FIRE AND FIREFIGHTER PROTECTION
BY FRANCIS L. BRANNIGAN, SFPE
All the information I have at this time about the two firefighters who died in Stockton, California, is that the building was a wood residence with an unapproved dance studio on the second floor. The second floor was supported on 2 3 10 solid joists, 12 inches on center. A wood stud wall failed in the fire; the floor collapsed, trapping the two firefighters.
The following comments are general, since I have no more information than that given above.
Roman Senator Cato the Elder was the original “Johnny One Note.” He ended every speech in the Senate with the words “Carthage must be destroyed.” I sometimes feel as though I am like Cato. I keep preaching, “Fire units should be dispatched to a building fire,” as distinguished from a car or grass fire. When command learns that the structure (the gravity resistance system) is involved or threatened (as in the case of steel), “This is now declared a structural fire” should be announced to all. The announcement doesn`t necessarily mean that evacuation should take place, but it should cause all hands to evaluate the effects of the fire on the gravity resistance system. Gravity is trying to pull the building down 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The fire is attacking the system by which the builder defeated the law of gravity. Perhaps it would help if those who report such fatalities or injuries would list as the cause “Fire caused failure of the gravity resistance system.”
SEATTLE SETTLES WITH SAFETY OFFICER
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported in its February 19, 1997 issue that the fire department had settled a suit brought by its former safety officer for about $500,000.
Before filing the suit, Rodney Jones had filed a report with the State Department of Labor and Industries, charging that his superiors had prevented his writing a safety report on the Mary Pang fire in which four firefighters died (Ol` Professor, Fire Engineering, August 1995). Jones was removed as safety officer after serving less than one year of a three-year commitment agreed to by Chief Claude Harris, who retired recently.
ENGAGE BRAIN BEFORE PUTTING MOUTH IN GEAR
I have listened to too many fireground tapes in which this excellent advice has been disregarded. I urge all to clip and study “Improving Fireground Radio Communications” by Robert C. Bingham in the February 1997 Fire Engineering, page 38. Do you hold radio communications drills using a created scenario of a major incident? See if you can report “There are people hanging out the windows” as calmly as you report “Smoke detector malfunction.”
Have you ever noticed how calmly airline pilots report real trouble? Every fire department should use standard radio procedure. One advantage is that under poor reception conditions, damaged words can be filled in. In my opinion, if additional help is needed, transmit that first. Get them on the road. Then give the additional information needed. It is absolutely critical that all messages be acknowledged. Radio problems were a factor in a number of firefighter fatalities. Drill. Drill. Drill.
PRESSURE-REDUCING VALVE
After the disastrous Philadelphia One Meridian Plaza fire, most of us were surprised to learn the pressure-regulator valves on standpipe outlets are very complicated and in some cases could be detrimental to fire department operations.
At the time, I thought back to the old New York high-pressure fire service system, in which a special set of mains was connected only to high-pressure hydrants (no building connections). When an alarm was sounded, the pressure was raised to 125 psi (the pressure required to raise the hydraulic water tower).
Hoselines connected to high-pressure hydrants were used for handlines and to feed heavy-stream appliances. The pressure could be raised in 25-pound increments. It was quite a sight to see all the tower and deckpipe streams go up at the same time. But what about handlines? A handline was connected to the hydrant through a pressure-regulating valve, which kept the handline at a preset pressure.
The purpose of the standpipe regulating valve was to keep the pressure down to a safe level for those using the linen hose provided for occupant use. All I know about occupant use is the stories of hotel fires at which bellboys fought room fires and the fire department was not called. Since occupant hose is disappearing rapidly, why not have fire companies carry a regulating valve on the high-rise pack and forget about requiring the installed pressure-reducing valve, which may not provide the necessary water?
Many standpipe fire department connections are damaged. In such a case, it would be necessary to pump the standpipe through a first-floor outlet.
THE OCCUPANTS WILL FIGHT THE FIRE–
OR WILL THEY?
After the Los Angeles First Interstate fire, a senior fire officer was asked at a National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) meeting, “What would have happened if the building had been occupied when the fire occurred?” The answer: “The occupants would have laid out the hose and put out the fire!”
As the Scot said, ” ha` me doots!”
In a bank trading room, the traders are making or losing thousands of dollars every minute. They more likely would be like the spectators at the British soccer match who died because they continued to watch the crucial soccer match while the wooden stands were burning. In addition, the idea of throwing water on their computers is so foreign to their “built-in knowledge” that they cannot conceive the idea of doing so.
Thirty years ago, my associate Don Keigher (SFPE Fellow and 1993 recipient of the prestigious Paul Lamb Award from the NFPA and our computer fire protection expert) and I made a film for the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) that demonstrated the reasons computer areas must be sprinklered. We carefully built a case that overcame their “genetically engineered” prejudice against sprinklers, and AEC computers were under sprinklers when this was unheard of elsewhere.
SEARCHING FOR SMOKE
In general, the fire service has done a very poor job of convincing the general public that an important fire department function is to determine the source of smoke and to ascertain whether it is friendly or hostile. This is particularly true of hotels, apartment projects, and “guard protected” commercial properties such as office buildings.
