Brennan Firepics Comments 2

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TOM BRENNAN has more than 35 years of fire service experience having responded to 33,000 fire alarms. His career spans more than 20 years with the Fire Department of New York as well as four years as chief of the Waterbury (Conn.) Fire Department. He has a bachelor of science degree, summa cum laude, John Jay College; Alumnus of the Year Award, John Jay College; chairman of the Connecticut Fire Chiefs Association and a charter member of the National Fire Protection Association, Fire Service Section. He has delivered courses and seminars throughout the United States and has instructed at the National Fire Academy. He was the editor of Fire Engineering Magazine for eight years, is currently a technical editor, and his column “Random Thoughts,” is a regular monthly feature. He is co-editor of The Fire Chief’s Handbook, Fifth Edition. He is the recipient of the 1998 Fire Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award.

SAN FRANCISCO: THREE ALARMS IN A HIGH-RISE RESIDENTIAL BUILDING.

High-rise!

We dread that word, but it has heavy relative denotations if we finish the classification.

High-rise office building — for sure!

There are not enough people on duty in many of our metro departments, not to mention any others. Those that tell you that they have a “handle” on office buildings probably mean the door handle of the car. Any veteran of more than a couple of these experiences can tell you that success means just screwing up less the next time. We are talking here of a possibility of up to 40,000 square feet of fire per floor involved! With that said, the “handle” comes in when we talk about High Rise Residence buildings (one of which is illustrated here).

Extension, if any, is by auto exposure and is usually a two-handline fire of varying time delays, depending how hot the hall is. Success or failure on the fireground for interior attack on high-rise residential buildings depends on one critical factor — how rapidly we can accomplish horizontal ventilation at the fire apartment location. With that as the key, we can divide all of these experiences into two ventilation problems. One is if the fire is above the reach of the aerial device on the scene. It is relatively safe to operate on the floor and apartment above the fire and a team of firefighters should be dispatched to do so. Their primary mission (even before vertical ventilation) is to “get” the windows of the fire apartment from above by rope attached to tool. The second is if the fire location is accessible to the reach of our aerial devices. Ventilation then becomes the primary objective of the outside vent team (driver and one other).

Look at the fire location in this picture. Pretty iffy on what the height of this fire is. Truck people (indeed anyone that will operate inside this oven) must take the time to count the floors to the fire. Do not take the word of the dispatch information — the fire calls can come from anywhere. Come to a stop and count with your finger before you get to the elevator lobby.

Handlines should set up at the standpipe on the floor below the fire and properly stretch or flake out the line to make a rapid advance of as much as 150 feet of hose to and into the fire apartment.

Now, this experience splits again into two possible fire problems. The first is: The door to the fire apartment is closed and must be forced. In that case, communication with the floor above ventilation team would be of importance. Horizontal ventilation coordination is the only chance you have at making a great stop and an effective search. The second incident occurs if the apartment door to the public hall is open! Now there is trouble. The first engine will suffer some degree of burns for sure as they advance down the hall. This is the reason for stretching and charging a second line to assist the first. Get down the hall and into position to reverse the positive heat balance as the products of combustion try to reverse and exit out the venting windows.

So this high-rise (residence) fire has four priorities:
Two handlines in place for operation.
Horizontal ventilation immediately on arrival.
Vertical ventilation on hold, until the fire is under some sort of control. The exception to this is if there is need for some additional ventilation to make the public hall with the open apartment door more tenable and you must use the stair shaft as additional ventilation.

The bulkheads on the stair shafts and the elevator shafts are last for truck work. The second truck assignments or secondary assignments for the first are to search the stair shaft for trapped civilians and then determine the location of the elevator car and to force its enclosure to assure that no victims exist in that location.

Questions for discussion at drill:

What is the highest floor that a closely placed 100-foot aerial can reach at full extension?

How many firefighters in the first elevator and what are they carrying?

How many methods can you discuss of flaking out the 150 feet of hose you connected to the standpipe connection?

What procedure can the truck use to assure the location of the fire apartment door in the hall if the smoke condition is blinding?

Firefighter assigned vertical ventilation has what location as a primary objective?

Who in the elevator should assure that the proper activation button at least two floors below the fire is pushed?

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