Firefighters and officers are hurt and killed every year because of the way buildings are constructed. The building industry has changed drastically over the years, and new buildings are increasingly lightweight, truss-built and fabricated with integrated, interdependent parts. Redundancies–aspects of the structure built to stand alone even though they’d be tied in to the structure as a whole–are no longer there to compensate in an emergency because the modern economy deemed them not “cost effective.” New buildings aren’t built, they’re engineered. If one aspect of the structure fails, the entire building might fail–the “domino effect.” The fire service was never consulted and in no way approved these changes.
Know Thy Enemy
Frank Brannigan, “The Old Professor,” always said that the building is the enemy of the firefighter. This statement should tell firefighters and officers that they must know as much about a building and how it’s constructed as they possibly can. The best time to gather this information is before the building is on fire. Do you want to be operating within a building without clues as to how it was made or what makes it dangerous to you and your crew?
How do we learn about building construction? If you have a new building in your area, you should visit the site during the construction process. This is also a good time to take some pictures to show members of the unit how specific buildings were constructed, even if they enter the fire service a few years after the buildings have been completed.
The building industry takes into account every load a building will face except for two: fire load and impact load. The fire loads taken into account are typical of a home in the 1960s and haven’t been updated to account for plastic furnishings. The impact load is us going to work in a fire building: firefighters running up stairs, operating hand lines and otherwise doing our jobs. We put a significant load upon the fire building. So when we enter a building that’s burning, we’re entering a building experiencing stresses it was not intended to withstand. The questions that must now be asked: Has the fire service changed as buildings changed? Are your tactics different in new or renovated buildings?
Timeframes
If the buildings are changing, then so must our operations and tactics. Unfortunately, some departments and firefighters are set in their ways and resist change.
When I first joined the fire service, we had a timeframe for a successful operation. The rule: If you didn’t achieve significant headway or fire control in 20 minutes, then the incident commander had to withdraw the troops and reevaluate the attack. Does your department have standard operational guidelines (SOG) for fire control with a specific timeframe? Do your guidelines take into account new building materials and methods of construction?
New buildings burn faster, hotter and quicker, and yet we still use the same tactics from 30 years ago. A fire 30 years ago would reach 1,500 degrees after about 15 minutes. Because of fire loading characteristics and plastic materials used, new buildings reach temperatures in excess of 2,000 degrees–in about 3 minutes! At 2,000-plus degrees, your bunker gear is burning. The conditions inside the building should determine whether the fires are fought offensively or defensively. But the fire service is now equipped with state-of-the-art bunker gear that allows us to get deeper into a hotter fire–and, in too many cases, without SOGs to guide us!
A timeframe might be useful in some situations where members are breathing air from an SCBA. The fact that the low-air alarm goes off when 25 percent of your breathing air is left still baffles me. If you’re operating near an exit, you’re going to be fine. However, if you used 75 percent of your breathing air to reach a point and now you have to get back out, you’re in trouble. Give a mayday and request air.
If you’re searching deep inside a building, possibly on a search rope or with a rope-assisted search, then a time limit might be useful. At a certain time, say, 12 minutes in or at 50 percent of your air supply, you must exit. These are good SOGs to establish and train on before operating on a fire.
Life Safety
The rules for a new building should be based on firefighter safety and survival. If we’re sure all occupants are out of a single-family dwelling and there’s no life hazard, should we enter the building? The new way of thinking is to let the building burn. Why? Consider this: If the burning building’s structural members are interdependent, there’s the danger of the building coming down around us or on top of us. SOGs should reflect that if the fire goes from a room-and-contents fire to a fire involving structural elements, crews should switch to a defensive operation. If the building is unoccupied and there’s no life hazard within the building, why put ourselves at risk? Too often firefighters and officers are placed in unoccupied buildings, thus making them occupied. Have you ever seen what happens to a newly constructed building after a fire? Most single-family dwellings are knocked down because the cost to repair is more than the cost to rebuild.
It’s more efficient to tear down a damaged structure because new buildings have so many elements dependent on each other. If even one element is damaged only slightly, it affects the entire structure. Many older buildings were repaired after fires. This isn’t possible in new buildings because you can’t shift the load from one portion to another, even only to repair damage. The engineering won’t allow for parts of the building to receive additional loading–the building will collapse. That’s why most damaged buildings are knocked down and replaced.
Tip: If you see a building being repaired after a fire, take note and report it to the building department. If work continues, have your chief officers place the building into the department file on dangerous buildings–a file every department should have. This building should be the subject of drills and visits from local companies to ensure reconstruction is safe.
Conclusion
The fire service hates change and loves tradition. In the movie “Backdraft,” the wall of the firehouse said: “150 years of tradition unimpeded by progress.” We love to do something because that’s the way we always did it. We’re aggressive, and we often fight fire the same way. That’s a good thing in many ways! The problem: New buildings require new tactics.
We must learn from the history of the fire service to avoid repeating its mistakes. If you make the same mistake as in the past and a brother or sister firefighter is hurt or killed because of it, could you live with yourself? If it was preventable or a “predictable surprise,” would you be OK with that? I hope not! A predictable surprise is one that most people can see from afar but we don’t see from our little world. These happen every day, and one of the missions of the new fire service is to eliminate them.
Is a building worth the life of one of your crewmembers? Do you want to go to the home of a brother or sister firefighter or bring their family to the hospital? Fires are changing: They’re hotter and faster, and we’re getting deeper into them. A new building, unoccupied, requires a less aggressive attack. Buildings can be replaced, but not people. Remember: Your family wants you home after every tour or run. The worst thing a family can hear is that you gave your life for a building.
