November 2016
FireNuggets, Inc
High Rise Fires: Challenges
and Solutions
High rises present challenges to the fire service that other buildings
do not. While the fire resistive make-up of the building provides
some advantages in regard to structural combustibility (close to
none) and fire spread potential (relatively limited) that all other
building types do not, the logistics of operating well above the street
does present challenges that no other buildings present.
Personnel
In any fire, most departments seem to run short of staffing way too
quickly. A high rise fire, like a fire in attached combustible
structures, will reveal your department’s staffing limitations very
quickly and in a most evident manner. Concurrently, personnel are
required to staff the Command Post and upper floor organizational
positons, provide building-related support such as in the case of
elevator control and standpipe control, and operate in the fire area
and areas above, which includes stairwell recon. All areas of the
building must be covered. If you don’t have enough personnel,
which most don’t, what options do you have? The best thing
solution short of finding (hiring) a lot more people for your
department is to make good use of the areas in the immediate
vicinity of your department. For many departments, a solid
automatic mutual aid agreement can address many of the staffing
issues that arise when large scale operations are required. A high
rise fire response is one of those. Establishing a first alarm response
protocol with assistance from surrounding areas is one of the most
effective ways to boost on-scene staffing in the most efficient
amount of time. In order to be effectiv e, it must be an initial alarm
response and not a “wait till the Chief requests it” response so that
there is no minimal delay in reflex time. Waiting for Command to
call those companies in is like a second alarm response. It can be
too late. Bring the help in as part of the initial response and you will
have not only a safer fireground, but one in which you can actually
get something done!
Same page mentality
If you believe in the increased staffing philosophy discussed above,
you can’t expect to be successful unless you plan effectively before
the fire so that the coordination concerns on fire day are minimized.
You need to plan with your mutual aid departments, whether they
By Firefighters, For Firefighters
are coming in on automatic aid (preferred) or additional alarm
mutual aid. Waiting until the day of the fire to figure this out is a
recipe for failure and potential disaster. There is nothing more
effective to organizational success than a common policy between
mutual aid departments. Recognizing that unless you are in a very
big department, no one fights a high rise fire alone these days.
Having everyone on the same page or at least in the same book will
benefit all players, increasing safety and coordination.
Technology – metering
This is relatively new think. For a very long time, protection-in-place
was an accepted and agreed upon philosophy in the disposition of
the occupying humans in a residential high rise fire. The fact that
many officers carry personal CO meters on their turnout coats may
have changed this blanket belief forever. We found this out at one
of the high rise fires we had. The fire actually incinerated an
extremely large luxury apartment on the fourteenth floor of a thirty
story residential high rise. Although the fire never got out of the
apartment, ensuing entry and attack operations permitted whatever
smoke that didn’t vent from the windows to migrate to the hallways
and to the attack stairwell. There it was vented out the bulkhead at
the roof. The companies assigned to the upper floors for recon who
had been recently issued CO meters, found that the meters were in
! of 34
31
!