Multi LEVEL Firefighting?

[PaulGRIMWOOD]

I am interested in your views on tactical approaches in unoccupied multi-level occupancies. Typical fire involving 4 storey solid construction (no basement) - each floor 25% involvement .... now from purely a firefighting perspective (not search & rescue) do you fight the fire from several entry points at differing levels ie working over the fire to fight it? Or fight the fire from the ground upwards and chase it up and out, ie never going above the fire to fight it?

How would your approach differ, if at all, in wood-frame?

[RadRob]

There are a lot more variables here. What are the contents? How long has it been burning? By "solid construction" are you talking steel floor joices? What flooring material? Buildings like my office have concrete floors. If it is a typical office building with sturdy floors, I believe we would have several attack points, always with a means of egress.

Wood frame construction... I would try to fight it from the bottom up. If 25% of each floor is involved, that equals 25% of the entire structure. By the time you got the bottom floor out, the upper levels would be pretty far gone and they will bulldoze it anyway. Save the slab.

[PaulGRIMWOOD]

I know it's difficult generalising .... wood joist and brick .... I'm just trying to get a feel for your views. I know the way we used to fight 'em in London and I've seen multi-level entry in New York, Chicago and Boston etc. But what are you instincts on this .... in general?

Being above fire is never a good thing in my mind .... whatever the objective. But I recognise there are acceptable risks to be taken to save property as well.

[mcaldwell]

We are a small department, so we don't have any real experience with that scale of firefighting. Having said that, we have plenty of 4-6 storey hotels in our district, and have discussed the issue at length as part of our officer training.

Our concensus is that would try to fight it multi-level for three reasons.

1. To allow a building like that to become fully involved would rapidly overcome not just our department, but our entire region's available resources. Either we get it early, or we don't get it at all.

2. In our environment, most of those buildings are less than 30-50 feet apart and clutered in the core of the community. To lose the first building would almost certainly result in multiple hotel losses, and potentially hundreds of homes/condos.

3. We also have the advantage that each of our buildings is long and narrow, and has a relatively small footprint with lots of compartmentalization (i.e. condos with fire separations). This means that while fire may spread upwards quickly via the exterior, it should spread laterally very slowly. Also, escape from above the fire is never more than 20-30 feet away in very simple construction. It should be more difficult to get lost or cornered in a single hallway condo hotel, than a large city high-rise with a massive footprint and complex room/hallway system (basements are a different story).

To avoid surpassing the buildings available standpipe flow, we have talked about using the engine and standpipes to fight the lower floors, and the aerial as the standpipe for the upper floors. With only three pumpers available, it would not take long to overwhelm our resources though with a true 25% involvement of four or more stories.

All that aside though, at the end of the day manpower is still the deciding factor. A good response means we could try that approach, while a limited response combined with 30+ minute mutual aid times could very well make the whole point moot.

[MemphisE34a]

Paul,

Keeping it as simple as possible, I would speculate that if we new building was unoccupied, we would go defensive from the get go and just raise trucks.

If it was deemed to go offensive we would start at the bottom and go up. We would stretch multiple lines of course, but I doubt we would put any line in operation on a floor that didn't already have a line flowing on the floor below it.

Tactically, this would be the most likely scenario anyway. Lines to upper floors would obviously take longer to strecth and get into operation. This would most likely result in fires on the lower floors being extinguished first anyway, even if everyone started at the same time with multiple lines going to multiple floors.

[Bones42]

What's a fourth floor? ;)

We have nothing over 3. Last summer had a fire in a 3 story SFD. Fire in A/B on 2nd and 3rd floor. 1 3/4" line went to 2nd floor, another 1 3/4" line went to 3rd floor. Key is to have good communications between the floors. If the floor below is "losing" the battle and overpowering the line, then the upper floors may need to retreat back a little. If all efforts are put onto the 1 floor, the delay may make the upper floor spread even worse.

[PaulGRIMWOOD]

Sometimes a firefight in a solid construction multi-storey building can go on for hours, with fire involving voided spaces on different levels. These type of fires can behave erratically and suddenly burst out of the walls on you. The use of thermal imagers become essential as visibility is rarely good.

I can see this type of fire needs a line running into each and every floor involved. However in general, in non-voided fires and if the access is good via the stiarway/s, I feel it is safer to lay in and fight from the ground up? I suppose it's all down to how aggressive, experienced and well trained your department is?

There are reasons for this post that I am not able, for legal reasons, to discuss at this time. But your thoughts and feedback is helpful to me as well as those that read this thread.