The Critical Importance of Advance Prefire Planning
How many times have you arrived at a working commercial structure fire and had little or no technical resource data on the building and its systems? Whether high-rise, shopping mall, train station, industrial facility data centre, etc., adequate occupancy information is usually lacking. At best, most fire departments may have drafted “pre-fire plans” for their more complex structures and referred to them by such names as “quick access plans,” “vital building information” (VBI forms), etc. But they are all too often inadequately similar — a one or two page very brief description of only the basics.
Pre-fire Plans usually only show a “footprint” of the building’s floor plate, or a site plan, locations of haz-mat, utility cut-offs, fire department connections, nearby hydrants and/or emergency contact numbers. They typically contain enough information to get you in the front door but not much further. If the incident goes to multiple alarms, these “pre-plans” will not suffice. Considerably more information will be needed as the event escalates. And without the assistance of a chief engineer to answer the Incident Commander’s (IC) questions, most of the critical decision making on scene will be based on guesswork. This guesswork will lead to mistakes which will, in turn, lead to increased potential for loss to property and civilian life. As well, the lives of firefighters will be put at greater risk.
Case Study
An alarm comes in for a fire in a 30 storey high-rise office building. It’s 2350 hrs. on a Friday night. As a full assignment is toned-out, the dispatcher advises the fire is reported on the 23rd floor with a five-person cleaning crew (possible non-English speaking) working on the 28th floor and two office workers working late and trapped on the fire floor. The call was received from the alarm company, a security guard in the building and a patrolling officer who witnessed fire blow out three windows on the front (south) side of the building facing a main thoroughfare.
Three engines, two ladders, a rescue unit and two battalion chiefs are responding when the first-due chief asks for more information on victim locations. After a brief delay, the dispatcher advises that two victims trapped on the fire floor are on the north side (rear) of the building facing a parking structure.
The chief arrives first and reports heavy fire showing from the front on the 23rd floor through five windows — and fire is lapping to the 24th and 25th floors. He calls for two more alarms as units reporting on scene are ordered to switch to a fire-ground tactical channel. As pumpers lay supply lines into fire department connections, the chief enters the lobby and establishes a lobby command post. The second-due chief arrives, entering with the first alarm assignment of firefighters. After a brief conference with the security guard and checking the alarm panel for verification of the lowest fire floor, teams are formed to go up into the building for search, rescue and extinguishment responsibilities. The second-due chief takes over lobby command and the first-due chief prepares to join the attack team as operations officer. They ask the guard if there is an engineer on duty and are told no, but one is responding. They ask for building floor plans and are told there are none available. The guard hands two sets of master keys and elevator keys to the chief as the crews enter the mid-rise (serving floors 11 – 21) bank of elevators.
Two separate crews enter a car each, insert the “Fireman’s service” key and attempt to take the car up into the building. Precious time is wasted as firefighters operating each car experience trouble putting the cars into motion. The same three-step procedure that worked elsewhere a month ago apparently will not work here. Unknown to most firefighters, there are many ways to operate “phase 2-override” in elevator cars, depending upon manufacturers and models. Finally, the sequence is found and the cars leave the lobby enroute to floor 21, two floors below the fire.
After reaching their destination the teams split, one assigned stairwell 1 for suppression and the other assigned stairwell 2 to carry out rescues. They were told in the lobby that stairwell 2 went to the roof, offering an escape route should conditions warrant. The operations chief goes with the attack team to maintain communications with lobby command and report the fire’s progress and other conditions. The respective crews enter the stairwells and quickly discover that they are “scissors” type — alternating between opposite sides of the floor plate. However, it will not be a problem because the suppression team will end up on the same side of the building two floors up (on the fire floor) anyway. One problem does arise, however — as they climb the stairwells they become disoriented. The fire is on the south side and the victims are trapped on the north side of the building. But once crews get up into the building and operating from the core, they quickly lose bearings. There is some brief confusion as each company is confronted on the fire floor with heavy smoke and heat, but as yet there is not visible fire. Where is the fire and the victims? What they wouldn’t give for a good floor plan. Fortunately, they end up on the correct side of the building for each assignment and the operations begins.
