When I read things like 10 minutes is a good responce time, WOW ! fire doubles in size each minute ! you don't have much of a chance from the get go. We pride ourselves on getting a line to the seat of the fire in 4 minutes from dispatch .
Let me clarify. These are volunteer units so there aren't crews at the firehouse waiting to respond. The local crew arrived very quickly but it was still more than 4 minutes (don't know how much longer because I wasn't there) before they arrived. The two other crews came from neighboring towns 3-5 miles away so just travel time takes a little bit.
In a modern frame house (according to the fire marshall) the fire would have been much worse, perhaps a total loss. But the fire was mainly kept between exterior brick and the inside plaster walls. The oak beams burned very hot but slowly. We believe the fire had been burning more than 30 minutes before it was discovered.
Like I said, we got lucky.
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