Nobody knew the burning building automobile may develop into a bomb.
Not the motive force who tried to douse it with an extinguisher. Not the employees who despatched water gushing onto the engine. And never Andrew Pontious, an L.A. County firefighter dispatched to the Palmdale quarry on June 14.
Pontious had sprayed water close to the automobile for about two minutes when one in every of its almost 7-foot tires exploded, in response to a Hearth Division evaluation accomplished this month.
Hunks of rubber and metal shot the size of a soccer subject. Pontious, 53, died immediately.
“It was like an IED,” David Pontious, Andrew’s brother who labored on the similar Palmdale fireplace station earlier than retiring this spring, stated, referring to an improvised explosive machine, as a roadside bomb in a battle zone is understood.
It’s widespread for tires to blow out in a hearth, with strain constructing till the air whooshes out with a loud pop.
However, typically, the tire doesn’t blow — it explodes. The air contained in the tire combines with the warmth, beginning a chemical response highly effective sufficient to create a violent shock wave. The bigger the tire, the larger the blast.
“It’s shrapnel. It’s identical to a bomb. It’s the identical precept,” stated Olivier Bellavigna-Ladoux, a mechanical engineer who focuses on automobile security.
Within the area of interest world of auto security engineers, it was a identified danger — uncommon however deadly. To firefighters throughout California, the risk was primarily exceptional till highlighted by Pontious’ dying.
This month, L.A. County fireplace officers issued a security discover instructing firefighters to maintain a distance from burning heavy-equipment automobiles. Hearth departments within the metropolis of Los Angeles, Orange County and San Bernardino County, in addition to the California Division of Forestry and Hearth Safety, despatched the discover to their members, who, mixed, embrace 1000’s of California firefighters.
“There was no information that these sorts of massive tires may blow in such a manner that might kill somebody,” stated David Pontious, 55. “It was only a freak accident.”
The almost 7-foot tire on the quarry’s building automobile, pictured above, exploded after the engine caught fireplace June 14.
(Los Angeles County Hearth Division)
Rescuing folks from burning buildings was maybe the least notable factor about Andrew Pontious.
He was, at the beginning, an outdoorsman.
As a teen, he disappeared for whole weekends, telling his household he deliberate to “soften into the mountains.” He beloved to hunt and cook dinner, typically combining the 2 passions on the fireplace station by serving quail enchiladas, the poultry recent from a latest hunt. In his spare time, he was a caretaker at a refuge for bighorn sheep, traipsing into the woods in the course of the evening to examine on the water provide.
Pontious had resisted turning into a firefighter like his older brother. However in his early 30s, his job serving to a lumber firm keep away from bushes with noticed owls began to really feel like a useless finish.
He fought fires out of Rosemead and El Monte for a couple of decade earlier than his brother satisfied him to come back to Palmdale. Hearth Station 93 was inconveniently situated, about 70 miles from the Upland house he shared together with his spouse, Kim, and his stepdaughter, together with their searching canine, 4 cats and a desert tortoise. However the station was identified for the depth of its calls — grassland fires, stabbings, a cat caught in a tree that turned out to be a mountain lion.
For 9 years, the brothers labored collectively, David because the captain and Andrew the perennial firefighter, by no means concerned about shifting up the ranks.
Andrew simply wished to battle fires till his deliberate retirement subsequent yr. And he was normally the primary to reach.
Pontious and his crew pulled as much as the quarry at 2:06 p.m.
4 minutes earlier, one of many building automobile’s rear tires had exploded, cracking the windshield of a close-by truck and sending quarry employees speeding again.
Within the chaos, no person informed the firefighters on the scene about that first tire explosion, stated Dave Gillotte, head of the L.A. County firefighters union. And no person informed them the automobile had been burning since a minimum of 1:38 p.m.
“If the information of the tire exploding and the way lengthy it had been burning have been correct and up-front, I do know that our firefighters would have completely altered [the response],” stated Gillotte, who interviewed the firefighters on the quarry that day.
The longer a tire is uncovered to warmth, the extra doubtless an explosion turns into, stated Bellavigna-Ladoux, the mechanical engineer.
This was science that the fireplace division solely discovered within the aftermath.
“I by no means was taught that there was a shock wave that comes out of a tire explosion,” stated L.A. County Hearth Chief Anthony Marrone. “Had I been the firefighter on Engine 93 that afternoon, I actually imagine I might have been doing the identical factor that firefighter Pontious was doing — and I might have been killed.”
The fireplace division evaluation of the incident famous that officers may discover “little or no info” on the impact of fireside on giant tires.
The protection discover the division issued after Pontious’ dying instructs firefighters by no means to get inside 15 toes of a burning heavy tools automobile — and to come back inside 50 toes solely to rescue somebody. The division gave related steerage for tractor and trailer fires.
Patricia Dolez, a scientist whose examine on tire explosions is cited within the L.A. County security discover, stated few employees who function giant automobiles — particularly miners and truck drivers — are conscious of the danger. The Palmdale driver’s first response was to attempt to extinguish the fireplace, she famous, even because the sparks unfold.
Dolez stated her examine was commissioned almost twenty years in the past by a Quebec analysis institute after a number of truck drivers have been killed by exploding tires. Following Pontious’ dying, the U.S. Mine Security and Well being Administration suggested that if a automobile begins smoking, miners ought to retreat and anticipate emergency responders.
It’s much less clear what these responders are imagined to do, stated Stephen Gilman, a vice chairman with the Worldwide Affiliation of Hearth Fighters.
Gilman stated the affiliation, which represents 345,000 firefighters and first responders nationwide, is hoping for some nationwide steerage for the individuals who will run towards the fireplace.
Miners are “not going to be placing out their very own fires,” Gilman stated. “That leaves the one possibility of calling 911.”
