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We
all look at buildings based on our
interests, our work. When a fireman
looks at a building, he is sizing up how
he would attack a fire in there and what
the hazards would be for the residents,
for him and for his fellow firefighters.
New Fire Chief Jerry Swift
and his leadership team have been
assessing the buildings in Wake Forest,
and they have determined the Glen Royall
Mill Apartments, built as the Royall
Cotton Mill in 1900, is the building
posing the most hazards if a fire breaks
out in the three-story, 54-apartment
structure.
This is not to say the
residents are in danger, because they
are not, Swift said. The building has
regular fire safety inspections – one
was just completed – and smoke detectors
to give warning of any blaze.
Firemen have to plan for the
worst in hopes it never happens. They
found a fire at Glen Royall Mill
Apartments on North Main Street “has the
potential for great life loss, permanent
resident displacement and off-site fire
extension by way of flying brands and
massive radiant heat waves,” a report,
the Standard of Response Coverage, says.
Chief Swift and the department recently
completed the report along with a
strategic plan for the next five years.
Glen Royall Mill Apartments
is not alone. The survey showed about
100 “very high hazard occupancies” and
623 “high hazard occupancies” in town,
and it singled out the Wake Forest
Baptist Church as the second example for
very high risk in case of a fire.
Glen Royall Mill Apartments
has some special conditions that give it
the number-one rank. Although it has
smoke detectors and a dry standpipe
which could be activated to provide
water in case of a fire, it does not
have a sprinkler system. It is a heavy
timber building with load-bearing brick
walls held together by 100-year-old sand
and lime mortar, and the walls are
showing moderate to severe deterioration
in some places.
The building, owned by Glen
Royall Mill Limited Partnership with
developer Jim Adams as the managing
partner, was renovated with state and
federal funds for affordable housing in
1994. That was two years before the
state building code was updated to
require sprinklers in buildings of three
or more stories.
Because it was a cotton
mill, the hardwood floors were soaked
with linseed oil that remains today.
“The presence of the linseed-oil-soaked
floors will add a tremendous fire load
to the building and will cause the rapid
acceleration of a small incipient fire
into a raging inferno very quickly. Very
dark explosive smoke is expected to be
generated and spread rapidly throughout
the building,” the response coverage
report says.
Swift anticipates that most
residents in the 54-apartment structure
will not be able to evacuate, meaning
firefighters will have to rescue them
from windows and balconies with several
ladders and ladder trucks.
Swift said he and his staff
have been to Glen Royall Mill several
times to do preplanning against the
eventuality a fire may break out.
“Our current daylight
response of nine personnel has been
identified as totally inadequate to even
begin this type of operation,” the
report says. “It is a must that we begin
to conduct this type of operation with
the 14 personnel as outlined in our
strategic plan to safely and effectively
operate at a structural incident.” The
14 personnel will be available when the
three new fire stations are built.
Swift’s report also
identifies Wake Forest Baptist Church as
very high risk. Like Glen Royall Mill,
it was built about 100 years ago (1914)
with brick load-bearing walls with the
same sand and lime mortar. “Failure of
the bearing wall at any point would
create catastrophic failure of the
entire building.”
The report does pay tribute
to the building’s beauty. “The roof of
this building was constructed in a
manner that reflects art at its finest.”
However, that art also hides many large
voids (open areas) and the original knob
and tube wiring in the roof and walls.
Because of its location, it
would be difficult for ladder companies
to get close to the church. Also,
firefighters would have to stretch their
hoses for long distances through the
building, and the worshippers at any
service would create confusion and the
necessity for a complete search of the
entire interior.
The other structures in town
rated as very high hazard include many
of the buildings on the Southeastern
Baptist Theological Seminary campus,
most churches, the Franklin Inn, the
apartment house on South Avenue, all
rest homes, Holding Oil Company because
it is on hill with many gas tanks, all
the older downtown buildings on South
White Street and many of the
neighborhoods in Heritage.
Those new Heritage homes,
Swift said, are largely finished with
vinyl siding he called “gasoline siding”
that will combust easily, and the houses
are so close together a fire could
easily travel from one to others.
When there is a structure
fire in town or in the rural fire
district, the department always
dispatches:
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Engine 63 from Station #1 with 1,000
gallons of water and staffed by 4
full-time firefighters and
volunteers when available
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Engine 431 from Station #2 staffed
the same as Engine 63 and with the
same amount of water
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Engine 61 from Station #1 staffed by
volunteers and with the same amount
of water
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Engine 434 from Station #2 staffed
by volunteers and with the same
amount of water
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Squad 6 staffed by volunteers
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The on-call volunteer duty chief and
Chief Swift.
Depending on the location
and the severity, the department will
call on mutual aid from Falls, Stony
Hill, Rolesville or Youngsville.
At a fire in town, the
engines pump out their onboard water and
connect to hydrants to pump more water
on the blaze. Firemen need to know what
kind of water pressure is available, and
they also need to know the hydrant is
operable. That is why they paint the
hydrant tops different colors and test
them. For a serious fire, they want the
highest water pressure available for the
most water per minute.
This is what the colors
mean:
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Red – Less than 500 gallons a minute
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Orange – 501 to 999 gallons a minute
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Green – 1,000 to 1,499 gallons a
minute
Blue – More than 1,500 gallons a minute |
