DALLAS MORNING NEWS   FEB. 26, 1987 Firefighter killed in Oak Cliff Blaze By Jeff Maclin Staff Writer of The News   A 38-year-old Dallas firefighter died and three other firefighters were seriously injured Wednesday while battling a two-alarm fire at a home in Oak Cliff, fire officials said. Dale Wayne Rhine, a fire rescue officer with Engine Co. 49, was pronounced dead at 7:34 p.m. at Methodist Medical Center, officials said. A field agent with the Dallas County medical examiner said the cause of death was undetermined, pending an autopsy. Two other firefighters, Lt. M. A. Devers, 40, and Lt. M. L. Williams, 38, were listed in critical but stable condition at Methodist early Thursday, officials said. Both suffered minor second and third degree burns and smoke inhalation. A third firefighter, Raymond Vela, 36, was listed in stable condition at Methodist. All three firefighters were to be kept overnight for observation, officials said. The firefighters were injured while fighting a house fire at 835 Misty Glen Lane in Dallas. The blaze was first reported at 6:04 p.m. Wednesday, officials said. Capt. W. A. Richardson of the Dallas Fire Department said officials believe the firefighters were injured when combustible gases generated by the fire mixed with oxygen and ignited. "It’s just a case of heat building up and pushing out over the heads of the firemen," Richardson said. "They were caught in this flash-over, and the heat and the smoke got to them." Richardson said the fire was caused by an electric burner on the stove that was accidentally left on. A skillet filled with grease on top of the burner caught on fire and quickly spread flames throughout the west side of the brick dwelling, he said. Clare Allen, who lives across the street from the house, said the owners of the home—Billy and Patricia Wormly—told her no burner was left on. Mrs. Allen said the Wormlys came to her home sometime after 6 p.m. and asked her to call the fire department. "Billy left the home to go pick up his daughter and she (Patricia) was coming home from work," said Mrs. Allen. "By the time I called the Fire Department and went to the front door, I could see flames in the rear of the home." Several firefighters entered the house to fight the fire. Three had to be helped out of the home when they were injured. When fire officials were able to go back inside the home, they found Rhine lying in a hallway leading to a bedroom, officials said. Mrs. Allen said one firefighter was carried from the house by fire personnel, but attempts by paramedics to revive him were unsuccessful. Fire officials said no one was in the home at the time of the fire. "The gentleman who lives there (Billy Wormly) had been gone about 15 minutes when the fire started," Richardson said. "The heating element on the stove was on when I looked at it. It appears the fire was accidental but we’re still investigating." At 7:04 p.m., 22 firefighters operating seven pieces of equipment brought the fire under control, officials said. Officials said the fire caused an estimated $30,000 in damages to the home and contents.       DALLAS MORNING NEWS   FEB. 27, 1987 Strength, bravery marked firefighter By Lorraine Adams Staff Writer of The News He was a tall man, a strong man, and he was usually the first into a burning house. But on Wednesday night, firefighter Dale Wayne Rhine was dead, lost to a burst of flames in a fire in Oak Cliff. Many who knew him grieved for him. His wife, at home with their 18-month-old baby, wept. After returning to Station 49, the firefighters on his shift sat together to talk into the night. Friends said they could not believe he was gone. The next day, Dallas Fire Chief, Dodd Miller, his voice sometimes strained, asked Dallas residents at a news conference to remember Rhine, and every firefighter. "Last year Dallas firefighters responded to 2,425 fires," Miller said. "No two fires are alike. And yet the potential for death and destruction exists anytime there is an uncontrolled fire in a structure." The fire that killed Rhine began about 6 p.m. at a brick house in the 800 block of Misty Glen Lane in south central Oak Cliff. Within minutes, the firefighters reached the house. Rhine and other firefighters entered the house with hoses, searching for trapped occupants, according to standard procedures, Miller said. No one was inside; Billy Wormly, his wife, Pat, and their two children were not there. Fire officials said they think the fire started in the kitchen, with an untended skillet of grease on an electric burner. As Rhine and other firefighters pushed through the house, they were overwhelmed by a flashover—a sudden, explosive combustion of flammable gases in a closed space. Rhine had no vital signs when he was taken from the house. Three other firefighters were injured. MacArthur Devers, 40, suffered second and third degree burns and was listed in stable condition late Thursday at Methodist Medical Center. Mitchell L. Williams, 38, who also suffered burns, was listed in serious but stable condition at Methodist. Raymond Vela, 35, was treated for minor burns and released from Methodist. Rhine was pronounced dead at Methodist at 7:34 p.m. The exact cause of death was not known Thursday. "Dallas firefighters continue to handle these situations and challenges," Miller said. "We talk about the nitty gritty of how the fire travels, and how we got lost in a small room filled with smoke. We all consider ourselves