Inferno: The 15-Part Television Series

Television, Films and Firefighting: by Louis Peter Angeli
Reviews and behind the scenes comments about this nation's most televised profession.

A Fitting Tribute To North America's Bravest

A review of the 15 part series -- Inferno

by: Louis Peter Angeli

Edmonton, Alberta (Canada) - October 27, 1998 -- It's the TV series that fire-rescue personnel have been waiting for, and if the first installment is any indication of what we'll be seeing in future episodes, it was well worth the wait.

"Inferno", a 15-part series dealing with Fire and Rescue, debuted last night on Canada's "LIFE" Network with a heart-pounding episode dealing with high-rise fires. For civilian viewers, firefighters and fire buffs, this is the series that is destined to become a firehouse collectable.

The High-Rise Problem

Back in 1971, President Richard Nixon appointed a special commission to study the fire problem in North America. In their scathing report, entitled "America Burning", commission members pinpointed high-rise fires as one of the most significant threats to both life and property.

Just last week, we were reminded that the problem hasn't gone away. In the Gateway city, St. Louis Squad-2 responded as part of a predetermined Box Alarm assignment to a downtown high-rise. As the driver positioned his rig in front of the 32 story high-rise, company members were confronted with heavy flames hundreds of feet above the street. Within 30 minutes St. Louis Fire Chief Neil Svetanics requested an unprecedented General Alarm to deal with the fast-moving blaze in a high-rise residence for the elderly. Repetitive training and a gutsy interior attack minimized the damage, but dozens were injured, and a fire officer remains in critical condition as result of injuries he received.

To illustrate the problem that exists in these vertical cities, "Inferno's"producers chose North America's most costly high-rise fire ever --Philadelphia's "One Meridian Plaza" blaze of January 1991. It's a fire
that I'm familiar with, because our own video crew was shooting for Task Force Tips in nearby Wilmington, Delaware.

The Story Unfolds

Award winning Senior Producer David McIlvride opens the episode entitled "Towering Inferno" with a masterfully assembled signature title sequence, that will stop channel surfers dead in their tracks.
By blending wonderfully photographed aerial footage, McIlvride
sets the scene by describing high-rises as wonders of design and construction. Then, a snap-zoom onto a blazing fire, coupled with an actual 911 call, quickly determines McIlvride's real intent, and the show's mission.

Dissolve to downtown Philly, one of the East coast's oldest cities, and one that boasts thousands of high-rise structures. A city whose fire department logs over 2500 working fires each and every year. Some of the high-rises here are over a century old -- and most were built before mandatory sprinkler requirements.

Philly's Skyline

Fighting Fires in
Vertical Cities

It is 2035 hours on a Saturday in January 1991 and Philly's Engine-43 and Ladder-9 are responding as part of a Box Alarm to a building just a few blocks away, near City Hall. As they exit their station they already see a glow in the sky. When they round the turn from Market Street onto 19th, they know they're in for "the job" of their lives. Looking up they see heavy fire from the 21st floor of One Meridian Plaza, a building that they know from inspection tours is not yet fully sprinklered.

A mile away, from their quarters in the city's popular South Street section, Philly's Engine-11 responds on the 2nd Alarm. 11's is a busy station, and for Captain David Holcombe, Firefighter Phyllis McAllister and Rookie James Chappel, it's shaping up to be another typical night tour. But there is nothing typical about this winter Saturday.

From this point on, McIlvride uses two of the incident's major players as storytellers - former Commissioner Roger Ulshaffer and veteran Fire Captain Mike Yaeger. Of PFD's 2500 members, McIlvride couldn't have chosen two better spokesman. Undaunted by any current political agenda, Ulshaffer tells the story like it is - a nightmare from Hell. And Yaeger comes across as the firefighter's firefighter - salty, but extremely articulate.

At the scene, everything that could possibly go wrong in a high-rise blaze IS! Main power, as well as back up generators, fail early on. And although firefighting teams don't know it, pressure reducing valves have been installed at every station in the building's standpipe system, rendering every nozzle they try useless.

