Kernersville fire

Have you ever seen a house explode? Ever hear of a backdraft? This is in Kernersville, NC where a home caught fire and as firefighters entered oxygen was re-introduced to the fire and caused the home to explode. You'll see the explosion caught on a Kernersville PD dash cam. It happens at about 2:04:05. Pretty amazing that everyone made it out OK. One firefighter was transported after some debris fell on him inside the home during the explosion, but he was treated and released.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• backdraft
• fire
• explosion
• home
• housefire
• firefighters
• emt
• kernersville

[allsteer40]

Very impressive demonstration by the process of combustion. In cases like this where it's a working fire, does your department request a 2nd alarm automatically (tactical procedure)?

[kendog63]

allsteer, I work for a broadcast news department so I only received the video from the fire department and uploaded it here. I'm not familar with procedures.

[yankeecap61]

This is a lot more complicated than the "classic" backdraft. We were in the house approximately 2-3 minutes when the building "left the building". I was on the nozzle, the firefighter who was injured was behind me. We were both lucky for stick-built construction and plenty of partition walls. As to why fire did not involve us when it exploded, like my sister said, we had angels on our shoulders. I didn't know I was living so "right".

[kendog63]

Thank God you were all OK! Who was the firefighter who had just approached the front door? He completely disappeared during the explosion. I've watched it frame by frame and it's even more impressive watching it slowed down. Again, thank God you were all OK.

[hkiserjr]

Glad everyone is OK. That explosion was unbelievable!

[yankeecap61]

Critique was this morning. Frame-by-frame analysis of the higher-quality video (12 mins.) shows the explosion originated in the crawlspace. Crawlspace access was on the D end of the C side. Clearly the backdraft was not typical because of its location, an unoccupied void, but not unheard of.

[mrjellyglaze93]

I remember this! Haha they totally rebuilt it, but it looks the exact same.

[bronxrunner9]

Yeah i live around that area i seen the after math the next day... Not much to it sadly

[silverfox123456789]

i live up the street from this. i pass it alot

[TheFirefighter23]

Damn! the whole house jump off the ground!!!! shit!!!!! thank goodness you're all ok from that. be safe.

[JSaunders]

Duffield ?

[HskHeroReborn]

My uncle was in the shit Go Uncle Eddie representing Amytiville Ny

[nlcap2405]

After taking Dave Dodson's class on Reading Smoke, I think it is possible this MIGHT have been a Smoke Explosion. In his class he states that there are some fire gases like CO and HCN that have the ability to migrate and saturate areas away from the seat of the fire and set up an explosion potential. Often this occurs in void spaces such as where this occurred. Bottom line - be safe, watch each others backs, and thank the Good Lord everyone is alive.