Progress report for Manehattan 0-60 40th Alarm, unusual occurrence Box 0711. Deputy Chief Misty Morning reports an aircraft down at 57th Street and 11th Avenue, with the involvement of an undetermined number of structures. At this time she reports dividing operations into North Sector under Battalion 10, and South Sector under Battalion 9. We have a command channel established. Chief Misty Morning reports that the scene of operations extends approximately from 55th Street to 59th Street, and from midway between 12th and 11th Avenues, to midway between 11th and 10th Avenues. We have three hose lines stretched and in operation. Primary searches of the aircraft are underway. Searches of the exposures will be delayed due to the wide spread of affected structures, collapse potential, and heavy fire conditions. At this time by orders of Deputy Chief Misty Morning, special call two additional tower ladders, one additional Satellite company, and one additional Rescue company. This incident remains doubtful will hold, K.
The scene at the plane crash was barely-controlled chaos. With so few units yet on the scene, it was impossible for Firebrand or Misty Morning to achieve all of the tasks that were required immediately. They had to prioritise what they did with each unit, and how many resources they committed to each action. The problems facing the emergency services were numerous and varied, not least among them actually figuring out the true scope of the incident. It was clear that multiple buildings were affected and that there could be hundreds of passengers on board the plane. It was still relatively early in the morning; the residential buildings could still be packed with workers getting ready to head out, foals and families preparing for the school run. There was the danger of structural collapse where buildings had been damaged. There was burning fuel, and no guarantee that there wouldn't be an explosion of some kind, either from a rupturing fuel tank or a potential gas leak. Burning fuel could flow into the drains and river and cause environmental damage. The integrity of the scene would have to be preserved for potential criminal investigations, and certainly for one conducted by the Equestrian Bureau Of Air Safety, who had the responsibility for investigating any accident involving a commercial or private aircraft, helicopter, airship or balloon, as well as Pegasi accidents.
All of these problems had to be taken into consideration when planning the operation, but until sufficient personnel and equipment could arrive on the scene, they could not all be remedied. That was why Rescue 1 was assigned to search the aircraft, the most likely source of mass casualties, and Engine 25 found themselves entering a burning building along with Ladder 4- the truck would search, and they would extinguish. In this case, the fire was on the roof, requiring a laborious climb up several flights of stairs to reach it. There was little smoke in the building, other than what was coming in through open windows from outside, but the fire alarm was sounding and there had clearly been panic among the residents. Some were streaming down the stairs, obstructing the ascent of Ember Dawn and the rest of his unit. Ponies with wide eyes and foals clutched in their hooves or riding on their backs were trying to get outside and to safety as quickly as they could, hardly a surprise given what had just happened, but not conducive to rapid progress by the fireponies.
The ponies of Ladder 4 set about searching and clearing each room, starting on the top floor, while the Engine stretched their hose line from the standpipe and prepared to open the bulkhead door onto the roof. Even if they extinguished the rooftop fire with ease, that would undoubtedly not be the end of their involvement in this rapidly unfolding and complex incident- there was too much to do, and not enough fireponies to do it.
The control firepony, Dark Flash, opened the bulkhead door once everypony had masked up.. Smoke wafted in as Striker pushed forward, Dawn right behind him, guiding the hose through the door and onto the flat roof of the structure. Visibility was limited thanks to the smoke, although it was being pushed inland by a stiff breeze blowing from the West River. The roof was aflame, or rather, something spread across it was.
'Shit...' Striker grunted into his facepiece. 'Engine 25 Nozzle to Engine 25! Looks like a fuel fire, Lieutenant! We're gonna need foam up here!'
'Engine 25 to South Sector Command,' Coppertop called, using the new designation for Chief Firebrand's command post.
'South Command, go ahead Engine 25.'
'We have a jet fuel fire on the roof of 725 11th Avenue, Chief,' Coppertop informed him. 'We're gonna try to extinguish it with our foam. I'll let you know if we need any more resources, K.'
'10-4, Engine 25.'
