled the showroom furniture, developing much faster than the original operational hose lines could handle. Meanwhile attempts to begin operating additional hose lines and stretch their range extended. The showroom area of the store at 7:41 p.m. with at least sixteen firefighters still working  inside experienced a flashover.