The Harrisburg Hallway

Row home fires have many challenges and can quickly tax the available manpower in any size department.

This issue is exacerbated in departments with typically low staffing. The Harrisburg Bureau of Fire falls squarely into this category. With an on duty minimum staffing of 14 firefighters and a command officer, staffing is a major issue on the fire-ground.

Developing ways to adapt and overcome is mandatory because, regardless of our staffing, our obligation to the public remains the same.

When you have a row going good, crews can quickly become fatigued just by going up and down the steps to get from one house to another.

When the fire is traveling in the cockloft, time is of the essence. The fire can travel over an exposure and on to others in the time needed to get crews repositioned in the next home in the row. Time spent taking a charged line out of a home or going to get another one can be the difference in how many homes are affected.

Over the years we’ve developed a technique we call the Harrisburg Hallway. It’s simply a term we’ve coined for the act of breaching walls between row homes for quicker access and ability to catch up to a running fire.

We call it the Harrisburg Hallway because we try to make those breaches in as close to a line as possible to aid in moving the hose line between multiple homes.

This has been a very effective tactic for us and the benefit often outweighs the additional damage. And quite often, these walls would require opening anyway to check for fire extension.

If the wall is of wood frame construction, we’ll breach two bays and take out the middle stud. If the wall is of brick construction, we’ll breach it in as close to a triangle as possible to help distribute the load of the wall itself.

We’ll do this as many times as is necessary to access the homes effected, thus the term hallway. However, this isn’t something we just do. There must be a need to get through to the other homes, and the conditions must warrant the extra damage. We’re looking to quickly get between homes to cut off the spreading fire.

When making the Harrisburg Hallway we also notify command so that they are aware of the additional openings between the buildings and so that adjustments can be made in the tracking of personnel on the fire-ground. Crews must keep command up to date on their location.

Certainly, this is nothing new or ground- breaking, but simply a tool in our box to be taken out and utilized at the right time.