The success of suppression operations is determined by the deployment and application of water in sufficient quantities, location and duration–or as engine companies like to say, “Put the wet stuff on the red stuff.” However fundamental, this statement is ambiguous at best in the context of today’s building construction.
Reexamination Required
Engine company operations are built upon 8 decades of time-tested and experience-proven strategies and tactics, which continue to be taught in training academies. But such tactics are no longer sufficient for today’s fires.
Today, engine companies must also appreciate and understand fire behavior, rate of heat release and the growth stages of compartment fires. They must be constantly identifying how an occupancy will “perform” during fire suppression operations.
Our buildings have changed; differences include the structural systems of support, the degree of compartmentation, the characteristics of materials and the magnitude of fire loading. Engineered structural systems (ESS) have created compartment (room) areas in excess of 500 square feet, volumes that are open and spaciously interconnected to other habitable space and fire load packages (furnishings) that create extreme fire behavior, compromising structural stability in shorter periods. All of these factors decrease the amount of time we have for interior ops while also increasing the fire flow requirements for successful extinguishment.
Firefighters are used to giving everything they’ve got when it comes to an aggressive fire attack, but the hard truth is that brute force and sheer physical determination can no longer define structural fire suppression operations. However, many of us don’t understand the need to consider modern building construction and how to adjust tactics appropriately.
Why not? In part because we weren’t taught such things in the academy, but it goes further than that. Most of our decisions are “recognition-primed” decisions; that is, we recognize the situation and we apply a tactic that was successful in similar situations. We predict that fire will travel in a defined manner, that fire will remain within a room (compartment) for a predictable amount of time, and that the fire load and related fire flows required will be similar to those we’ve encountered in similar size buildings.
The problem: The differences in modern building construction that turn all of these predictions on their heads aren’t always immediately visible. Therefore, we make command decisions while failing to recognize that such buildings in fact create a completely unfamiliar situation, one in which we can’t fall back on previously successful tactics.
A New Curriculum
The rules for structural fire suppression have changed, but we have yet to write the new rule book. The new rules must align traditional tactics with emerging science. They will address such aspects as fire stream effectiveness, flow rates, cooling capacity, extreme fire behavior and fire dynamics, compartment fire theory, propagation and cooling capacity, and tactical deployment.
Fire officers must become familiar with the work of such notable suppression theory pioneers as Paul Grimwood, Ed Hartin, Stefan Särdqvist and Stefan Svennson, including the concepts of 3D firefighting and Building, Smoke, Air Track, Heat, and Flame (B-SAHF). The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Underwriters Laboratories also provide essential information on fire development, fuel-controlled and ventilation-controlled fire development, operational time-duration parameters and degradation and failure mechanisms related to compromise and structural collapse.
Fire Chief Anthony Aiellos (Ret.) of the Hackensack (N.J.) Fire Department, who served during the Hackensack Ford Fire in 1988, put it this way: “If you don’t fully understand how a building truly performs or reacts under fire conditions and the variables that can influence its stability and degradation; movement of fire and products of combustion; and the resource requirements for fire suppression in terms of staffing, apparatus and required fire flows, then you will be functioning and operating in a reactionary manner. This places higher risk to your personnel and lessens the likelihood for effective, efficient and safe operations. You’re just not doing your job effectively and you’re at RISK.”
Aggression Redefined
Aggressive firefighting must be redefined for modern building construction. Aggression will still mean determined, effective and proactive firefighting, but it must also be defined by risk-assessment, safety and survivability. It will take into consideration needed changes to fire flow rates, hoseline sizes and staffing. Perhaps counterintuitive, aggressive firefighting will always consider the need for defensive positioning.
Remember:
- Risk assessment, strategies and tactics must change to address the new rules of structural fire engagement.
- You need to gain the proper knowledge and insights, and change and adjust your operating profile in order to safeguard your personnel.
- Strategies and tactics must be based on occupancy risk, not occupancy type.
