High Rise building Fires

Chief Ray O. Shackelford

Rio Hondo Coummunity College
Ft 109 Structural Fire fighting
 High Rise- Definition
 Defined in the N.F.P.A. as “a building more than
75 feet in height” This definition is consistent
with many building codes; but has problems.
 There are a number if variations in how this
measurement is done
 The N.F.P.A. height is measured from the lowest
level of the fire department access to the floor of
the highest occupiable story
 High rises-Why are they
different?
 When HVAC systems are zoned and
compartmented they share common exhaust shafts
and fresh intake shafts.
 These shafts penetrate multiple fire zones and
require special attention regarding design and
protection.
 Some of these buildings integrate smoke
management systems into their conventional
HAVC systems
 High rise fires-why are they
different?
 By stacking people and fuel of top of each
other in a given building, we create a fire
problem form the stand point that there is:
 More people
 More to burn
 A vertical path for fire travel
 A mix of occupancies
 High rise- Why are they
different?
 Many high-rise designs include within the
structure atriums, building inter-
connections and public transportation
systems such as trains and sub-way service
 These buildings also require special
applications such as fire pumps, water
storage facilities and special pressure
reducing devices -all create problems
 Objectives of the Incident
command
 The objective of the incident command
system is to implement a management
process designed to control and direct all
resources that are committed to the incident
 The system is flexible which allows the
system to be applied to small of large
incidents at high rise buildings.
 Objectives (continued)
 In addition to being flexible, the system allows
more than one agency to participate in the
overall direction and planning of the incident
action plan.
 Other features of the system are also important
to the overall accomplishment of objectives,
such as standard tying or resources, planned
communication systems and general
accountability
 Application of the system
 The first arriving officer starts the
application of the system when, he/she
begins by filling the basic functions of the
incident command -fire attack, lobby
control, staging and base.
 This is normally accomplished by using the
first alarm assignment of responding
resources
 First alarm assignment
 The normal first alarm assignment to a high
rise consists of the following:
 5- Type I engines # of personnel 20
 2 Ladder trucks 8
 1 rescue squad 2
 1 Battalion Chief 1
 **** Numbers of personnel vary with the agency ***
 Duties of First-in Company
 The first in officer is responsible for the radio
size-up report, assumption of the responsibilities
of the incident commander and leads the
company as the fire attack team into the building
 The primary responsibility of this team is to
locate and identify the emergency and determine
its scope and request additional assistance if
needed
 Duties of the second in
company
 Upon arrival assumes duties of the lobby
control officer. A critical assignment
 In this position -all control over the vertical
access routes is to be maintained, includes
control over air handling systems,
coordination of logistical support between
base and staging
 A second company may need to be assigned
 Duties of other first alarm
officers
 Staging to gather up manpower and material
resources for the fire attack
 Staging personnel must ascend by a safe route
and set up staging two floors below the fire
 Staging is the rest area for those relieved from
the fire attack and those awaiting attack
orders- it may require more than one floor
 Base
 Base is established with the available
apparatus engineers from the first alarm
assignment, or from greater alarm
companies
 The purpose of base is to gather at one
location all incoming resources, maintain
their status and maintain quick access to the
equipment, if needed for fire attack
 Establishing base and the
Command post
 Base and the command post are established a
minimum of 200 feet from the fire to keep all
interference away from the actual fire fighting
operations
 All personnel must check into base for an
assignment
 The command post will maintain a over-all
organizational chart with up to date
information in the front of the command post
 Assignment of Command
Officers (L.A. City)
 The first arriving battalion chief will be
assigned to the duties of the Incident
Commander
 The second arriving battalion chief will be
assigned the duties of the operations chief.
 The first arriving Assistant chief then assumes
Incident Command, while the relieved
battalion chief assumes the planning chief
duties
 Rescue operations
 If helicopters are to be used for rescue efforts
a officer should be assigned to the roof to
coordinate all functions
 All communication from the roof to the
helicopters are the officer’s responsibility
 Watch for rotor wash as the additional force
of air can blow the fire into involved areas of
the building
 Relocation of occupants and
controlling evacuees
 Total evacuation of a high rise during fire
fighting operations is neither practical nor
possible
 Generally, we move those in danger at least
two floors below the fire or above the fire if
no other possibility is open
 Evacuees must be accounted for by name and
held in a holding area
 Assignments
 Every floor in the building is assigned a
division number-and this is done by floor
number, for example floor 12 would be division
12, a division chief would be assigned to all fire
fighting operations on this floor
 Groups are assigned by functions that cross the
floors or divisions, for example
rescue/ventilation
 Fire fighting Tactics
 The same process as other fires
 Locate the fire-remove people
 Confine the fire-confine the people if necessary
 Extinguish-evacuate: ASAP
 High rise fires are difficult because of the
problems of getting resources to the fire,
ventilation issues and water problems
 Fire attack team
 The team must determine the safe way to enter
the fire floor area, determine a safe exit way and
communicate this information to the operation
chief
 The team must communicate the location,
nature and extent of the problem to the incident
commander
 Fire attack proceeds from the stairwell upward
onto the fire floor through the stairwell
 Fire attack (continued)
 We try to maintain at least 100 pounds of
nozzle pressure on each hand line as we
advance the line
 Remember, that for every one floor increase in
height the pressure loss is approx.. 5 pounds
 Our limit is the total pressure capability of our
fire pump. At 250 pounds it is 50 % of the
total rated capacity
 Exterior Fire attack
 The primary danger from using exterior
streams is that they will drive the fire into
the interior fire fighting forces working
inside the building. It is possible to drive
them out of the building
 The second issue is that exterior lines
improperly used can drive the fire into parts
of the building not exposed
 Elevators
 Prior to the use of elevators the exact
location of the fire must be determined
 If we advance using the elevators, we get off
the elevators two floors below the fire and
advance to the fire floor using the stairwell
 **** always USE ELEVATORS WITH
EXTREME CAUTION******
 Radio Communications
 In more modern high rises, the amount of steel
used in the construction of the building may
adversely affect your ability to communicate
with hand held fire department radios
 Two alternatives seem to work well:
 Hard wire phone lines
 Cellular phones that can transmit to nearby cells
 Attack teams in Reserve
 Normally we maintain two fire attack teams
in reserve at staging
 This gives us sufficient attack forces so that
we can always work one team, keep a team
resting and keep on team on stand-by for
attack or in case of any problems that may
arise
 Attack periods range from 20 to 45 minutes
 Stack effect
 Is the result of the temperature differential
between two areas, which creates a pressure
differential that results in natural air movements
within a building
 The stack effect sets up air currents within the
building that may affect the travel of fire in the
building- air tight compartmentation from floor
to floor and wall to wall can limit this effect
 Horizontal Ventilation
 In a high rise the ventilation of fire
horizontally is a “difficult complex problem”
 Broken windows will allow air currents to re-
direct the fire, while falling glass threatens
persons and hose lines below.
 All fire personnel should stay at least 200
feet away from the building unless they have
a specific task to accomplish
 Summary
 While we may feel that today we are
technologically superior today, in recent
years a number of fires in high rise
buildings have remind us that a “Towering
inferno” is a real possibility
 At the First Interstate bank fire, five floors
were totally destroyed before the fire was
brought under control
 Summary
 High rise fires present a number of
challenges to the fire officer
 They can be difficult to find and confine
 They require large numbers of personnel
 They require coordination of rescues

***Professional fire fighters are up to the task

!!!!****