Former ATFE Deputy Director Scott Sweetow points out that fire has always been used as a weapon, and it is increasingly a tool of active violence. In Mumbai, for example, most of the victims did not die from gunfire or grenade blasts, although many did. Most died from fire when they were locked down in their burning hotel.
Of those who die in structure fires, eight die from smoke inhalation (primarily the “toxic twins” of carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide) for every one victim who dies of burns.
If you live on the second floor of a house, it is better to break an ankle or leg dropping to the ground below than it is to die in the fire. Lest we forget, too many New Yorkers trapped above the fires in the World Trade Center buildings decided to plunge 80 or 90 floors rather than to burn to death on 9/11/2001.
This is Norris Hall at Virginia Tech. Professor Liviu Librescu’s students dropped from the second floor windows to the ground to escape from an active shooter, while 76-year-old Librescu, a Jewish survivor of the Nazi holocaust, held the (non-locking) door shut with his body, like Horatius at the Bridge.
Publius Horatius Cocles
In the 6th Century BC, the Etruscans invaded Rome. The defenders sought to tear down the Pons Sublicius, a bridge over the Tiber River, before the Etruscan army could cross it. But time was not on the Romans’ side. Horatius and a few volunteers stood on the far side and held off the Etruscans while the other defenders, on his instruction, tore down the bridge behind them. Plutarch wrote of it, but an English poet immortalized it for us. Here’s part of his poem:
But the Consul’s brow was sad, and the Consul’s speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall, and darkly at the foe.
“Their van will be upon us before the bridge goes down;
And if they once might win the bridge, what hope to save the town?”
Then out spoke brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate:
“To every man upon this earth, death cometh, soon or late
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his gods,
And for the tender mother who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses his baby at her breast . . .?”
–Thomas Babington Macauley, Horatius at the Bridge
Getty image from the Rischgitz / Hulton archive, via thoughtco.com
Professor Liviu Librescu died at his self-appointed post.
Professor Liviu Librescu, brilliant engineer who wrote many papers but is not remembered most for his contributions to engineering. Image from Pinterest
All of Librescu’s students who got out the windows survived. Some may have broken bones or twisted ankles from the fall, but they lived.
If you must drop from a second floor without benefit of rope or ladder, it is best to hang from the sill before dropping rather than leaping out. Likewise, if you have managed to get onto the roof of a single story, hanging by your hands off the edge of a wall can shorten your fall.
If you were escaping, from fire or violence, out of a second floor window or even off the roof of this building, you could hang off the roof and drop, or climb out a window, to the second deck, then hang off the 2nd floor balcony wall and drop onto, say, the hood of that truck.
If you live on the 3rd floor or higher, and you cannot “step down” to subsequent levels as described above, it might be better to brave the fire crawling down to a lower floor than to leap out. Better still, have a prepositioned rope or ladder to use. In my limited experience, knotted ropes are easier and faster for most people to use than flexible ladders. Ropes do, however, require a certain level of fitness. You do not need to be an Olympic gymnast to climb down a knotted rope; most adolescent to middle-aged people are probably spry enough to use one. Elderly, very young, or very obese persons may do better with an escape ladder.
If you had planned to get an escape rope or ladder, but only had square to-its (as opposed to getting around to it) before finding yourself trapped in an upper floor by fire, you could improvise with the tool used for centuries by eloping young ladies and escaping convicts: bed sheets tied to each other and affixed to something heavy and sturdy in the room.
That is a desperation move, though, and many have been seriously injured or killed when poorly tied knots in sheets came undone. Plus, it’s time consuming in a house filling up with smoke. You can buy yourself some time by putting a towel (preferably a wet towel) at the base of the closed bedroom door. But if I lived on the second or third floor, I would sleep a lot better if I already had a pre-positioned rope or escape ladder in the room.
