A fire in Akron, Ohio, on Thursday morning damaged the rubberized exterior skin of the Airdock -- the structure Goodyear built and stored its zeppelins and blimps. Lockheed Martin is in the process for renovating the structure to build the next-generation blimps.
And based on an initial post-fire inspection, it won't even delay the upcoming construction of a $149.2 million High Altitude Airship prototype. ``We're still on schedule,'' Lockheed spokeswoman Kate Dunlap said. ``It was an outside fire. It was basically the skin of the Airdock.''
Flames had about an hour and a half to consume some 25,000 square feet of the rubberized exterior skin of the hangar, which covers a metal framework. It was limited to the northeast corner of the structure, basically half of the area where two doors open to admit airships.
To put that in perspective: the Airdock, built in 1929, has 687,000 square feet of skin, is seven football fields long and 22 stories high. The sides of the building and the huge south end doors were unscathed.
Still, it was hard for some spectators not to fear the worst.
``Please don't be the Airdock. Please don't be the Airdock,'' Melanie Sickle chanted after spotting the black smoke lifting into the air ahead of her on U.S. 224 just after 11 a.m.
But as she rounded a corner, she saw flames licking at the monster-sized black structure. With shaking hands, she called her boyfriend, who works at Goodyear's Wingfoot Lake hangar in Suffield Township, where today's blimps are built and stored.
``Oh, I hope they can save it,'' she said as she watched Akron firefighters aim high-pressure streams of water that seemed to reach only two-thirds of the way up.
Above and below
Soon, however, those fighting the fire from the ground were joined by firefighters from above. Using interior catwalks, ladders and an elevator, they reached the top of the 211-foot building and tapped into fire hydrants that access a water tank on the property.
The department was called to the Airdock, which has been in Lockheed's care since 1996, at 11:08 a.m. Heavy smoke and flames were already visible when they arrived, Akron Fire Department spokesman Ed Sturkey said.
The fire began on or near the ground level, then traveled up the building's entire 22-story height, he said.
With the exception of a ``handful'' of contractors doing renovation work, the Airdock was empty at the time of the fire, Dunlap said.
Fifteen units with 40 firefighters responded to the two-alarm fire. Winds that whipped around the open field where the hangar sits, next to Akron Fulton International Airport, made it hard to direct the streams of water, Sturkey said.
Although flames sent a steady stream of black smoke into the air, no flights were affected at the adjacent airport.
An investigation was to continue into the cause of the fire and the extent of the damage. In September, a much smaller fire was caused by a welder's spark.
An hour after the fire was put out, the smell of burned rubber hung in the air along Triplett Boulevard, and the Akron area's interest in the fate of its icon was unmistakable.
And later in the day, more fire units returned to the scene to keep a watch that was expected to continue through the night in the event that hot spots flared.
Airship project
If the Airdock's role in the community is about history, though, it's also about the future.
Lockheed's airship project is scheduled to start in 2007, with a flight date in 2009 or 2010, Dunlap said.
Major renovations started in 2003 to prep the building.
The Airdock, which Lockheed Martin leases from the Summit County Port Authority, played a crucial role in enabling the company to get the federal contract to build the giant craft.
The 76-year-old hangar is where the Navy's rigid dirigibles Akron and Macon were built and moored in the early 1930s.
Unlike the dirigibles and blimps of yesteryear and today, Lockheed Martin's high-tech, unmanned airship is designed to stay stationary for months above the weather at an altitude of 60,000 feet and look out for a missile attack against the United States. It will be 400 feet long and 140 feet in diameter, dwarfing the Goodyear blimp (192 feet long, 55 feet in diameter).
Exterior renovations that included covering the Airdock with a rubber composite material were already finished, she said.
``We're going to have to take a look at (the exterior damage),'' Dunlap said. ``Lockheed Martin considers the Airdock a source of pride.''
As part of the Airdock renovation, most roofing, window and siding material have been replaced and upgraded; some interior structures have been or will be removed; and a new mooring facility, to be owned by the city of Akron, will be built.
Good preparation
Akron Fire District Chief Dennis Stoneman -- who had been in the massive structure during the less spectacular September fire -- was one of the first firefighters to arrive at the scene Thursday.
Stoneman, the department's safety officer, said that for the September fire, they were able to take a firetruck through the massive south doors.
``We drove inside and we put up our ladders and hit it in from the inside,'' he said.
That's when he learned the layout of the interior. Near the midpoint of the building, two small elevators opposite each other ride up the curved interior walls to a network of catwalks near the ceiling.
From the catwalks, the roof is accessible through steps leading up to hatch doors.
About a month ago, Stoneman was also with the Technical Rescue Operations Team as it practiced high-angle rope skills inside the Airdock, rappelling off the catwalks.
``That paid off big time,'' he said.
Initially Thursday, firefighters took a defensive position outside the building, hitting the fire with water from the outside. But the key was getting inside and on the roof.
``The first thing I'm thinking is the safety of the guys,'' Stoneman said. ``But being a landmark, we just don't want to write off a big building.''
That's where the rappelling work paid off. Capt. Joe Natko of the technical rescue team and Capt. Dave Ware of Battalion 4 led firefighters on the inside from Engines 2 and 4.
Firefighters hauled hoses to the catwalks, using the elevators, which stopped working at one point.
``It's hard work, especially the guys inside who had to carry all the hoses up,'' Stoneman said.
Then they hooked the hoses into standpipes, which are common in high-rise buildings so that water doesn't have to be pumped from street level.
Stoneman also remembered from the drill about a month ago that some of the catwalks had wooden floor planks that needed to be replaced and radioed inside to warn the firefighters not to step on the ones marked ``X'' in pink and white.
Firefighters crawled out onto the roof and tied in with ropes to make sure they didn't tumble off the sides.
``If we couldn't have gotten to that top, we would have been out of luck,'' Stoneman said.
Copyright (c) 2006, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio Copyright 2005 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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