Each engine company carried several cans of foam concentrate which, when introduced to a stream of water, would rapidly expand to form a protective blanket over a flammable liquid fire, helping to smother it and prevent fresh oxygen from reaching it. Spraying water directly onto a burning liquid would just push the liquid around and not extinguish anything; in some cases, it could even make things worse by causing a more intense fire or an explosion, depending on what exactly was burning. Specialist Foam Tender engines carried larger quantities, and there were also several Foam Tankers with hundreds of gallons on board, at least two of which were already on their way to the scene as a result of the nature of the incident. A plane crash, especially one that had just taken off, could involve vast quantities of burning jet fuel, and that certainly seemed to be the case here.
Coppertop put a call down to Deep Blue, standing by at the engine's pump panel, to bring two foam cans and a special foam nozzle to the roof. The nozzle would mix the foam concentrate and water before expelling it in a far more gentle fashion to the normal powerful blast of water used in regular firefighting, in a fashion more similar to the fog spray that was often used to cool objects or fight electrical fires from a safe distance if no other option was available. That was because violently spraying the foam would not cause it to form a protective blanket; instead it would simply splatter it ineffectively across the surface of the burning fuel, and then push the flaming liquid around the roof, spreading the fire.
The rooftop bulkhead door was closed so as to keep smoke out of the stairwell as the attack team awaited the foam. Deep Blue hurried up with the cans and the nozzle, before returning to the rig to monitor the pressure as the hose line went into operation. The regular nozzle was replaced by the foam eductor, and the inlet pipe placed into the first can of foam so that it could be discharged through the hose.
'Engine 25 Nozzle to Engine 25 Chauffeur, start water!' Striker called down to the street over the radio.
'Engine 25 Chauffeur, starting water!' Deep Blue replied, setting the pump into operation and providing pressure and water for the standpipe system. Water flowed from the hydrant into the engine through the supply line, then onward into the standpipe connection, and up to the roof, where Striker had the nozzle aimed at the burning fuel. The fluffy yellow-white foam began to spill forth from the hose, and Striker played it back and forth across the burning rooftop, aiming to obtain complete coverage of the fuel to block out the oxygen and starve the fire, and hopefully prevent any rekindling. It accumulated steadily, like snow contaminated by volcanic ash or nuclear fallout.
'Engine 25 Nozzle to Engine 25, we're knocking it down!' Striker informed Coppertop, who stood at the doorway supervising the operation, while Dark Flash kept the door propped open and made sure the hose line was not snagging on anything inside the stairwell.
'10-4 Nozzle, keep hitting it!' Coppertop ordered, keeping an eye on the level of foam concentrate remaining in the can. Each can only gave enough foam for a couple of minutes of continuous operation, and the can would have to be replaced with the second one when it was empty. Ember Dawn kept hold of the line behind Striker, helping him to swing it back and forth steadily to make the foam rain down on the burning fuel. He couldn't help but wonder; jet fuel on the rooftop must have meant that either the plane struck the building, or that it had already hit something else that had caused a fuel leak. This building had been lucky. The occupants were evacuating in good order, and the engine had been assigned to fight the fire and keep it from spreading. But what else lay out there beyond the smoke?
Rescue 1 looped around toward the front of the shattered main fuselage section. Several bodies lay in the street between it and the nose section. Some were strapped into chairs, while others were not; possibly passengers thrown free, or maybe unfortunate passers-by who were simply on their way to work or school when disaster overtook them. There was something else on the ground, too.
'Hey, Cap!' Ember Blaze called, glancing warily down at the tarmac beneath his hooves. 'Cap, we got a fuel leak coming from somewhere!'
'Shit, that's all we need...' Grey Spike grunted, but looking down at the ground and taking a sniff confirmed it. 'Yeah, that's jet fuel alright...' He looked around. Of one wing, there was no sign. The other wing was buried deep within a row of burning stores and already well ablaze. That left only one source, and Grey Spike turned to the underside of the fuselage, examining it at the point where the center spar that connected the wings to the body passed through. The center spar was the single strongest component of the aircraft, and that was where its belly tank was located. Sure enough, the exterior of the fuselage had been dinged, scraped and battered by its impacts with buildings and the ground, and a steady stream of pungent liquid was flowing out from the damaged section and out across the road.
