Edgewater, NJ- Multi-Alarm Fire w/FDNY M/A 01-21-15

True Fire walls and Sprinkler systems will help solve this problem! Everybody whines about the expense but what is cheaper? Whoever the plumbing company is I sure hope that have a large amount of Liability coverage! Can you say Bankrupt!
 
Agree Bulldog.  Lightweight construction burns building down and klls firefighters.  It is not a preelant in the big iner cities as it is in the suburbs but it is coming to the cities.  LA, San Fran, Houston, Dallas have all had major fires in these hughe buildings under construction, and all it takes is an incompetent plumber and you are burning 1000 people out of their homes in a three square block building.  These buildings contributed to my retirement, just way to big and not well built.

Not a sermon just an idea
 
Strange things do happen-approx. 2 yrs ago in Garden City, NY ( Uniondale Fire District ) plumbers were working in a new Avalon Complex that was under construction and set the wall on fire behind where they were working-and you can get what happened-major fire-many mutual aids and when all was said and done-they ripped it down and rebuilt it the same way.
 
Just a little insight into light construction. Back when buildings were built properly the floor joists were at the least 2x6 and in some cases 2x8 spaced 16 inches on centers and then the floor boards went on top and lath and plaster went on the bottom, later followed by sheet rock. New construction using open trusses spaced at times 24 inches on center. Lets look at a building 30 x 40 feet in dimension. With old type construction you have a bunch of small tunnels between floor and ceiling, in light new construction you have a wide open to fire travel 30x40 foot area. Also regarding the plumber caused fire in the walls. Back when a trick of the plumbing trade was to carry a piece of ASBESTOS shingle with you to SHIELD the wall and void space when using a torch. No more asbestos and no more shield. Also a fire started in this manner in many cases goes undiscovered for a length of time and thus spreads into a major conflagration. As a past fireman and chief of the Spring Vallly Fire Dept. in Rockland County, NY we ran into this problem in our east fire district when they used that code compliant type of construction  in building town houses. I had several good workers there due to this type of construction that allowed rapid fire travel through out the structure. Another problem that came with this construction was the use of combustible plastic pipe for both water and soil piping that added to the fire load. Also up in the cock lofts  the fire stopping was compromised by the running of video cable through holes cut in same that ran for an entire block of buildings. 
 
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