Ladder 15 Had History Of Damage

Cruunnnnnch!

Boston firefighters arriving at a reported structure fire in a modern six-story Back Bay apartment building near historic Symphony Hall cranked heads upward at the unfamiliar noise.

Ladder 15’s roof man was checking for signs of smoke coming up vertical shafts and ventilators when he too heard the noise. Moments before he had climbed the stick to inspect the roof.

He’d have to find another way to get down.

Peering over the parapet he could see the upper mid-aerial section was buckled just below the top fly, about 18 feet down from the tip. The ladder was also twisted to the left since only the left beam was resting against the parapet cap. All the downward force was concentrated on the left side rails and truss structure.

“Whatever happened to this ladder, I have not seen it before,” said Boston Fire Department press spokesman Steve MacDonald, a 21-year veteran who spent much of his career with ladder companies, Tower 1 and Tower 10.

Engineers from Pierce Manufacturing, which built the 2004 rear-mount 100-foot, medium-duty aerial on a tandem-axle Dash chassis, provided part of the explanation three days after the Feb. 20 incident. They attributed the ladder malfunction to damage from earlier incidents.

In a written statement Pierce said the engineers found:

• Pre-existing damage to the turntable console that houses the ladder controls.
• A new “neutral” position had been hand-written next to the raise/lower control lever on the console.
• Damage to the linkage, which was bent and loose, on the raise/lower valve.

What Pierce did not explain in a press release was how the turntable console was damaged in the prior incidents. But accidental damage to control pedestals of rear-mount aerials assigned to Ladder 15 have plagued the department for years, pre-dating the 2004 Pierce.

In fitting the puzzle pieces together it became obvious that questionable measures taken to try to fit a 21st century aerial into a 19th century firehouse were the root cause. And the fire department had been putting up with the problem for years.

No one reported actually seeing the ladder collapse as it happened, but a dozen or more firefighters heard it and saw the result.

Shaking Their Heads

Aerial ladder trusses are designed to be strongest when operated with the tip totally unsupported. Ladders are spotted about 6 to 8 inches away from the roof edge so the weight of a firefighter will result in bringing the stick almost into contact with the building.

Truck company members shaking their heads and muttering as they glanced upward was a clear sign that the Boston Fire Department – and Ladder 15’s crew in particular – had big trouble on their hands. Most jakes from the Engine 33-Ladder 15 house speculated privately what the investigation would find.

At first impression, the picture resembled what an aerial ladder might look like if it had been dropped hard against the roof edge from a 6-foot or 8-foot height. Wilson Jones, Pierce vice president of sales and marketing, dispatched two engineers from the company’s headquarters in Appleton, Wis., the next day and issued a statement saying “We are relieved and thankful that no one was injured as a result of this accident. We take any incidents involving our fire apparatus very seriously because we understand just how critical it is that they perform at all times, and our response reflects that.”

But when Pierce Aerial Engineering Manager Kent Pauley and project engineer Randy Zimmer arrived at the Boston motor squad shop to examine the stick, they didn’t need any of the sophisticated, non-destructive testing equipment they’d brought along.

The black Magic Marker line and hand-lettered word “Neutral” more than 2-inches from the factory engraved “Neutral” position on the operating lever console stood out like a red flag.

The turntable operating pedestal (control console in Pierce terminology) had hit the arched doorway of Ladder 15’s bay “more than once” in the past while the apparatus was being moved in or out of the station, according to a number of people, including firefighters who asked that they not be identified. Hardly anyone from BFD was willing to speak on the record.

Returning To Neutral

NFPA Motor Fire Apparatus Standard 1901-20.17.0 requires that aerial ladder operating controls “automatically return to the neutral position upon release by the operator.” A memo sent to Pierce dealers by Wilson Jones and posted on the Internet said Ladder 15’s operating controls weren’t returning anywhere near “neutral” as the result of damage to the levers and linkage.

Designating a new neutral position by drawing a black line and writing the word “Neutral” is not a manufacturer’s approved field repair, according to Pierce.

While Ladder 15’s roof man, who is also the turntable operator, thought he lowered the stick to within six inches of the parapet wall before climbing, the elevating control lever failed to automatically return to neutral and continued to power the ladder down onto the building, according to BFD’s spokesman. The operator had just got on the roof when the hydraulic pressure, all concentrated on the left beam – the only spot where the ladder contacted the roof – caused the steel upper mid-section to twist and buckle.

In his nationwide notification to Pierce dealers, Jones said, “The raise/lower function of the main aerial was not functioning as designed by Pierce. The linkage of the valve control handle had been bent and was loose at the connection point to the valve, which stopped the unit from properly returning to the neutral position when the handle was released during aerial operation.”

Jones’ memo continued, “While on the fire ground, the aerial raise/lower lever apparently did not automatically return to the neutral position of the valve as designed by Pierce, causing the aerial to continue to lower onto the building.”

The memo concluded, “This contact with the building while the aerial lowering function was still engaged caused the aerial ladder to be ‘reverse loaded’ causing the handrails and lacings on the upper mid section to fail.”