'What's the gradient on this street?' Grey Spike called to his ponies. 'Which way's it gonna go?'
Blaze and Flagstaff tried to determine which way the fuel would flow. That was important not just for environmental protection, but also their own protection. The street had a slight north-to-south tilt, meaning the fuel was flowing back the way they had come.
'Shit...Cap, it's flowing south!' Flagstaff shouted. All eyes turned south of their current position, for south of them lay the string of burning taxpayer stores.
'Celestia...' Grey Spike muttered. 'If it catches light...' He keyed his radio. 'Rescue 1 to Command, urgent, urgent, urgent!'
'Go ahead, Rescue 1,' Misty Morning's voice came through in reply from her command post. Once different sectors of control had been established, units operating in each sector would normally send their messages to the Chief in charge of that sector, but this was an urgent message and needed to be sent directly to the incident commander for her attention.
'Chief, we have a major fuel leak from the plane's belly tank,' Grey Spike informed them. 'The leak is running right into a row of burning taxpayers. If it ignites it'll run right back to the fuselage and burn any survivors alive before we can get them out. We need Hazmat or Squad to bring their damming equipment forthwith to the front of...' He looked for an address on one of the buildings. 'In front of 760 11th Avenue, K.' Before the Chief could acknowledge, Grey Spike was issuing orders of his own. 'Oak, High Line! Back to the rig, grab the speedy-dry and a leak control kit and get back here!'
The two fireponies scurried off back through the smoke. Speedy-dry was an absorbent, a sawdust-like powder that could be spread on the ground to either absorb a substance, for example oil leaking from a car engine after a crash, or be placed strategically to prevent something flowing in a certain direction, for example stopping a hazardous chemical flowing into the water system- or, in this case, jet fuel flowing into the burning buildings. While they waited for Oak Wood and High Line to return, Grey Spike and the others looked for any other way to stem the flow of the fuel or to stop it from trickling steadily toward the flames. The starboard wing of the jet had sliced straight through the front of the buildings, rupturing the fuel tank and causing an explosion which had started a fire that was now raging throughout all of the attached structures. It was possible that natural gas was also involved, for the explosion could easily have severed a gas line somewhere inside the buildings.
The belly tank of the jet was ruptured in at least one spot. The leak could be plugged, but normally such actions would be undertaken in conjunction with Hazmat Company 1, who were the experts in such matters. Rescue companies received plentiful hazmat training and could accomplish all but the most complex operations by themselves if necessary, and this was just such a situation. While Chief Firebrand or Chief Misty Morning could speak to the Hazmat company or the Hazmat Battalion on the radio or cellphone, those units were a good distance away; not only were they based in the borough of Princess, but at the receipt of the airport crash box, they had been assigned as standard procedure to head over to the airport, even farther from the crash site than their firehouses.
'Rescue 1 from Ladder 25?'
'Go ahead, Ladder 25,' Grey Spike replied.
'Ladder 25 is approaching the crash site now. You want us to check the main section of the aircraft, K?' the captain of the truck company asked.
'10-4, Ladder 25,' Grey Spike answered. 'Link up with us, southeast corner of 57th and 11th. We have Squad 18 and Collapse Rescue 1 bringing in shoring and cribbing, but proceed with extreme caution once you get on scene. The fuselage is resting against two heavily damaged buildings and there's a major collapse danger, K.'
'10-4, Rescue,' the captain replied. 'Do we have EMS on scene?'
'Ah, unknown at this time,' Grey Spike replied. Surrounded by smoke and flame, the Rescue crew were essentially operating in their own little world. There were no other emergency personnel visible yet. A quick check of a watch would show they had only been on scene for a little over three minutes, but they had already penetrated right to the heart of the disaster zone. Paramedics would surely be arriving very shortly if they were not already on scene, but they would not enter a dangerous area. Only the Rescue Medics were trained to attend to victims who were trapped in rubble or other hazardous situations where there was a consequent danger to rescuers as well, and there were likely to be far more victims than medics in any case. Any survivors would have to be brought to a triage area, probably somewhere on 11th Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets. Meadowbrook Memorial Hospital was very close by; as well as paramedics and ambulances, the hospital would most likely send out at least one field trauma team of doctors and nurses with specialist equipment, in case field amputations had to be performed to free a victim.
