EASTON, Pa. — The three-alarm fire that tore through the Hotel Hampton last month remains under investigation.
But for Easton Fire Chief Henry Hennings, the more urgent question is not how it started.
It's whether the city was equipped to stop it.
And whether the operational vulnerabilities exposed in dense, high-occupancy buildings, where every firefighting action must be timely and precise, will continue to surface.
“There’s only so many things you can get done” in fighting a fire, Hennings said. “You have to prioritize.”
What that means in practice, he said, is that critical tasks — rescuing trapped occupants, attacking the fire and securing water supply — are competing for the same limited number of firefighters.
And in a building filled with smoke, time is not a neutral factor.
It shapes whether crews are able to reach people in danger or are forced to pull back — and the consequences of that decision.
Response stretched from the start
On the day of the Hotel Hampton fire, 15 firefighting personnel arrived within the first 15 minutes, Hennings said.
For a fire of that scale, the number falls well short of national standards.
Guidance from the National Fire Protection Association calls for 15 to 17 firefighters on scene within eight minutes for a full first alarm, and more than 40 personnel for a high-hazard structure fire.
The benchmark for a fire such as the Hotel Hampton is 43 firefighters, with standards designed to ensure safe fireground operations and maximum effectiveness in search and rescue operations.
Easton’s manpower?
“Not even close,” Hennings said.
And those numbers do not reflect how many firefighters actually are available for interior firefighting operations.
An incident commander must manage the scene. A driver remains at the pump. Others are assigned to secure hydrants and stretch hose lines.
By the time those roles are filled, only a fraction of the initial crew is left to make entry.
"You’ve got a small number of people trying to do a lot of things at once."Easton Fire Chief Henry Hennings
“Now you’ve got a small number of people trying to do a lot of things at once,” Hennings said.
Inside the building, conditions already were rapidly deteriorating, he said.
Hennings said firefighters encountered multiple occupants trapped, with people hanging from windows, as crews arrived.
Ultimately, seven rescues were confirmed after radio transmissions were reviewed.
But even as those rescues were underway, additional help had not yet fully arrived, Hennings said.
As a second alarm was struck, mutual aid units still were being alerted, assembling or en route.
For the first critical stretch of the fire, the outcome hinged on a limited number of firefighters trying to manage both life safety and fire suppression at the same time, Hennings said.
Compounding the risk, electric power to the building was not shut off for several hours, despite repeated requests from the scene, leaving firefighters exposed to energized equipment and ladders during operations.
Amid those conditions, the danger became personal.
Wilson firefighter Bobby Lewullis was running low on oxygen after becoming separated from his partner on the third floor.
A mayday was called, but heavy radio traffic and building conditions made communication difficult, with transmissions overlapping as crews worked to coordinate rescues and fire attack.
Lewullis was able to self-rescue using a ladder, but fell about 20 feet and was hospitalized with serious injuries.
“He’ll recover,” Hennings said. But the incident reflects how quickly operations can break down when staffing is limited and conditions escalate.
Growth without matching capacity
Hennings said the strain exposed at the Hotel Hampton fire is not new.
Since 2004, Easton’s population has grown by thousands. Over that same period, the fire department has added little more than a handful of firefighters.
“That’s still not catching up,” he said.
On a typical shift, staffing levels fall short of what is needed to safely manage a major incident, he said.
To close that gap, the city depends heavily on mutual aid — a system that works, but not instantly.
“We have to wait for them to be alerted, for them to be available, to get to the station,” Hennings said.
Many of those responding departments also are volunteer-based, where daytime staffing often is limited.
Even when additional crews arrive, differences in training, familiarity and experience can affect how smoothly operations unfold.
“It’s not their fault,” he said. “But that’s what we’re relying on.”
The result is a system that functions, but with built-in delays at the exact moment speed is most critical.
A building that amplified the fire
The Hotel Hampton's very structure also worked against firefighters.
Hennings said the building featured balloon-frame construction — a method that allows fire to travel rapidly through concealed wall cavities.
What may appear as a contained fire can, in reality, be moving unchecked through hidden spaces until multiple parts of the structure ignite at once The result is a dynamic that reduces visibility, increases heat and limits how long firefighters can safely operate inside.Easton Fire Chief Harry Hennings
Once flames enter those voids, heat and smoke can move vertically, spreading unseen through the building and preheating areas before ignition.
