Occasionally I see news stories like “man runs back into burning house and rescues beloved pet”
However, I’ve also been told that you will most likely die in seconds if you inhale the smoke. I’ve read that in a fire you have to crawl to escape. I’ve read that you have to sprint quickly through the flames if you have a chance (the exact opposite of crawling low?).
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How burning is the burning building? I mean the structure could be on fire but not yet fully engulfed. One side of it could be ablaze but not the other…
I’ve ran into a burning house 16 years ago to help my grandpa and grab my new laptop. I knew it was dangerous but I was lucky. I didn’t cross paths with any fire, only a little smoke. A lot of buildings that catch on fire won’t be completely up in flames. You will see plenty of fires where it’s contained to a couple of rooms.
Even more astounding question, how do those still in the building survive?
17 years as a professional firefighter here. The rules are different because you wouldn’t have turnout gear and an air pack, like we use.
Buildings are compartmentalized. Even a hollow core wooden door, the lightweight crap you would find at Home Depot, will hold a fire back longer than you’d realize. Sheetrock is rated to withstand fire for some time before burning through. So long as you’re not actively in the same compartment as a fire, you have a shot at surviving. You’d have to stay super low, know the exact layout of the apartment, know exactly where the pet/child is (and it has to be a child or pet, because you’re not getting out with anything over 20 lbs), and hope that everything goes exactly right. It would be like trying to roll a 6 on several dice, and if one other number comes up in X amount of rolls, you lose.
The door to the fire compartment happens to be open? Dead. A window fails and air from the outside rushes in? The thermal stratification of the compartment is ruined, and you’re dead. The burning materials happen to include compounds that change to chemicals that turn into gasses more poisonous than you’d expect? Doesn’t matter that you only got a few breaths of them. Dead. (And you’d be surprised what’s in your home now that everything is plastic. Couch stuffing can emit hydrogen cyanide. Freon in AC or refrigerators turns to phosgene, which is a literal chemical weapon that can kill you in hours if you breathe in more than 100 parts per million).
What else could go wrong? If the air gets too hot, the smoke doesn’t even matter, because you’ll burn and scar the insides of your respiratory tract, and won’t be able to exchange the oxygen in your bloodstream. There’s the risk of collapse. Whether you’re in a single family home and piece of the structure fail, or plaster ceilings fall on you in an apartment.
Basically, you’re gambling on pure luck. And if the fire is past the first minute, your odds are exponentially low
Well, it’s probable that you are only hearing the successful stories. Many of the deaths you hear about were very likely would-be rescuers. Generally, a significant portion of hazard related deaths were rescuers. It’s said that most confined space deaths are rescuers going in to retrieve a corpse. Grain silos, drowning, fires can be similarly lethal.
You hold your breath. You’ve got roughly a minute and a half to get to where you need to go and back. It’s mostly luck if the fire hasn’t engulfed your path. Otherwise it’s doable. But you generally have to give up any idea that you’re gonna get out unscathed.
The TV series “ this is us” illustrated this. Jack ran back into the burning house to save the dog. He was fine, they took him to the hospital, and he died a couple hours later because of lung damage. I don’t recommend it.
They don’t always survive. That being said not all fires are the same. Fire spreads in different ways and speeds depending on the source and the type of building it’s in. Also you don’t die in seconds from smoke inhalation but it’s still very risky. You can lose consciousness in a few minutes, or burn your throat and lungs or cause long lasting damage for the rest of your life, or inhale so much smoke that you get out of the building only to die from it days later.
Generally speaking the less you breathe the better. If you’re moving as fast as possible you’re spending the least amount of time in that environment. Of course if you’re running you need to breathe more so really there’s no one size fits all tactic that works every time, it’s very dependent on each specific case.
My neighbor died going back into a fire trying to save his kids who were in the backyard safe.
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