How do you fight this fire?

[Golzy12]

I've always been curious about this, let say you have a 70 story building say 200x200 (just a rough number, I'm not sure what the dimensions are for a skyscraper), the 60th floor is fully involved, it's a non sprinklered building ( I know it's not common) or the sprinklers aren't working, how do you attack it. It's to high up for a defensive attack and the 60th floor is fully involved so it would be almost impossible to do an offensive attack, plus how would you get enough hoselines up to the 60th floor to provide the gpm needed to put the fire out. Plus if you did get enough gmp wouldn't the floor colapse from all of the weight, taking the toilets off and letting the water drain into the pipe can only take care of so many gpm.

[pfd4life]

Basically, you go in and put it out. Multiple 2-1/2's. 13,333GPM is the flow required for 100% involvement.

[ChicagoFF]

At the Lasalle st fire the 29th floor was going and eventually part of the 30th. Bring your hose up, connect to the standpipe on the floor below, and try to make headway. We only had two narrow staircases to go up to attack the fire and only got two 2 1/2's in each. What made the difference was a projecting ledge outside where they were able to hit it with a multiversal as well. Highrises ain't easy.

[Golzy12]

At the Lasalle st fire the 29th floor was going and eventually part of the 30th. Bring your hose up, connect to the standpipe on the floor below, and try to make headway. We only had two narrow staircases to go up to attack the fire and only got two 2 1/2's in each. What made the difference was a projecting ledge outside where they were able to hit it with a multiversal as well. Highrises ain't easy.

Yea, it just seems that with the GPM needed to put a fire of that magnitude out would be nearly imposible, especially when their is limited acces to the floor like you said.

[VinnieB]

Yea, it just seems that with the GPM needed to put a fire of that magnitude out would be nearly imposible, especially when their is limited acces to the floor like you said.


This has happened in the Empire State Building twice....once in 1945 when a low flying b-25 crashed into it....and again in I think 1988.....

The latter being the tougher one to fight....

[ChicagoFF]

Yea, it just seems that with the GPM needed to put a fire of that magnitude out would be nearly imposible, especially when their is limited acces to the floor like you said.
I might not understand that whole gpm argument. You may need 13,000 gpm to put the whole floor out, but I'm only fighting the 20 feet of hall in front of me - then the next 20, then the next.......until it's all done. The way I see it you are fighting it in smaller pieces, not one giant open space filled with fire. I think that is the difference.

[VinnieB]

We use 4 Lengths of 2.5" with a 1 1/8" MST flowing appx 250gpm, per line......this seemed to work in the EPS Bldg twice.....I had the WNYF article on the both the fires.....but I can't see to find them.....

[pfd4life]

I might not understand that whole gpm argument. You may need 13,000 gpm to put the whole floor out, but I'm only fighting the 20 feet of hall in front of me - then the next 20, then the next.......until it's all done. The way I see it you are fighting it in smaller pieces, not one giant open space filled with fire. I think that is the difference.

Exactly, your not going to attack the fire all at once, it's a matter of fighting your way in, and taking care of it in small bits. I only calculated the GPM required for full involvement as he asked what the GPM would need to be.

Exactly what is a "multiversal"?

[Golzy12]

I might not understand that whole gpm argument. You may need 13,000 gpm to put the whole floor out, but I'm only fighting the 20 feet of hall in front of me - then the next 20, then the next.......until it's all done. The way I see it you are fighting it in smaller pieces, not one giant open space filled with fire. I think that is the difference.

The 13000 GPM is firgued out by doing the NFPA fire flow formula which is the area of the floor (length x width) divided by three. That equals the GPM required to extinguish the floor if it was 100 percent involved.

-If the floor is only 50 percent involved then you would cut your final GPM in half and so on
-If you have multiple floors fully involved multiply your final GPM by the number of floors
-You would also add 25% to the GMP for each exposure that needs to be protected.

[ChicagoFF]

Exactly what is a "multiversal"?
A monitor - thats what they are called here.

[PFDTruck18]

Im sure some of you remember the Hi-rise fire we had where multiple floors of a hi-rise were burning. Multiple LODDs, multiple close calls for others. Stand pipe didnt allow adequate water pressure to fire floor due to presure reducer thinga-majig. Plan finally called for stretching 5" up to the fire floor to allow adequate pressure for firefighting. One stretch was completed and a second was underway when the IC called for complete evacuation of building due to deteriorating conditions and potential for even more LODD. Fire was eventually put out by some sprinkler heads when the fire finally burned its way to a floor that was sprinklered.

This was only 20 some stories up. Cant really imagine 60 stories without standpipes.

[Golzy12]

Im sure some of you remember the Hi-rise fire we had where multiple floors of a hi-rise were burning. Multiple LODDs, multiple close calls for others. Stand pipe didnt allow adequate water pressure to fire floor due to presure reducer thinga-majig. Plan finally called for stretching 5" up to the fire floor to allow adequate pressure for firefighting. One stretch was completed and a second was underway when the IC called for complete evacuation of building due to deteriorating conditions and potential for even more LODD. Fire was eventually put out by some sprinkler heads when the fire finally burned its way to a floor that was sprinklered.

This was only 20 some stories up. Cant really imagine 60 stories without standpipes.

I saw a documentary that talked about that fire a little bit, streaching 5" up 20 floors thats hardcore. What would have happened if the building wasn't partially sprinklered, would you have just let it burn?

[mcaldwell]

You have to remember that these types of buildings are designed to face "normal" fire conditions and survive past the point of complete burnout.

Meridian Plaza was a good example of a fire that would have likely burned up the top floors, and eventually burned itself out. There had never been an example of a skyscraper collapse due to fire in the US up to that point however, so it was a bit of an unknown, and in light of that, along with the communicatiosn problems and the lost FF's, the Chief made the right call to abandon the interior attacks before it got worse.

If you watch some of the videos from that fire however, you will also see master streams deployed from the windows of adjacent buildings. It may be small potatoes, and sometimes ineffective, but if you are 100% defensive anyway...


The complicating factor with the same fires today, is that new furnishings, renovations, modified uses, etc, all contribute to hotter fires. This means that a building that would have survived a total involvement 30 years ago, might be subject to failure today.

WTC was the perfect example of both massive destruction of the support struture, combined with a fire load far greater than ever calculated in the sixties when it was designed. Had it faced just a plane crash, or just a fuel fed fire, it would likely have survived. It was the devastating combination of both, plus some 30 year old construction errors, that finally led to the failure.

[PFDTruck18]

I saw a documentary that talked about that fire a little bit, streaching 5" up 20 floors thats hardcore. What would have happened if the building wasn't partially sprinklered, would you have just let it burn?


Car 1 had already decided to do that. He switched to a defensive operation and by luck and chance 10 sprinkler heads put the bastard out. Othewise it would have burnt to the top and till it went out. It was a sad day for the PFD. We lost 3 brothers and failed (in our minds) to accomplish our mission, to put the fire out.

[takingheat21]

Look up the First Interstate Building fire in Los Angeles... classic/legendary LAFD fire that is verbatim what you described in this post. Bout 70 stories, unsprinklered (system was undergoing maintenence), three floors involved about 10 stories from the top.

Handled it as well as anyone could have... only department I know of that has "Airborne Engines"... an engine company w/their gear and a few high rise packs dropped by helicopter on the roof to go down and attack from above.

I know a few guys who were there... bitch of a fire.

-Mike

[CaptainMikey]

You hook your engine up to the standpipe system and use it to get the water up to the 60th floor.