In the First Interstate fire in Los Angeles, guards kept turning off smoke detectors, which fired one after the other. A maintenance man sent “to investigate” died when the elevator opened on the fire floor. The fire was reported from blocks away.
It was the same story with the One Meridian Plaza fire. The guard went to the fire floor “to investigate.” The door opened onto the fire. He was able to radio the guard desk and instruct the guard on how to close the car door and get him out alive.
Incidents such as these that involve delays in notifying the fire department that may be deadly happen despite strict orders to the contrary. Among the causes for such delays are the following:
Officiousness. “I am in charge here.” At the Our Lady of Angels School fire, teachers took some students out of the school, but the alarm was delayed because the principal was the only one who could sound the alarm, and she couldn`t be located.
Fear of bad publicity. We must beat into the head of every hotel clerk and manager that small fires couldn`t “buy” time on the evening news, but big fires make it big.
Fear of sending a “false alarm” and possibly being fined or ridiculed. We must get rid of the stupid and defeating terms “smoke scare,” “unnecessary alarm,” and “good-faith false alarm.” Nothing we do is unnecessary. In every contact with the public, we must get across the message, “Dial 911 immediately for smoke odor or gas smell–before you do anything else.” This is the same message we give for CPR.
You might even get kissed! At a high-rise building where an overpressure on the gas line had started multiple fires, the fire inspector was soundly kissed by the charming manager when he arrived on the scene. Less than a week before, he had forcefully told her of her error in holding up a fire alarm for three-quarters of an hour.
PRECIOUS TIME WASTED
In my experience, the building staff will “underestimate” the time they spent searching for smoke. Fire officers are often reluctant to call for assistance until “the fire is located.” Heavy smoke in the lobby of a building that has sleeping occupants means almost absolutely that a serious fire is cooking away somewhere and that a call for strong backup should be made immediately.
“WHAT THE FIRE DOESN`T DESTROY,
THE FIREMEN WILL”
This statement has become an American folk saying. Unfortunately, many people agree with it. (My own mother often said it.) A fine public relations opportunity is available to any fire department that takes the trouble to use it. It is salvage work. A great thing about salvage is that half a loaf is better than none. When the videographer shows up and the fire is out and no good action shots are left, how about providing a “photo op” of furniture being covered or some other salvage task?
In my experience at the huge naval base at Norfolk, the salvage work we did at fires and other water-leak emergencies (which we sought out) built us a marvelous reputation. We featured it at all of our demonstrations. I explained to our firefighters that no one knew what we did at a 2 a.m. fire in the hold of a burning ship, but the admiral`s wife was very impressed when the truck company rolled out a canvas runner for firefighters to walk on at a trifling fire.
I recommend that you study and act on Anthony J. Pascocello, Jr.`s articles on saving property.1
DAMAGED CURRENCY
In 1929, I was at a tenement house fire on Amsterdam Avenue in New York City. A woman wheeling a baby carriage was crying uncontrollably and showing others a coffee can with a badly burned roll of bills in it. I told her to take it to the bank and ask the manager how to send it to the U.S. Treasury in Washington, D.C. The treasury has a staff of people who carefully separate the damaged currency and are pleased to recover for the owner as much of the value as possible.
POLITICAL PRESSURE
In June 1996, an excellent article, “Overcoming Political Pressure,” by Paul Dove, appeared in The Voice, published by the International Society of Fire Service Instructors. I spent much of my professional life in the Atomic Energy Commission`s Safety and Fire Protection operation. It is widely believed that getting safety improvements in the government is a snap. Not so. The same resistance is found there as in the private sector.
When I needed a “club” to get action, I would add “cc: Grand Jury File” to the recommendations. This got an immediate call. I would then explain to the person responsible that if a disaster were to occur there would certainly be a criminal investigation to fix responsibility and that I wanted all to be in order when the prosecutor issued a subpoena duces tecum. The usual reply was, “Boy, you`re serious, aren`t you?” I would then explode: “What do you think we`re doing here–playing games? Besides, we are protecting your rear end, because when the disaster occurs, the boss you are now pleasing will sell you down the river to save his own hide.”
The best threat today is the potential for ruinous personal lawsuits involving all concerned. When a lawsuit is filed, it costs very little to make defendants of everybody even remotely involved, in the expectation that the fearsome cost of defending even an unjustified lawsuit will bring about a cash settlement. In any event, the fire department should be fully on the record (include notations of phone calls from politicians) so that it will have an adequate basis for asking the judge to dismiss the fire department as a defendant. n
Endnote
1. “Saving Property: Salvage Operations,” Parts 1 and 2, Fire Engineering, Sept. 1996, 70 and Oct. 1996, 97, respectively.
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n FRANCIS L. BRANNIGAN, SFPE, a 55- year veteran of the fire service, began his fire service career as a naval firefighting officer in World War II and has 55 years of experience in all phases of fire protection. He`s best known for his seminars and writing on firefighter safety and for his book Building Construction for the Fire Service, Third Edition, published by the National Fire Protection Association. Brannigan is an editorial advisory board member of Fire Engineering and the first recipient of the Fire Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award.