What happened to the Pierce aerial wasn’t a complete surprise to everyone. Those who had been with Ladder 15 for a number of years said the E-ONE aerial formerly assigned to them had a substantially modified turntable pedestal, yet it still hit the arched doorway periodically. The E-ONE’s pedestal was lowered more than 20 inches-so much so that the operator had to bend over to reach the controls-yet it still hit the arch after these modifications, they said.

BFD spokesman MacDonald said the department plans to have Pierce replace the damaged aerial ladder sections as well as modify the control console to reduce its height to provide clearance when going through the arched doorways.

Pierce officials declined to estimate the cost of replacing the damaged ladder sections and modifying the control console.

Confidence In Pierce

Chief of Department Kevin MacCurtain absolved Pierce of any responsibility, saying, “We’re extremely pleased with Pierce’s assistance on this incident. Their engineers arrived quickly and completed a thorough inspection of our other three Pierce ladder trucks.” Those trucks were out of service less than a day while the cause of Ladder 15’s collapse was investigated.

Due to Pierce’s prompt response, Boston’s Ladder 1, also a 2004 Pierce Dash, was the first due truck company at a 6-alarm fire in the city’s North End the day after the Ladder 15 incident.

“Based on these inspections and the performance we have experienced with their apparatus, I have all the confidence in the world in Pierce,” Chief MacCurtain said. “The Boston Fire Department looks forward to working with Pierce on repairing and returning Ladder 15 to service.”

Getting Ladder 15’s stick down and the rig returned to the motor squad shop for inspection was no easy task. Busy Massachusetts Avenue had to be shut down for over an hour. A crane was brought in and attached to 15’s ladder with safety straps as a precaution. Then the ladder was lifted from the roof using its own hydraulic power and lowered into its cradle.

BFD spokesman MacDonald said, “We found we could extend the ladder, but couldn’t retract it.” With 80 feet of ladder sticking out in front of the truck there was no way it could be driven from the scene until the ladder was secured.

Rescue saws were used to cut an 8-foot section out of the top rails and truss on one side and a 6-foot section from the other side. Fortunately that provided enough clearance to retract the ladder so it could be driven to the motor shop two miles away.

As with many mishaps, a number of factors contributed to the outcome.

Ladder 15 and Engine 33 are housed in Boston’s second-oldest continuously occupied firehouse, which was completed in 1888. Engine 33 went into service on Feb. 20 of that year, and Ladder 15 followed in the adjacent bay a little over two months later, April 28, 1888. They are the only two fire companies to occupy the fire station at 941 Boylston St. in Boston’s Back Bay area over the past 119 years.

Located across the street from the city’s Hynes Memorial Convention Center, the Sheraton Boston Hotel and Boston’s second-tallest building, the 52-story Prudential Center, the historic firehouse gets visitors from all over the country nearly every day of the week. Running along the block behind this building is Newbury Street, Boston’s tony eight-block shopping district anchored at the opposite end by The Ritz-Carleton hotel.

Ladder 15 and Engine 33 sit behind two Romanesque-style archway doors in a classic brownstone and brick building originally built for horse-drawn apparatus. In fact, Ladder 15 was the first horse-drawn tillered ladder truck in the city and also had the first aerial ladder with a turntable.

Any exterior changes to older buildings in this part of town are strictly controlled by the Back Bay Historic District Commission and the area’s Architectural Commission whose rules regarding door openings say: “Alterations to the design, proportions and arrangement of door openings on the historic façade, other than restoration to documented historical conditions, are inappropriate.”

Modifications Not Enough

When the 1989 E-ONE rear-mount, single-axle aerial was assigned to L-15, a portion of the truck company’s half of the firehouse floor was lowered 7-inches and a taller bottom panel was added to the door to minimize the exterior architectural effect, according to BFD firefighters. Still, E-ONE later modified the turntable pedestal, reducing its height nearly two feet because it often caught the rounded archways, they said.

This was in part because the floor-lowering modification only extends part way back into the bay so the rear of the apparatus sits higher than the doorway arch opening when the truck is fully backed into the bay. Thus on exiting the rear axle drops into the trough, then rises again at the threshold because the street outside is higher than the trough.

The Pierce has a tandem rear axle and is several inches higher than the older E-ONE. The double rear axle stiffness doesn’t accommodate the threshold dip at the doorway as well. Both Engine 33 and Ladder 15 exit at the same street level, so the high control console on the truck’s left rear often clipped the archway, especially if the apparatus was turning sharply as it went out the door, according to Boston firefighters.

Pierce Vice President Jones said the engineering report concurred with what the firefighters already knew: “There was noticeable damage to the turntable console, which contains all of the operating controls for the aerial device. . . The console had visible signs of material deformation (buckling) . . . as well as a broken and replaced hinge on the console cover. The handrail section attached to the turntable console also had paint embedded into the rubber, likely as a result of previous contact with the firehouse doorway. . .  The linkage on the valve control handle had been bent and was loose at the connection point to the valve.”

A retired chief officer told Fire Apparatus magazine, “You could almost predict the station modifications would lead to a problem down the road, but the city and the fire department were right in wanting to preserve the historic building, especially since it has been the only home these two companies have had in more than 100 years.”

 Ladder 15 previously ran a mid-mount tractor-drawn 100-foot Seagrave for more than 12 years without incident before the switch to E-ONE rear-mounts.

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