How does an entire Boardwalk in NJ go up in flames?

[Duer 157099]

This makes no sense to me. It's not like a wildfire in rough inaccessible terrain. This is in an area with roads and streets and great big body of WATER nearby.

How does something like this get out of control like that?

On CNN they think the big question is: How did it start?? While MY big question is: Why did it continue???

Don't we know how to put out fires anymore?

[aikoaiko]

1. lots of friction underneath the boardwalk.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

2. Probably the fact that they painted the boardwalk with white phosphorous

and other pyrophorics. Damn.

"Boardwalk OnFire" will be the new HBO series

[onehandle]

3. Christie's fault. nt

[KurtNYC]

4. Good question. How does one "blow up the chicken man" ?

Perhaps some shop owner had debts that no honest man could pay, or it could have been the racket boys from out of town...

[2naSalit]

5. It was a

rush job to rebuild this set of structures and considering NJ's reputation for graft, I can imagine that construction ordinances and regulations/building codes were not upheld as they might otherwise have been under normal circumstances. So I wonder if there were any or enough building inspectors and how many of them were looking the other way while this new boardwalk was slapped together in such a short time.

[MADem]

6. Or sabotage...?

It did seem freakishly out of control, what I saw...

[HappyMe]

7. There were 30mph winds.

The roofs of the buildings have tar on them which is also an accelerant.

[Duer 157099]

8. Don't they have those water-dumping helicopters/planes?

Something that could scoop up huge buckets of water from the ocean and dump them?

[HappyMe]

9. Not as far as I know.

As you said in your OP, it isn't the wilderness.

[HooptieWagon]

10. Its made of wood...

Pilings probably treated with creosote, rest of it pressure-treated...so it probably spread quickly. And it was undergoing rebuilding after Sandy, so possibly there were sprinkler systems not yet installed or functional. Also, I saw a DU post that said some of the FD was away at a convention. As to cause, who knows?

[1-Old-Man]

12. Pressure treated wood is hell to get lit, plus, those boards lay flat

Fires are happy to burn up, don't like to burn sideways, and will go out if they have to burn down.

[HooptieWagon]

14. We shall see...

[Cleita]

11. Seems like an infrastructure and sloppy regulations

clusterfuck. A rush to get businesses reopened after Sandy might have led to sloppy oversight on rebuilding. I hope everyone involved has insurance.

[FarCenter]

13. The section where the fire started had not been rebuilt: old boardwalk, old buildings close together

One report said people in the ice cream store heard pops and then saw flames of an electrical fire coming from underneath the boardwalk. Then the fire spread into their building and spread from there.

There were about three or four blocks of old boardwalk that burned. These are probably all old wooden buildings without firewalls or more than a few feet between them. Besides, once the boardwalk catches on fire, it spreads underneath, since it is on pilings.

They bulldozed a fire break through the new building a few blocks north to stop it. and they kept it from spreading across the street away from the ocean.

[zappaman]

15. Super secret thermite...

same thing that brought down the towers on 9/11.


Probably need this...

[lunatica]

16. They said there were very high winds.

When winds whip up the fires, no amount of water will make them go out.

[malthaussen]

17. Spectacularly.

Watched a bit of that last night, since it was all over the local news. With some fires, it is just hard to get enough water on them fast enough.

-- Mal

[orenbus]

18. obvious answer is obvious

30 mph winds with embers the size of your hand, a boardwalk made of wood, most of the seaside fire dept. was at a convention for firefighters in Wildwood, old buildings that have no firewalls separating the businesses, lot of combustible materials inside the stores, games and amusement shops. The question isn't how could this have happened, the question is how did it go on for so long without it happening.

And it wasn't the entire boardwalk it was 4 blocks, hardly the entire Seaside Heights boardwalk.

[mainstreetonce]

19. I just hope

someone didn't set it because fire insurance would pay better than the coverage they had from the storm last year.

[tech3149]

20. You ever spent much time at the shore?

I spent 16 years in the state and have been flying since the 70's. The wind may not be wicked fast but it is consistent without much change in direction.
All those buildings were wood frame construction and pretty much joined at the hip. The only way to stop the progress would have been to blow up a few hundred feet into the wind to eliminate the fuel.
Not only that the boardwalk has the same airflow under as above. You feed a fire with all the air it needs ,it's almost impossible to stop.

My question is even with some serious building codes they allowed these places to be rebuilt without improving on more current and protective standards that might have slowed the progress or made it easier to control?

My humble opinion, based on nothing but my experience, is that they were sooo frantic to get back to business as usual that there was no thought of improved safety, longevity or anything that long-term, considered thinking requires.