Kansas City Fire Department disaster could have been worse, new report shows

Just reading the newly released transcript of the radio traffic does not convey the tragic drama of the moment.

The incident commander was on the radio and about to order his battalion chief to get those firefighters out of the alley. At that exact second, the wall came down on them.

Fire Chief Paul Berardi can attest.

“I was there,” he told The Star.

In an interview, Berardi added context about an investigative report released this week that revealed new details about the blaze that took the lives of John Mesh and Larry Leggio. It included an understanding of just how scary things had been even before the collapse.

Firefighters had been inside the burning building on Independence Boulevard for nearly 20 minutes when they got the order to evacuate.

The decision to go “defensive” came none too soon.

Firefighters had rescued two people from upper floors of the building and checked the other apartments through thickening smoke. The heat was intensifying. Locating the source of the fire was difficult. Many firefighters felt the situation inside the structure had become untenable. Many were close to radioing a mayday for help. Some were already groping — following hose lines — for a path of escape.

“This was too close to further tragedy,” according to the report on the October fire that killed firefighters John Mesh and Larry Leggio.

At 7:49 p.m., the incident commander ordered emergency tones to be sounded.

“Evacuate the structure,” a dispatcher announced over the radio that every firefighter is supposed to carry. “Everyone evacuate the structure. All companies evacuate the structure.”

In less than three minutes, everyone was out and accounted for. But that close escape contributed to a “flawed safety sense” that was a factor in the following events and decisions that resulted in the firefighters’ deaths, according to the investigative report released this week.

Firefighters were struggling to control a multi-alarm fire in a three-story building on Independence Boulevard. Flames “lit up” the north and south sides and were beginning to shoot out of windows on the east side, which faced an alley. In fire service parlance, that was the D side.

About nine minutes after the evacuation order, a deputy chief arrived on the scene and assumed command. About two minutes after that, he also ordered emergency tones to notify firefighters of a safety-related command.

“All companies move back,” the dispatcher then announced over the radio. “All companies move back. Create a collapse zone.”

That’s parlance for an area around the perimeter of an unstable building that could collapse at any moment. It’s a well-accepted safety principle that neither firefighters nor anyone else should be within that zone.

Many fire companies on the north and east side of the building later said they did not hear the collapse zone order or the emergency tones.

The alley on the D side was about 30 feet wide and was completely within the collapse zone. But fire personnel continued to be in the alley. It was the main path between the north side of the building and the command center on Independence Boulevard.

Immediately after a command staff meeting, in which the collapse zone order was issued, “three officers utilized the alley to reach the location of their assignments,” the investigative report said.

Pumper Truck 23, one of the first companies dispatched to the fire, was parked in the alley. It was blocked in by Pumper 10, which had arrived on the fire scene seconds before Pumper 23.

When Pumper 23 became threatened by flames, a company officer ordered his crew to aim a hose stream into the windows showing fire on the D side of the building.

“The hose was placed in the position of maximum effectiveness, which placed the crew within the collapse zone,” the investigative report said. “This action should be noted as an effort only to protect the fire apparatus and was to be a temporary placement. The building showed no signs of imminent collapse, which factored into this decision by a number of experienced personnel.”

A firefighter who was in the alley later told The Star that Mesh was supporting the hose while Leggio was using a pike pole to clear a fan from the window so Mesh would have a clearer shot at the flames.

The investigative report said allowing personnel in the alley collapse zone was the most significant failure on the part of the Fire Department to correct a problem that night.

“The tactical assignment that generated tragic results was placing resources on the D side of the structure within the designated collapse zone,” the investigative report said.

The report also said that as soon as that failure was identified, “the incident commander immediately began radio traffic to remove personnel from the alley. Before that communication could be completed, the wall collapsed on the personnel.”

According to the report’s timeline of radio traffic, the incident commander ordered the emergency tones for a collapse zone at 8 p.m.

At 8:04 p.m., a battalion chief radioed to the incident commander that firefighters were putting a water line on D side.

At four seconds after 8:06 p.m., the incident commander radioed back to that battalion chief, saying, “This is command.” The battalion chief responded, “Go ahead,” meaning he was listening.

At 11 seconds after 8:06 p.m., the incident commander started to reply, but the tape of his message contains only garble. That’s because the collapse started, according to the report.

At 16 seconds after 8:06 p.m., another battalion chief radioed: “Command, command, we had a collapse on the D side. Collapse on the D side.”

Kansas City Fire Chief Paul Berardi acknowledges that Mesh and Leggio should not have been in the collapse zone and that protecting the pumper truck was not worth their lives. He said the department has adopted a policy to have everyone at a fire scene acknowledge when an order to establish a collapse zone is issued.

The investigative report emphasized that Kansas City Fire Department supervisors at emergency scenes, at every level, need to be constantly focused on an overall strategy based on an awareness of risk.

“We cannot let tactics drive the decision-making progress,” the report said. “It is perceived that suppression tactics in the alley on the D side may have driven decision making, as opposed to objectives and strategy driving the decisions.

“When there is little to save, we should risk very little.”

This story was originally published May 26, 2016 at 4:58 PM with the headline "Kansas City Fire Department disaster could have been worse, new report shows."