Ladder 25 appeared through the smoke, the only other emergency workers visible to Blaze and the rest of Rescue 1, though even now they knew several hundred were either on scene or on their way, a mixture of fireponies, police, paramedics and doctors. The scene was fast moving and dynamic, as exemplified by the flowing jet fuel. Things could change very quickly and everypony needed to be alert for potential dangers and changes to their environment. Grey Spike held a quick conversation with Ladder 25's captain, setting out their plan.
The aircraft's fuselage lay in a dangerous position, but it had to be searched for survivors. It was sufficiently intact that, looking at it from the outside, Blaze could well imagine there would be some, if not most, of the passengers who were still alive. Those near the center spar, the strongest part of the aircraft, and those in the tail, statistically the safest place to be in most crashes, would have the best chance of survival, provided medical care could reach them quickly. That required Rescue 1 to make entry to the airliner in order to make sure it was safe for paramedics and safe for victims to be removed without causing a potential collapse, a shifting of the fuselage, or an ignition of the belly fuel tank.
Oak Wood and High Line returned as Grey Spike conferred, bringing the speedy-dry material with them. At their captain's direction, they began to spread it in the path of the flowing jet fuel, hoping to stop the spread entirely, or at least slow it down long enough for Squad or Hazmat to bring more effective diking and damming equipment that could be used to collect the spilled fluid. They passed the leak control kit over to Grey Spike; the hope was that they could use it for a temporary stop, to plug up the hole from which the fuel was flowing. Hazmat would be able to effect a more permanent solution to the fuel tank problem, either by sealing the leak more thoroughly or by draining and offloading the fuel into drums or perhaps a tanker truck. But a solution was needed quickly, because the fuel flow was not going to stop until something was done about it, and the specter of another explosion loomed.
'Alright, Flagstaff, get as close to that leak as you can. Use your magic to apply the putty and try to seal it up,' Grey Spike ordered the unicorn mare, who took the kit from his hoof. It consisted of a malleable putty, non-reactive, which could be moulded into an appropriate shape to theoretically plug any hole temporarily. Ideally, an operation such as this would also see an Engine Company standing by with a charged hose line, just in case there was any sudden ignition of the fuel or the vapor it gave off, but the first alarm engines were all committed to fighting fires in the various burning buildings, meaning Rescue would be on their own with just Ladder 25's pressurized water extinguisher at hoof in case of trouble.
Flagstaff moved in, wearing her mask just in case. The fuselage of the jet creaked and the rubble of the building hung ominously over her head, the bare floor joists and boards protruding at jagged angles, like a dragon's teeth. Plaster dust drizzled down on her as she made her approach. In an emergency, she would be able to throw up a protective magical shield around herself to protect her against fire or collapse, but she would need to be paying close attention or to get a warning shout from the rest of the fireponies who were watching on just in case. She could also teleport a short distance, though if the building were to come down, she would most likely not be able to escape the collapse zone via such a method.
'Rescue 1 Can to Rescue 1. Applying the sealant now, Cap,' Flagstaff called over the radio. There were tense moments as she worked on the ragged cut in the tank, with flammable fuel continuing to spill out close to her. She used her magic to remove part of the sealing putty and apply it to the hole, then some more, and a bit more until finally the leak was plugged, at least temporarily. That was enough for rescue work to take place, and Hazmat 1 would be able to forge a more permanent solution to the problem once they arrived. What mattered right now was that the fuel stopped flowing toward the blazing buildings nearby, and Flagstaff had ensured that, in combination with the application of speedy-dry to the ground.
Now their focus could finally turn to their main forte, searching for and saving victims, and that meant getting inside the aircraft.