This photo shows how difficult it is for a fire truck to navigate a curve when cars on parked on the curb.
This photo shows how the fire truck, with its outriggers in place, takes up most of the narrow street. If cars are parked on the street, that would cause the firefighters to lose valuable time getting the cars moved out of the way.
You live in a townhome or condo community. You don’t think where you park could mean life or death to you or your neighbors. You don’t think that your house or your neighbor’s house could be destroyed by fire because of where you park.
But you would be wrong.
In most townhome and condo neighborhoods, the streets are narrow. They are private streets so they don’t have to meet county code. If your car is blocking or hampering a fire truck from reaching your home while trying to maneuver those streets, that fire is doubling every minute the truck is delayed.
This week is National Fire Prevention Week (Oct. 5-11), and it’s a good time to take a look around you too see what you can do to make your neighborhood and home safer. "Honestly, we practice fire prevention every day this month," Carl Howell, Deputy Fire Marshal at Greer Fire Department, said.
“It’s bad enough that the streets are so narrow,” Fire Marshal J.H. Nelson said while watching the Boiling Springs Fire District’s (BSFD) large truck try to make its way through the Waterford Park townhome neighborhood in Greer on a recent awareness run. “But you park a car on a curb, and that’s going to slow that truck down while trying to work around the car, and if a car is parked on the curb at an intersection, more than likely the truck won’t be able to clear the car to make a turn.”
And here’s where it gets interesting. If the truck can’t get around the car, the car is going to get pushed out of the way.
And it’s not only fire that’s a problem. Nelson said the BSFD has had numerous calls recently in the Waterford Park neighborhood where the rescue truck had to park away from the home they were responding to, grab their equipment and run to the home. All the while, valuable time was being lost.
“In any neighborhood like this, it’s slow going for any emergency vehicle,” Nelson said. “The point of this demonstration was to show just how difficult it is for a large fire truck to make it to your home if obstacles (cars) are in the way.”
There are more than 1,300 new homes and apartment units being built or scheduled into late 2015 in Greer. A Greer fire marshal, at the Planning Advisory Committee meetings with developers, goes over the fire hydrant requirements in each community. It is the developers and subsequent home owners associations responsibility to enforce parking.
Things can quickly go from bad to worse in any situation. Nelson recalled the fire in 2011 at the Townes of Pelham neighborhood, another nearby townhouse community. A fire there, caused by a charcoal grill in the backyard, ended up destroying two homes, almost destroying three others and damaging 14-16 homes.
“It was windy that day,” he said, “ but also contributing to the enormous loss was the inability of the fire truck to quickly get down to where the fire was. “We barely got in there,” he said. Nelson’s advice to any neighborhood is to keep the streets clear. “You never know when you’re going to need that emergency vehicle to get to you in a hurry. Don’t let your vehicle be the reason your home or a neighbor’s home is lost, or someone dies, because valuable response time is lost.”
Steve Graham, BSFD chief, reminds everyone to also check their smoke alarms. “You should replace them every 10 years,” he said. “Most people don’t realize that they don’t last a lifetime. Change your battery every year, but also replace the alarm every 10 years.”
Graham said one of the things firefighters listen for as they are nearing a fire is the sound of a smoke alarm. “If they hear a smoke alarm, then they are pretty sure everyone is out of the building. If they don’t hear an alarm, then they know someone could be trapped inside.”
To protect your home and the homes around you, Nelson and Graham advise:
• Don’t block the streets
• Change your smoke detectors every 10 years
• Replace your smoke detector batteries every year
Jim Fair contribute to this story.