In the lobby, the IC is met by the chief engineer (who was only ten minutes away) and who is then barraged with questions. “It appears the building is not sprinklered — is there a fire pump? What’s the G.P.M. capacity? Do standpipes have PRVs, flow restrictors or reducers? If so, are they field adjustable or removable? Is there smoke removal capability? Is it automatic or manual? Where are the controls? Can you access and operate them for me? What floors have privacy/tenant stairs? Where are the raised floors in the building? Do you have automatic stairwell or elevator shaft pressurization? Are tower stairwells U-return or scissors type? Does only #2 stairwell permit roof access? Is asbestos or PCBs present? Where are the bulk hazardous materials and what are they? What type of construction is this building? Do you have an emergency generator and if so, what will it power? As we attack the fire, we will put considerable water on the fire floor — where will the run-off collect a the base of the building? What’s down there that I must worry about: transformer/switchgear equipment, fire pump emergency generator, haz-mat? Do you have sump pumps? How much water can they move? Are individual floor electrical disconnects in each floor’s electrical locker? What in-house communications exist in case ours fail — F.D. phones, intercom system, P.A. system? How many portable radios do you have and where is the base station? Do you have floor plans for the building? Any riser diagrams of the ventilation, standpipe and elevator systems? Stairwell riser diagrams? Site plan-showing utility feeds to the building, hydrants, surrounding exposures and streets … ?
By now the engineer is overwhelmed. Now the bad news. The chief engineer was just hired and has not been on-site long enough to get to know the building well. The chief is furious — he is attempting to control a major fire and rescue operation with virtually no information on the building or its systems to assist in critical command decision-making. He knows things will not go well.
PAs the incident escalates, building information is crucial. Upper-level rescue teams are unable to locate trapped victims above the fire floor, although two victims have been rescued from the fire floor. Also, the fire has spread to the 24th and 25th floors via autoexposure, the curtain-wall void space and interior poke-through modifications. A privacy stair is discovered that has accelerated fire spread. On floor 24, a computer trading floor, a raised floor area is creating a large concealed void for fire to extend horizontally beneath firefighters. A mail conveyor is also discovered (penetrating floors 23 – 35), adding another headache to firefighters trying to gain control over a rapidly spreading fire on the upper-floors of a high-rise building.
A staging area is established on floor 21 and crews are rotated through rehab as the fire fight continues. More air bottles, forcible entry tools and hose lines are brought up along with fresh crews. Major problems begin as firefighter’s portable radios fail due to building density, window solar-tinting and discharging batteries. With more companies in operation, officers fight for radio time as they attempt to communicate important progress reports back to lobby command and staging. As the fire goes to a 3rd and then a 4th alarm, communications, a lack of air supply and insufficient water flows begin to plague the operation. The fire now rages on three floors and a structural engineer is summoned. Attack hose streams cannot deliver necessary flows to make headway on fire floors. Floor plate sizes and significant fire loads create more BTUs than the fire department can control with flow from the standpipes. Shutting down the building fire pump and switching to total feeds from fire department connections provides little improvement.
One team operating above the fire reports they are trapped in a maze of office cubicles on a large “open” floor area and are unable to find an exit in the dense smoke. Their air supply is almost exhausted as their low-air warning devices are heard during their pleas for help. Due to radio traffic congestion, the IC cannot determine their location and confusion begins to mount. Other units report seeing floors buckling and cracks forming in the concrete core area. With no real progress on knocking the fire down, the IC considers withdrawing companies. The IC’s fears of structural failure of several floors, if not the entire building are confirmed by the structural engineer as he arrives on-scene. The engineer concurs with the decision to evacuate. First, however, the IC must locate and rescue missing civilians and the trapped fire company. He simply cannot pull his resources from the building until everyone is accounted for, yet, if this is not quickly accomplished, he stands to lose many more people than those missing. Tension mounts as sweat breaks out. “This is what they call a career decision” he’s thinking. “I knew I shouldn’t have canceled my leave day for today.”
Return to Safety
Although the above is fictitious, it is a very real possibility in many cities in many countries. Several major fires have occurred in the U.S. in the last ten years — most noteworthy including First Interstate Bank Fire in Los Angeles, Meridian Plaza in Philadelphia and Empire State and Bankers Trust in New York.
At Meridian Plaza, the fire department walked away after an 11 hour unsuccessful attempt to control the fire. This was an historical first for the U.S. fire service at a modern high-rise building fire. The 39 storey building was totally lost and currently being demolished. At First Interstate, the fire department was within five minutes of evacuating and letting the fire burn throughout the 62 storeys, most likely resulting in structural failure and possible complete collapse of the tallest building in California at the time. Ultimately, 4½ floors were completely gutted. At Bankers Trust, firefighters were evacuated from internal attack positions, and exterior master streams were deployed, resulting in the fire knockdown on the 2 fire floors. Had the fire been three of four floors higher, beyond the reach of aerial ladders, it would have consumed the 45 storey mid-town office tower.
A common denominator in each of these was a lack of efficient fire streams and information regarding the building and its systems. It would be great, as we approach the 21st century, to arrive a high-rise fires (or any complex structure) and be handed extensive, detailed, yet user-friendly fire department resource plans. A true “pre-fire plan,” covering everything about the building and systems necessary to quickly and efficiently handle any emergency; geared to fire service professionals and in a format extremely easy to use under emergency conditions; drafted by those who will use it — firefighters; and complemented by two extra sets of floor plans for firefighters assigned to rescue and suppression activities.