A Tragedy in the Making

"Inferno's" David McIlvride combines incident footage, shot by Philly Fire Films, with believable reenactments, to illustrate what is happening "inside the building" as firefighters are faced with one problem after another. One of the most significant problems ends in tragedy, one that will live with Ulshaffer, Yaeger and Philly's Bravest forever.

Re-enactments were
shot in Canada

Staged scenes, combined with interior fire footage, set the scene for the viewer. Imagine the conditions -- 17,000 square feet of office space, fully- involved, and moving to upper floors through a phenomenon known as "auto-exposure". Without water, crews are helpless, and Ulshaffer and his chief officers quickly review their options.

On the fire floor, Battalion Chief George Yaeger (not portrayed) knows from experience that the building needs to be vented. But in order to do that, firefighters will need to climb from the 23rd floor -- to the roof -- to open scuttles and doors. The BC orders the firefighters from Engine Company #11 to this difficult task. In the moments that follow, the reenactment team follows 11's crew as they climb from floor to floor, through blinding smoke and unbearable heat, each wearing 60 pounds of safety gear, and carrying heavy handtools.

As Engine-11 makes their way to the roof, something goes seriously wrong. It's here, in the program's most touching scenario, that McIlvride's blends image, with actual audio of radio traffic, to communicate Engine-11's dilemma.

Knowing that Engine-11's crew is lost, Ulshaffer acts quickly and orders Captain Yaeger and a team of 6 firefighters to board a PennStar Life Flight helicopter and begin search and rescue operations -- from the roof -- down. Aided with plenty of file footage, McIlvride illustrates how quickly rescue teams were ferried to the roof. In doing so, he also sets us up for another headbanger of a situation. While searching for Engine-11's crew, Yaeger and his team themselves become lost in the HVAC room just below the roof.

Their captain, Holcombe, is down, and neither Chappel or McAllister plan to abandon him. With only precious minutes of air left in their SCBA, the three wait for help. Help they know can never arrive in time. They perish together, holdingach other's gloved hands.

Rescue Efforts Begin

In his first-person, somber narrative, Captain Yaeger describes what it's like being totally disoriented, and at death's door. With only the roar of the flames as his guide, Yaeger manages to keep his crew together in the hope of moving them to the safety of the roof. Some team members have already exhausted their air supply, and are sharing air regulators with their buddies.

Finally, with the aid of the chopper crew, they are able to escape to safety through a door hatch that had locked behind them. "Towering Inferno" offers plenty more drama as Ulshaffer describes theexhausting efforts of creating an instant standpipe by "hand-laying" 5-inch supply line to the 24th floor. And for the first time ever, the formerCommissioner admits that, without sufficient water, he had written off the building early in the incident. Ultimately, the fire was stopped on the 30th floor -- by 10 sprinkler heads.

Faulty fixed
protection systems
were a major cause
of the Philly fire.

A Shoe-in For The Emmys

David McIlvride successfully blends classic documentary with reality TV, two TV/Film genre' that have rarely been combined. It's a technique that rookie producers, raised on shows like "Real-TV" and "Word's Scariest Police Chases", are reluctant, or perhaps afraid, to address. . But veteran McIlvride takes masterfully shapes the idea, creating a new-tech docu-drama, a format that will likely be applied to future programming topics.

"Inferno" is the first on-going documentary series to feature the fire-rescue theme. And with the creation of these shows, GRB Entertainment and Canada's Great North Productions have developed a guaranteed winner of a series. After all, everyone loves firefighters, don't they?

The mission of any documentary program is to provide information. But the real secret to producing a successful documentary is to do it in entertaining fashion. David McIlvride and his Edmonton-based staff have succeeded on both counts.

"Inferno" continues its run next Tuesday evening in Canada, but for those of us in the states, Discovery Channel won't allow us to open this package until after Christmas. I'm told that "Inferno" debuts on TDC on January 15th, with the One Meridian Plaza program.