A fire in a mobile home, or the increasingly popular modular home, is a very exotic animal in the firefighting zoo. You want to talk about lightweight construction? Mobile home manufacturers were doing lightweight construction before it was cool.
The typical mobile home is built with kiln-dried lumber. The process of drying lumber in a kiln leaves the wood with about 7 percent moisture content, significantly dryer than air-dried lumber. This is done to keep the weight down for transportation purposes.
This means that the fire will burn faster and hotter than that found in a wood-frame constructed dwelling.
Discussion Questions
- What is Side A? Side A commonly refers to the address side of the building; for a mobile home, however, that’s usually going to be the end of the mobile home facing the street with no egress door.
- What special considerations need to be taken to protect exposures in mobile home parks?
- What do you need to take into account regarding access for and positioning of apparatus in a mobile home park?
- Where would you place the rigs if exposure units are likely to become involved?
- How many and which apparatus would you send to a mobile home fire?
- Were distracted by the emergency warning lights from all the apparatus bouncing off of the aluminum skin on the surrounding mobile homes? Light and noise pollution can greatly increase the potential for missed radio communication and physical disorientation of personnel; what can be done to limit both in make the working environment safer?