Fireground Operations & Tactics » Technical Reports

The Newton Fire Department received box 6237, the alarm box located at the front door of the building, at 2131 hours. As the box was being transmitted, the first of several telephone calls was received, reporting an explosion and fire with injuries at the plant. The details given by callers were incomplete and conflicting; however, the assignment was upgraded from the regular response (two engines, one truck, and a command officer) to the full building fire response, which adds an engine company from the neighboring Town of Needham. An additional Newton engine company was also dispatched as the 4th due engine company on the full box assignment. All responding units were advised of the reports of a fire and explosion with injuries.

The Newton Police Department, which dispatches the private ambulance company that serves the city, also received reports indicating an explosion with injuries. Two ambulances and several police cars were dispatched to the scene.

The first companies to arrive reported smoke coming from the building but no evidence of a major fire or explosion damage. Engines 7 and 3, Ladder 2, and Car 2, the on-duty Assistant Chief, took positions in the parking area near the front entrance to the building and made contact with several employees who described the situation. There was no particular employee who appeared to be in charge or to be specifically responsible for providing information to the fire department. The shift supervisor had been injured in the initial explosion and was being treated by other employees.

The employees advised that the material on fire was sodium, that approximately 100 pounds of sodium was involved, and emphasized that it was important not to use water on it or to allow it to come in contact with water. The employees also advised that salt should be used as the extinguishing agent. The firefighters were not advised that there could be water in the area from the previous wet washing operation.

Note: Sodium chloride is used as an extinguishing agent at this plant, because large quantities of pure dry sodium chloride are used for metal processing and the company keeps plenty on hand at all times. Large salt containers, designated for fighting combustible metals fires, are distributed around the plant. Scoops to apply the salt are kept in the containers, under a lid that is designed to exclude moisture.

These salt containers could be moved around on wheeled dollies and brought to the area where the material was burning. Additional quantities of bagged salt were stored in another area of the plant and could be used as a backup supply.

The Assistant Chiefs Aide, accompanied by a plant employee, made an initial reconnaissance entry to the fire area, which was approximately 200 feet back into the building. He was able to get close enough to open the doors to the fire room and see that there was a barrel burning and additional glowing material on the floor, apparently in the drip pan. There was a considerable amount of smoke in the interior; however, he was able to make this entry to the fire area and back without protective clothing or breathing apparatus. He returned to report his observations to the Assistant Chief, who had assumed command of the incident and was in contact with plant personnel inside the front door to the building. The Aide then went with a plant employee to open doors and activate exhaust fans to ventilate the interior of the building.

The Assistant Chief had been told that the drum contained about 100 lbs. of sodium, which would take all night to bum out. He was concerned about maintaining the integrity of the steel drum if the fire continued to bum and was told by an employee that the fire might bum through the bottom of the drum in three quarters of an hour. He was not aware of the fact that 100 pounds is far in excess of the normal amount of sodium that is burned in the disposal room or that the room had been used for wet washing earlier in the evening.

The Assistant Chief and the personnel from the first three companies were sufficiently familiar with the facility and confident in their previous experience with minor sodium fires that they felt they could handle the situation safely. They were familiar with the salt containers and enlisted the assistance of several employees to move some of the containers from other areas closer to the fire location. The Assistant Chief warned the crews to use all their standard protective clothing and selfcontained breathing apparatus.

All three companies proceeded to the area of the disposal room. Several members worked with the plant personnel who were collecting salt containers from different parts of the building and staging them in the area outside the doorway to the fire area. The employees also obtained additional bagged salt from a storage area, but were directed to stay out of the immediate area of the fire by the firefighters.

The firefighters found several lumps of burning sodium in the drip pan and splattered around a small area, and a glowing red liquid in the drum, which they described as looking like volcanic lava. The liquid level in the drum was estimated at eight to ten inches deep. The drum was standing upright in the pan. Apparently the explosion had dislodged the metal strut and the weight at the bottom end of the drum had caused it to rotate to a vertical position. Heavy smoke was coming from the open top of the drum and visibility in the area was very limited.

