Carl E. Drake Position : Chief Serving since : 1985 Committees : Chief's Staff

Memorable Experience: The Atlantic Financial fire. It was a rainy-hot summer evening and we were first due on the second alarm to assist Springfield; I recall that the alarm was about 2030 hrs. The Atlantic Financial building is a concrete building with non-breakable windows. The fire was in an office suite on the top floor and we were the only company who could make the fire floor because of our new gear. (The gear that we wear today. The guys in the conventional gear were getting pushed back.) However, the fact that we could make the fire floor didn't mean that we could see or for that matter find the fire. It was so hot on the fire floor that we had to squat-walk because we couldn't craw. The ceiling system and lights were falling in on us as we made our way down the hall. Just when we were seriously wondering if we should bag it, we came across a hose line that had been abandoned as its crew left. While we were resting against the wall, the door that that I was leaning against fell in and we found the fire. Between the hose line that we had and the one that we found, we had the fire out in about two seconds. This was indeed the hottest fire that I've ever been in for a sustained period of time. You see we couldn't get ventilation. PPV wasn't a known tactic at that time, and we were using stacked smoke ejectors blowing out from the fire tower stair doors which was next to useless. The next day I heard that the investigators finally got some windows out and put smoke ejectors in them from Springfield's aerial so that they could do their work.

We learned later that the fire was set in a lawyer's office to destroy evidence in a Philadelphia Homicide