Tom Murray

Fire Nuggets Current Issue ®

High-rise Fires: A Likely No-win Situation for Your Fire Department

On May 4, 1988, in the City of Los Angeles, a fire started on the 12th floor of a 62-story building, the First Interstate Bank Building. [1] The fire extended at a rate estimated at 45 minutes per floor to the 16th floor, where the fire was finally stopped. Final property loss was estimated to be over $200 million without taking into account business interruption loss.

The Los Angeles City Fire Department responded with 383 firefighters from 64 Los Angeles Fire Department Units. In order to get the upper hand on this fire the Los Angles Fire Department went to the extreme measure of having approximately 20 hand lines of 1¾-inch, 2-inch and 2½-inch operating simultaneously by 32 attack companies on the five involved floors from four stairways. The effective fire flow at this fire was estimated to be 2,400 gpm.

At One Meridian Plaza [2] , Philadelphia, February 23, 1991, a fire started on the 23rd floor of this 38 story high-rise building and burned out of control for 19 hours, consuming eight floors until sprinklers on the 30th floor stopped the fire.

The Philadelphia Fire Department responded with 51 engine companies, 15 truck companies, 11 specialized units and 26 chief officers that totaled more than 300 Philadelphia Fire Department members. Dollar loss was not provided in the report on this fire; however, the incalculable loss of three Philadelphia firefighters did take place.

In midtown Manhattan, New York, January 31, 1993, a fire originated on the sixth floor of the Bankers Trust Building, [3] quickly spreading to the seventh floor and extending to the eighth floor before it was controlled. Aggressive interior operations mounted by the FDNY with 2½-inch hose and multiple units per hand line were not successful. Concerned that upward extension was not being controlled by interior operations, interior units were ordered to back out and exterior tower ladders were put to work to control this fire.

The total response to this fire equaled eight alarms with over 400 FDNY members responding. The FEMA report comments that should this “fire have originated at or above the tenth floor it would have been much more difficult, if not impossible to stop the successive involvement of higher floors….”

HOW TO ACCESS FREE ONLINE VALUABLE FEMA INCIDENT REPORTS ON FIRES, RESCUE EVENTS AND TRAINING ISSUES

This is an important free source of information for learning and teaching for those in the fire, rescue and EMS business. These FEMA incident reports documents and evaluates actual incidents and studies affecting the fire/rescue service.

These valuable resources can either be downloaded onto your computer file or ordered free of charge. If you are a student of the fire service, this is a “must” resource to tap into to increase your fire technology awareness and knowledge.

Click here to access FEMA incident reports.

If the above link does not work, follow these steps to access:

(1). In your browser's address window, type www.fema.gov and hit your enter button. (2). This will bring up the Federal Emergency Management Agency web page. Look to the left side of the screen. You will see titles for various categories. (3). Look for and click on U.S. Fire Admin. Once again (4) look to the left side of the screen (you may need to scroll down) to Publications. Click on this. This will take you to another screen. Look to left side and (6) click on Technical Reports. This page gives you several options. The selection box (with a pointing-down triangle) can be clicked on to show current reports available that you can either print or download to your computer. Or should you want a free hard copy sent to you, then scroll to the introductory sentence which has the lighter colored ...Publications Page.... Click on this, and it will allow you to select, shop and order.

Thus the title of this article, “High Rise Fires – A Likely No Win Situation for Your Fire Department.”

It is realized that high-rise buildings are not just the purview of major metropolitan cities. They have been built throughout the United States in areas that are served by fire departments much smaller than Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York.

Does your department have over 300 firefighters that it can quickly call on? Ladder trucks? High-rise incident command and fire-attack training? 2½-inch hose for interior fire attack? Two-stage pumps for supplying the building’s Fire Department Connection (FDC)?

By what honest means and hope does your fire department have to fight a high-rise fire should one occur today in your city? Is your city better equipped, staffed and trained than the Los Angeles, Philadelphia or New York City fire departments?

Should a significant fire involve a floor or more in a high-rise building not served by sprinkler systems and above the height of elevated master streams, few fire departments would have the resources, equipment, training and experience to deal with such fires effectively.

If the fire service is to act responsible to its citizens, firefighters and property owners, this issue needs to be recognized.

With this realization, the fire service should become advocates for full life-safety systems to be required in all high-rise buildings. High-rise buildings, because of their exterior inaccessibility and limited interior access, high fuel loads, and the potential for high occupancy loads, should have the protection of sprinkler systems and smoke and heat detection systems as well as a fire-safety director and a trained-floor-warden program to protect these buildings and their occupants.

Stay Safe.

1. An investigative report for this fire is available at www.usfa.fema.gov/techreps/tr022.htm . (return to text)

2. An investigative report for this fire is available at www.usfa.fema.gov/techreps/tr049.htm . (return to text)

3. An investigative report for this fire is available at www.usfa.fema.gov/techreps/tr071.htm . (return to text)

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