How fire crews coped with the arson outbreak
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NORTHAMPTON - As with a 100-year flood, the city faced a rare and disastrous event early Sunday most communities never see.
Here in Northampton, nearly a dozen structures and vehicles went up in flames in less than two hours, apparently lit by one fire-starter or more. Two men died, others were left homeless and neighborhoods were terrorized.
Those fires, and the damage they wrought, triggered a swift and coordinated public safety response that drew not only on scores of firefighters and police from the region, but also on years of emergency planning and mutual aid agreements.
Northampton Fire Chief Brian P. Duggan said he and other incident commanders soon realized they were dealing with more than an isolated house fire when firefighters were called to battle a Union Street blaze at 2 a.m. It took only a second fire call and then a third within minutes to know there was far more at stake.
"With the report of more than one structure fire, it's an indication to us that we need to escalate more quickly and bring in more resources," Duggan said. "Something like this hasn't really been experienced by many communities. Bringing in 14 departments worked exceptionally well."
When the first call came in for a fire at 26 Union St. at 2 a.m., all on-call units, including one city ambulance, responded to the scene. That fire quickly escalated to a second and then third box alarm, triggering mutual aid from Amherst and Easthampton.
Within minutes, calls involving structure fires were reported at 10 Highland Ave. and 17 Fair St., which prompted an incident commander in the field to direct mutual aid units to those locations.
Mayor Clare Higgins said the emergency operations center based at the Fire Department on Carlon Drive played a significant role in coordinating the work of so many departments and agencies, as did the benefit of having a city-based ambulance service and more firefighting staff than in past years.
The rapid succession of fire calls and severity of the situation was evident in the response by Amherst's Fire Department which, while responding to the Union Street fire, was diverted to 17 Fair St., where that town's firefighters were the first to tackle a two-story house in flames.
Easthampton firefighters were initially called to a Highland Street fire and then rerouted to Fair Street, as was a Hatfield crew, according to radio reports.
"It's just an amazing situation to be in," said Amherst's interim fire chief, Lindsay E. Stromgren, who was in Amherst listening to the radio traffic as his entire force responded to the call for help from Northampton.
Stromgren, who listened to the dispatch recordings for a second time Wednesday, said he was impressed with the way dispatchers and incident commanders handled the crisis as it unfolded. He noted the rarity of having two fires break out simultaneously in one community.
"You hear virtually no yelling and screaming," Stromgren said. "The more that got thrown at them, the calmer they seemed to be."
As firefighters and equipment were deployed to other blazes, Duggan said eight firefighters were left battling a three-alarm blaze at 26 Union St., a staffing level that falls short of national fire safety standards. One of those firefighters suffered from smoke inhalation and exhaustion and received medical treatment at the scene.
Mutual aid critical
The Northampton Fire Department uses what is called a run card, which details how fire resources are deployed. As the department responded to multiple fires in rapid succession, it called upon mutual aid through five alarms before emergency workers sounded a general alarm.
The earlier alarms prompted responses from several area departments - 14 in all - while the general alarm triggered calls for additional mutual aid and activated the state's fire mobilization plan.
The mobilization plan brought in task forces from Hampshire and Franklin counties and included firefighters, engines and ladder trucks from an additional 10 communities in the region.
"It's basically requesting all available resources in the area and the task forces," Duggan said of the general alarm. "There is a plan our (run) cards implemented. Without that plan, we would not have been able to manage the incidents as well as they were managed."
As for the heavy use of mutual aid, "It was the difference in containing several of the events," Duggan said, referring to fires. "We were able to summon enough resources."
100 firefighters involved
In all, more than 100 firefighters were called in to the city for assistance representing 24 area departments. Two city residents, a father and son, died in a Fair Street fire and it is still not clear how many structures and vehicles were targeted or set on fire in the city.
The Northampton Fire Department estimates the fires caused at least $1.5 million in damage, though that figure is only an estimate, cautioned Duggan, who is regional coordinator for the firefighting task forces in Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire and Berkshire counties.
A regional task force typically comprises six fire engines, two ladder trucks and a command staff. Firefighters with these units provided station coverage for the Northampton Fire Department, responded to city calls and provided relief shifts at the fire scenes that dotted neighborhoods predominantly across Ward 3.
Police response
In additional to the Northampton Fire Department, the city's police also were stretched thin. Northampton Police Chief Russell P. Sienkiewicz said the department had 13 cruisers on the streets and ran out of vehicles for the many off-duty officers who were called in to help and secure each fire scene. State police had about a dozen marked units on the city's streets and one cruiser from Easthampton was called in to assist police.
"It's impressive and it's amazing the firefighting effort was as good as it was," Sienkiewicz said. "It's an excellent example of the regional partnerships that have been built up with mutual aid."
"Unbelievable - what those two dispatchers had to do with the onset of this coming on," he added.
City and fire officials have had little to no time to step back and reflect on what may need to be improved, should an event of Sunday's magnitude reoccur, though Duggan said regional communications is one area that will be examined when public safety officials meet to discuss the event in about two weeks.
"I think it's very difficult to respond to that many calls at one time," Higgins, the mayor, said Wednesday. "The problem is, we don't build a system that can get called in like this every day."
Nevertheless, Higgins praised the work of the city's police, firefighters and dispatchers. She has authorized them to spend what they need to deal with the aftermath of the fires, including helping solve the crimes.
"I think dispatch did a phenomenal job," said Higgins, who was in New York City when the fires broke out and quickly returned to Northampton. "I think everybody's response was great."
Dan Crowley can be reached at dcrowley@gazettenet.com.