Well, the 21st Century is here. These resource plans exist and are now available for emergencies. Massey Enterprises, Inc., a Virginia Beach, VA fire safety consulting firm, specializes in composing fire department emergency resource manuals. In the last 12 years, Massey has pre-fire planned most major buildings in the U.S., including such noteworthy structures as The Empire State and Met Life buildings in New York; The Amoco Building and John Hancock Center in Chicago; First Interstate Tower and Library Tower in L.A.; and Columbia Seafirst Center in Seattle. Current Canadian plans in development include One First Canadian Place and Scotia Plaza in Toronto, Manulife Place in Edmonton and Shell Centre in Calgary.
This relatively new concept in disaster preparedness promises to set the international standard in fire department resource planning. Employing high-rise firefighting chiefs from the U.S., the plans are prepared from a firefighter’s perspective and formatted as user-friendly under emergency conditions. Every plan is identical, utilizing a standard format. Each Plan is housed in a Knox Box steel vault, usually located at the lobby fire command center of each building and complemented by two extra sets of floor plans for firefighters operating in the building.
The Pre-Fire Plan is two-tiered. As the IC or first-due officer arrives on scene, vital building and systems information is available. A pull-out section inside the front cover provides a “Fire Department Summary” as a brief overview of all the critical data in the plan on one piece of paper, a site plan, emergency phone contact list and the four primary riser diagrams (elevator, standpipe, ventilation and stairwell). A complete set of floor plans are found in the back of the manual showing everything a firefighter must know on every level top-to-bottom.
The front pocket and floor plans will satisfy most minor incidents. However, if the event escalates and the Incident Command Systems plays out on large scale, the book has sections that relate to specific concerns which can be broken down and handed to sector officers. Data on water supply, elevators, ventilation, communications, building access (interior and exterior) and utilities can all be quickly applied to a working fire.
The “General Building Data” and “Fire Department Concerns” sections offer additional facts that the IC will require as the incident progresses. Each section gives a thorough and complete understanding of each building system or component in brief bulleted sentences with critically important items noted in red italics. Also, under each section heading there is a “Priority Information” area at the top of the page that details the most important facts of that section in three to six red italic bulleted sentences. All diagrams are color-coded and standard, accepted firefighting symbols are used throughout. Only data relating to a firefighter concerns are shown on the drawings.
The Pre-Fire Plan can also serve for various emergencies, including gas leaks (or explosions), haz-mat incidents, bombings, high-level rescue of window washers, technical elevator rescues and natural disasters, all in addition to fires. Additional copies are located in the management and engineer’s office.
Each fire department is given at least one copy of a Plan for their city, for familiarization and training purposes, and a “status booklet” for every first and second-due fire station for each building having a Plan. Each fire department meets with the fire chief drafting the plan and is trained on its use as well as asked for input. While the Plan’s format remains the same, some minor modifications may be made to suit individual concerns.
It takes about six to eight months to create a manual and Pre-Plans are updated as systems and floor layout changes occur. On the front page of each Plan, an “effective date” is noted. And since blueprints received from building management may not be accurate, a veteran fire chief is sent to every building pre-planned to confirm the Plan’s data through an on-site survey. While there, chiefs also conduct staff orientation seminars and brief management, engineering and security forces. Through a better understanding of fire department operations, they will more capably work with emergency personnel in controlling incidents.
As the success of such plans is established the nature of the uses is expanded. Massey is now Planning many other types of buildings and complexes. Concentrated corporate complexes such as the Coca Cola World Headquarters and the McDonald’s World Headquarters are now adopting the program — for which any large building or complex with any intricacy is a candidate.
While Pre-fire planning is not new, these Plans are much more detailed and comprehensive, and beyond what many fire departments are capable of producing in-house. And with today’s budget cuts, the Plans are viewed as a blessing — assisting firefighters to perform more efficiently and reducing risk. In fact, even though the Pre-Fire Plan is available exclusively for fire department use, it is the building owners who actually pay for them.
Though Massey attempts to make Plans known to all affected fire personnel, promotions, transfers, retirements, etc. make this difficult. Thus, fire services personnel are encouraged to contact Massey regularly to determine the status of local high-rise pre-planning.
Quite likely, the use of these plans will reduce losses to life and property during incidents. In complex buildings, knowledge of the building and its systems is an important as an axe and a hose line.
Curtis Massey is President of Massey Disaster Planning and an experienced firefighter. Curtis can be contacted at (757) 340-7800 or through FSI.