My engine co. was called to a report of a "gas" smell inside a condo structure. Upon arrival, we found slightly elevated CO of about 17 ppm and determined that it was caused by a resident warming up a car in an attached garaged. The call was made by our officer to use PPV by means of our gasoline powered fan. Soon after PPV was started, my readings of 17 ppm went up and up, sending our meter into pre-alarm. I advised my officer and he had the fan shut down. We had now raised the CO in the building to 55 ppm. Had we not paid attention, we could have easily caused a much bigger problem than we arrived to find, considering this is a 3 story building with mostly older residents. My dept. doesn’t meter after fires and uses the visually clear air deemed as safe by means of these gasoline powered fans. I wonder how many times we have worked in high CO because of these fans.
LESSONS LEARNED:
Gasoline powered fans can make the situation worse. They should only be used if an exhaust hose is attached and directed away from the structure. Also, metering and SCBA are essential for any potentially CO contaminated environment.