Two lieutenants entered the small room to apply the salt, giving their first attention to the burning metal in the drip pan. The other firefighters scooped salt from the containers and passed the scoops to the lieutenants. A shovel that was found in the area was also used to bury the burning material in mounds of salt. Within a few minutes they had successfully buried all the exposed burning sodium and this part of the fire was considered under control, although the buried metal continued to glow red through the salt.

The two lieutenants then turned their attention to the fire in the drum. One grasped the edge of the drum with a gloved hand and tilted it slightly to provide better access. Several scoops of salt were dumped into the drum by one of the officers with no apparent effect. The other lieutenant picked up the shovel and used it to transfer more salt into the burning drum.

When the first shovel of salt was dumped into the drum, there was a violent explosion. A fireball enveloped most of the area and burning molten sodium erupted up and out of the drum, splashed off the walls and ceilings, and splattered on the firefighters. All of the firefighters in the area were knocked off their feet and away from the center of the blast, bouncing off walls and equipment. Their leather helmets were blown from their heads as the hydrogen fireball passed through the area, then the molten sodium landed on them. Their distance from the drum determined how much of the burning metal landed on each individual.

The two lieutenants, who were in the room with the drum, were splashed with the molten metal virtually from head to toe. Their protective clothing and station uniforms were severely burned and both received critical, life threatening third-degree bums to major parts of their bodies. One of the lieutenants was able to remove himself from the room, but the second lieutenant had to be removed by rescuers.

Six firefighters and a third lieutenant had been involved in moving the salt containers and passing salt to the two lieutenants. They were all in the area outside the room, and were burned by the combination of the fireball and the spray of molten sodium. The Assistant Chiefs Aide was slightly burned by the fireball as he was returning to the fire area after completing his ventilation assignment.

The injured members extricated themselves and helped each other out of the immediate area. They had difficulty maneuvering in the tight space with the salt containers crowded into the narrow area near the room where the explosion occurred. The burning sodium that was splashed on their protective clothing continued to bum as they tried to exit toward the front of the building. Plant employees stopped them from leaving the building, warning that the moist outside air would make the sodium bum more intensely, and helped them remove their SCBAs and protective clothing in an interior corridor.

The plant employees poured mineral oil on the burning sodium to cool the material and the firefighters’ bums. The Assistant Chief and two additional firefighters received bums to their hands attempting to help the injured firefighters remove their burning clothing. The molten metal was extremely hot and, where it landed on the protective clothing, it continued to penetrate through the layers to the skin. The sodium also reacted with moisture in the air and perspiration on the firefighters’ skin to form corrosive sodium hydroxide.

The Assistant Chief, who was in the building’s main corridor, was also knocked down by the force of the explosion. He made an urgent call for a second alarm and ten ambulances. Two units and a supervisor from the private ambulance company had been dispatched by the Newton Police Department on the original call and were already staged outside the complex when the explosion occurred. The additional units were dispatched when the Newton Fire Communications Center requested them through the Police Department. Following standard operating procedures for a hazardous materials incident, the ambulances and the supervisor had staged outside the immediate area, on Charlemont Street, anticipating that any patients would be brought out to a triage area in a safe location.

The burned members were all gathered in one area inside the building and were being treated by other firefighters and plant workers. Attempts to direct the ambulances to come to that location were unsuccessful for several minutes, because the ambulance radios were set with the Newton Police as the priority channel on their scan feature. The volume of police radio traffic prevented the messages from the Fire Department Incident Commander from getting through to the ambulances. This delayed the arrival of paramedics to treat the burned patients for several frantic minutes, although ambulances were staged only a block away.

Eleven Fire Department members were transported to area hospitals, including the bum centers at the Massachusetts General Hospital and at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, both in the City of Boston. The presence of two bum centers in the metropolitan Boston area allowed the most seriously burned patients to be distributed to share the workload for treatment. Eight were admitted, two in critical condition, and three were treated and released with less severe bums. The two lieutenants were admitted in extremely critical condition; three months after the incident one remained in the Bum Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, still in very critical condition, with bums over 85 percent of his body.

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