By the time crews opened walls and ceilings to ventilate, conditions intensified quickly.
“It’s just a domino effect,” Hennings said.
What may appear as a contained fire can, in reality, be moving unchecked through hidden spaces until multiple parts of the structure ignite at once, he said.
The result is a dynamic that reduces visibility, increases heat and limits how long firefighters can safely operate inside.
Limits of modern safeguards
The fire also has raised questions about building oversight.
Hennings said the property was classified as a rooming house, which requires annual permitting under city ordinance.
Those permits must be renewed each year. It remains unclear whether the property maintained current licensing in the years leading up to the fire.
LehighValleyNews.com has requested city records, but they were not immediately available.
At the same time, Hennings cautioned against assuming that modern safety systems in newer buildings eliminate risk.
Sprinklers, he said, are effective but not absolute.
“Everybody preaches, 'Well, that building had sprinklers,'" he said, referencing a fire at the Five10 Flats apartment complex in Bethlehem last spring.
“But if the fire starts in a place where there are no sprinklers, they’re not going to help you there.”
Even when systems function as designed, they cannot account for every scenario or human behavior during an emergency, he said.
“You can engineer every safety protection into a building,” he said. “The one thing you’ll never engineer out is the human factor.”
A changing fireground
Beyond any single building, Hennings said, the broader risk is shifting.
The city has more than 100 high target hazard buildings, including hospitals, nursing homes, schools, churches and large apartment buildings.
These structures pose significant life safety or community impact risks during emergencies.
Modern construction — particularly in sprawling apartment complexes such as those now being built from Easton to Allentown — often relies on lightweight and engineered materials that burn and fail much faster than traditional lumber.
“You get maybe five minutes” to get out, he said.
Those buildings also house more people in tighter configurations, increasing both the likelihood of fire and the stakes when one occurs.
"If it meets the code, there’s absolutely nothing we can do."Easton Fire Chief Henry Hennings on the construction of new apartment buildings in the city
Yet fire departments have little authority over how those buildings are designed.
“If it meets the code, there’s absolutely nothing we can do,” Hennings said.
That leaves departments responsible for responding to risks they did not shape, with resources that have not kept pace.
The Hotel Hampton fire, Hennings said, brought those gaps into sharp focus.
In the days after the fire, officials scrambled for a full accounting of occupants in the five-story structure — the second fire in a rooming house in less than a year where a list was not on file with the city.
Search teams used cadaver dogs to examine debris that had been removed from the site and spread out for inspection, working to ensure no victims remained unaccounted for.
Based on what he saw early on, Hennings said, he believed they would find bodies. But no fatalities were ultimately reported in the fire.
A warning, not an outlier
The Hotel Hampton fire is under federal review by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, with findings expected in coming months.
Investigators representing the NIOSH Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program conducted interviews with command officers and firefighters who were on scene during the incident, Hennings said.
“It’s not going to be good."Easton Fire Chief Henry Hennings
The investigators also typically review fire department standard operating procedures, training records, dispatch records, witness statements and investigation documents prior to publishing their findings.
Hennings said he expects the report to raise broader concerns about whether current systems for staffing, building regulation and emergency response are aligned with the realities departments face on the ground.
“It’s not going to be good,” he said.
For Hennings, the fire is not an isolated incident.
It is a warning.
“When you have all these (high target hazard) buildings,” he said, “the numbers are sideways.”
The difference between these two incident types is substantial. Standard structure fires are primarily tactical suppression events, Chief Hennings said, while high-rise fires are complex logistical operations requiring significantly more personnel, coordination, and time.
Access and Movement - High-rise fires require vertical movement using stairs or controlled elevators, with staging typically two floors below the fire. Standard structure fires involve direct horizontal access with minimal delay.
Command Structure - High-rise incidents require expanded Incident Command System (ICS) structures, including multiple divisions and functional groups. Standard structure fires typically operate under a simpler command structure.
Life Safety Risk - High-rise buildings present a significantly higher life safety risk due to occupant load and evacuation challenges. Standard structures involve fewer occupants and faster rescue operations. High target hazard buildings (hospitals, high-rises, industrial sites) require specialized firefighting strategies focused on pre-incident planning, robust water supply, and built-in system utilization (standpipes/sprinklers). Critical tactics include rapid search and rescue, smoke control, elevator control, and staging areas for personnel and equipment.