professionals who take calculated risks to overcome and win the fight and save the house, or the building, or the child. We never dwell long on what could happen." What happened to Rhine, who was 38, seemed all the more painful to those who knew him, they said, because he was vital and strong—a man in the prime of his life. "He was the strongest guy on his shift, that’s for sure," said Wesley Killian, a firefighter at the same station. "He wasn’t one of those to stay outside and wait for someone to call him." Born in Eldorado, Ill., the youngest of five brothers, he was the first in his family to enter firefighting. He joined the Dallas Fire Department in 1972, the year he married his wife, Ruth. "The first two or three years, there wasn’t a part of the day that went by the I didn’t think of him," she said Thursday. "But after a while, I came to see that he could handle himself." Because he was 6-foot-2 and almost 240 pounds, Rhine became a "short ladder and pike pole man." To release the gases in a structure and provide ventilation, a pike pole man tears down ceilings and walls, a job that requires hard work and strength. "His outfit always had more sheetrock on it after a fire than anybody else because he got in there and worked," Killian said. Rhine’s routine was a 24-hour shift, a 48-hour break, and then another 24-hour shift. In his company, he was distinguished by three things, colleagues said: He was a good cook, he lifted more weights than anyone, and he was loyal to a fault. "He was just a genuine friend," said Denny Burris, the Fire Department chaplain. "Whenever you said you needed something he would always be there, and if you weren’t careful he’d be there in his pickup saying, "Where do we start?" Mrs. Rhine had more trouble describing how much he meant to her, but she could talk of how he called during each 24-hour shift, and how he planned dates with her, even after 15 years of marriage. "He was just wonderful, I can’t say any more," she said in the living room of their house in DeSoto. She said that when the doorbell rang Wednesday night and she saw Burris at her front door, she knew, in her heart, that her husband might well be dead. Asked if she was angry that her husband chose to be a firefighter, she cried and said, "The human side says yes, because no one wants their loved one to be the one. "But I know he was doing a service to the public. So you have to look at that end of it. To me, he was a hero." Rhine is survived by his wife; their daughter, Ashley; his parents, Paul and Catherine Rhine of Cobden, Ill.; and four brothers, Paul, Kendall, Donald and Gale Rhine. Service will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at Hillcrest Baptist Church, 6800 boulder Drive, in Dallas. Staff Writer Bill Deener contributed to this report.       DALLAS MORNING NEWS   FEB 27, 1987 Cause of firefighter’s death not high on list of killers By Bill Deener Staff Writer of The News There seemed to be nothing extraordinary about the fire Wednesday at the one story brick house in Oak Cliff. Firefighters at Station 49 had fought hundreds of these small house fires without serious injuries. But within minutes of their arrival at the house, one firefighter had been killed and three others had been seriously injured because of the phenomenon known as "flashover"—a sudden, explosive combustion of gases in a contained area such as a closed room. Assistant Fire Chief Mike Freeman said a flashover can occur when the temperature inside a room becomes high enough to ignite accumulated gases. Flashover can be especially dangerous if the gases have encircled a firefighter or settled in behind him, Freeman said. "It’s not that uncommon to have, say, a bedroom on fire and then the gases mushrooming above and catching on fire," Freeman said; "You can tolerate a little of that. But who is to say how many more degrees in heat it will take before a flashover occurs and the entire room is filled with fire?" Fire Chief Dodd Miller said the last time Dallas firefighters were killed in a fire was Aug. 21, 1981—and a flashover was involved. Charles Rogers and Edward Metters were killed while searching for occupants in a house under construction. Although the last two fires that killed Dallas firefighters involved flashovers, statistics compiled by the National Fire Protection Agency in Quincy, Mass., show that the phenomenon accounts for a small fraction of firefighter deaths. Of the 122 firefighters killed in the line of duty in 1985, about 43 percent died of heart attacks. About 20 percent of the deaths were the result of being struck by an object and 16 percent were from burns or suffocation (including instances of flashover) after firefighters became trapped. Firefighter Wesley Killian, who also works at Station 49, said the fear of a flashover is not high on his list of worries when he enters a burning building. "There are a lot of things that can happen in a fire," Killian said. "you just hope that they don’t. If you started thinking about all the things that could happen, you’d be so paranoid that you’d never come to work." Tony Jenkins, a 20 year firefighter at Station 49, said he worries more about the toxic gases he breathes when fighting fires than he does about the possibility of flashover. "I don’t think about it when I go into a fire," Jenkins said. "A lot runs through your mind, though, like how are you going to rescue someone, or how are you going to put out the fire."