It seems like every day somewhere in North America a fire department is facing the challenges of hoarding massive amounts of stuff inside people’s homes. Compulsive Hoarding Disorder is a diagnosable physiological disorder that affects between 2-5% of adults. This disorder is not limited to a single race, income level, or geographical location. Hoarding conditions can be found anywhere and in all of our districts.
With this growing number of cases being seen it’s time that we educate ourselves on the needed adjustments for fighting these complex fires. Many of these adjustments were recently highlighted in Jacksonville Florida. Gathering information from local news agencies and listening to the chiefs interview we can take many learning points away from this two alarm fire.
Identify these conditions before the fire happen:
Without the opportunity of speaking with Jacksonville Fire I do not know if they suspected this home had the potential for being filled with belongings. By searching out the video and pulling up Google maps you can make the call from space. This particular home exhibits many signs of a cluttered environment.
– High privacy fences
– Only one point of entry
– Overgrown shrubbery
– Multiple stacks of stuff sticking out above fences
– Noticeable yard clutter from overhead image
Many compulsive hoarding patients will build high privacy fences to conceal and protect their belongings. Just like the Jacksonville case, you can notice these with a street level drive-by. Using tools such as Google maps you can take a tour around the exterior of a property to look behind the fences and search for cluttered yards. If you discover these conditions you should assume that the house is filled to the same level as the yard. By assuming this until proven different firefighters can use a slower, more defensive minded approach to the fire.
Privacy fences conceal the true condition of the yard and exterior of the home, making it all more important for the first arriving officer to look above and behind them. If you can’t make your way around them, much like the Jacksonville case, you will need to begin to rip them down for a true size up of the conditions.
This particular case also exhibited only one point of entry. As the collection grows so does the blocking of pathways inside and outside of the house. It is very common to find the only point of entry or exit will not be doorways. Their exit paths can be window, ladders, and other points of exits. As their compulsion to collect grows so does their inability to move or shift their belongings away from the exit paths, in turn they will make alternate means of egress. Only having one point of entry also points to limited amounts of secondary or emergency egress points. Not having these can be firefighter killers! If you discover that only one pathway is open you need to make a strong decision whether the risk is beyond the return of advancing down them or make use of personnel around the exterior to make secondary access points.
Confirmation of clutter in this particular situation comes in the form of overgrown shrubberies, multiple stacks sticking out above the fence, and noticeable clutter from an overhead view. Often it takes having multiples clues to make the call of a “Heavy Content”environment. Each one, if found by itself, can direct you to make a closer inspection but having multiple clues should give you the highest level of suspicion that the house is full of stuff. Without speaking directly to the Jacksonville folks I do not know if they captured these clues, but watching the video of their chiefs reaction shows that he gathered all of the clues and made the accurate decision to pull everyone out, saving a potential tragedy.
Learning Points:
The best examples that we all should take away from this case of Hoarding Fires are:
1. Establish a “Heavy Content Environment” announcement after capturing the cues and clues of Hoarding. Using the term Heavy Content takes us away from using derogatory words such as “Pack Rat” or “Hoarder House”. Both terms can be hurtful to the occupant and cause a dangerous reaction to the responders if they here those terms describing their “valued” belongings.
2. Suspect collapse is near. How much weight does it take to collapse an ordinary construction home under normal conditions? Hoarding can cause this amount to be lowered significantly. Variables such as water damage, rotting structural supports, and overload areas of the home should be factored in and expected once hoarding has been discovered.
3. Call additional resources early as possible. The Jacksonville case went to two alarms once operations had been moved to a defensive posture. Dealing with cluttered yards, privacy fences, and the massive amounts of overhaul that will need to take place additional resources should be called early in the operation. As the workload on your firefighters will be more than doubled so should the amount of relief firefighters and rehabilitation time. Stress related injury or illness is the leading cause of firefighter death, how much stress will they be facing in hoarding conditions?
4. Go to a defensive mindset as quick as possible. Once you discover or suspect the house is full of stuff and you confirm no victims trapped lets shift our approach to an outside in attack. Applying water from the exterior while removing debris and opening up the structure has its place in hoarding fires. Should we leave it ventilation limit as long as possible, yes. But once confirmed victims out we can take it from vent limited and begin to open it up. This can be done by window sill removals, master stream applications, a being to clear pathways for firefighters to access the building. Remember that hoarding can cause extremely dangerous conditions for an interior crew. Once these procedures have occurred it may be possible to enter the building and finish the job, with the safety measures in place.
What a great case of Hoarding Fire and decision making from Jacksonville District Fire Chief Adrian Johnson. We should use this example of decision making while capturing all the cues and clues as a standard when making operational decision. We also should begin the pre-fire planning process to identify hoarding conditions in our district. Start with drive by assessments and continue on to allow reports from all agencies (police, EMS, utility companies) to make sure we identify, adjust, and attack hoarding fires in a manner that will bring us all home safe!!
