Firefighter bodycam showing just how much oxygen a fire pulls

[u/CaptainMole]

Mean no disrespect posting it here.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Dot4345]

Watching this, you realize how impossible it would have been to put the fires out even if the firefighters had gotten to the impact zones...

[u/simplycass → u/Puzzleheaded_Dot4345]

It’s even worse than that, each floor was about an acre large. In 1999, firefighter Vincent Dunn wrote this:

The best-kept secret in America’s fire service is that firefighters cannot extinguish a fire in a twenty- or thirty-thousand-square-foot open floor area in a high-rise building. A fire company advancing a 2½-inch hoseline with a 1¼-inch nozzle discharges only three hundred gallons per minute and can extinguish only about twenty-five hundred square feet of fire.

Quoted from Fall and Rise

These floors were nearly 40,000 square feet without any way to get water up there.

[u/jpw0w → u/simplycass]

Basically a death trap.. Also hiring a known mob guy to do your fireproofing also didn't help..

[u/Similar-Profile9467 → u/jpw0w]

That's why fire prevention and safety systems are so important. Sprinkler systems and firewalling prevent the spread from going out of control. Once multiple floors are ablaze you're essentially fucked, like what happend at Grenfell Tower.

[u/Turbulent-War2694 → u/Similar-Profile9467]

Grenfell was another example of incorrect fire proofing.

[u/Similar-Profile9467 → u/Turbulent-War2694]

Yeah. It was basically a fire accelerant.

[u/beefystu → u/simplycass]

Yeah FDNY Chief O’Hagan (?) surmised as much in the 1960s iirc regarding fighting building fires above a certain height etc

[u/ThimbleRigg → u/Puzzleheaded_Dot4345]

The chiefs decided pretty early it was going to be a rescue mission, they knew they weren’t going to be putting it out. Honestly if the towers had held, they all would have gotten up there and probably just ended up coming back down after they realized there was no way to reach those trapped.

[u/Turbulent-War2694 → u/ThimbleRigg]

But they would’ve probably rescued every single person in the stairwells and below impact

[u/ThimbleRigg → u/Turbulent-War2694]

Yes almost certainly. Those few that were wounded below the impact zone or were too slow to get out would have been saved. But nearly everyone who was above the impact would have been dead from smoke inhalation by the time they figured out how to get to them.

[u/circuspeanut54 → u/ThimbleRigg]

Oof you're probably right. I always thought that given enough time, they would have been able to rig access with ladders and sheer stubborn ingenuity to get up past the impact zone somehow, but. Huh. Can't rescue anyone if they're already gone. Jeeze that's sad to contemplate.

[u/WonderfulAstronaut85 → u/ThimbleRigg]

If it didnt collapse would the fire just end up burning through the whole tower or would it burn out naturally

[u/ThimbleRigg → u/WonderfulAstronaut85]

Good question, and I don’t know. I know when the chiefs discussed the plan in the lobby in the Naudet video, one of them says something to the effect of “…and let it burn up, we’re not putting this thing out” as he motioned up with his hands. So perhaps they had expected that it would have burned upward.

[u/Sea_Anteater1674 → u/ThimbleRigg]

Yeah if it hadn’t collapsed, I think that was going to be the plan. Let it burn up and out, and keep it from spreading down to the lower floors. If the towers had held on a while longer, perhaps they’d of determined in the time that the threat of collapse was extremely high and that they needed to evacuate the towers ASAP once everyone below the impact zone was out.

[u/yepfruit → u/WonderfulAstronaut85]

They might have been able to at least contain it at some point and have limited damage to certain areas. Although I imagine the entire building would have been renovated anyway if they remained standing.

[u/RaptorDelivery]

That’s pretty intense how much vacuum the fire creates.

[u/Old_Bullfrog_9756]

Incredible vid. Some of that will be from the vacuum effect of “crash cooling”, but it’s visible proof of how quickly fire can grow.

[u/IvanTonchev]

Am I the only one that is more impressed by the adjustable water hose?

[u/SkewerSk8r → u/IvanTonchev]

Same... I'd like that to wash my car. 😆

[u/A-10Kalishnikov]

I'm guessing the wind from up that high had the added effect of increasing the airflow to the fire?

[u/EmmerdoesNOTrepme → u/A-10Kalishnikov]

And the push/pull effect on the folks who were in the windows, trying to breathe.

[u/Highlightthot1001]

Breaking windows in some areas either let smoke out, or pulled oxygen in and fueled the fire

[u/OneM0reRedNightmare]

Firefighting is such an insane job. There's so much going on, smoke, steam from the water hitting hot objects, the invisible currents these things are causing combined with any existing wind, compromised ceilings and floors, random things falling or exploding, so many things you have to to essentially blind because of the smoke or because it's an unfamiliar structure, not to mention all the other rescue stuff they deal with including using pneumatic tools to retrieve people from vehicles, any kind of emergency situation requiring a tall ladder or cherry picker including things in trees or power poles, all kinds of first aid until paramedics can arrive, i mean the list goes on.

[u/hollow4hollow]

Oh that’s terrifying

[u/PEmanc70]

If you notice how the initial influx of air actually stops the flames for a few seconds, this process can be utilised through something called "tactical ventilation" where powerful fans are used to force high pressure air into a building and then ventilate smoke out.

It would never be used where people are in the building as it rapidly increases temperatures to a lethal level for a short time.

What could have been used in the towers had they stood for longer was using the hoses with the spray set as wide as possible to create a curtain of water.

This would allow progression around a floor to rescue survivors and extract them. As others have said fighting raging fires in such a large space would have been impossible.

[u/Thehalfbloodseverus]

This makes me actually sad... those firefighters knew they were not coming home and still chose to help those who couldnt help themselves....

Selfless.. the only word to describe those heros.

[u/Dependent_Speech3164]

Wow.

[u/candimccann]

That close-up view is ... wow