“BREAD AND BUTTER” OPERATIONS: MULTIPLE DWELLINGS, PART 1—CONSTRUCTION
In the fire service, a multiple dwelling refers to any building that houses more than three families. It may be a tenement, apartment house, or private house that has been divided into numerous apartments of one or more rooms. Although multiple dwellings of “fireproof” (noncombustible) construction are now found throughout the country, this series of articles will deal with those of ordinary construction. These structures were built using brick for outside walls and wooden members for almost everything else—floors and floor joists, interior partitions, and roof members and decking. As building trends changed, steel was introduced into the framework, enabling the dwelling to be built larger and without brick or masonry interior supporting walls.
The smaller buildings, many of them built before the turn of the century, usually are only between 20 and 25 feet wide— making it possible to use floor beams that run from outside wall to outside wall, without any supporting columns or walls in between. Building depths vary due to lot size but normally are between 50 and 80 feet. The number of stories is governed by local law. In small towns, three or four floors is the norm.
Depending on local laws, these buildings may have fire escapes. If there are front and rear apartments, fire escapes—if required—will be located in the front and rear. If the apartments are railroad-style (narrow apartments running from front to back, in which access to a room is only from the room next to it), fire escapes usually are in the rear. Sector commanders or members operating on the roof or in the rear yard should immediately report the location of all fire escapes, the type of fire escape (regular or balcony), the floors that they serve, and if there is access to the roof via gooseneck or ladder. Many places have wooden rear porches instead of fire escapes as their second means of egress.
All upper floors contain apartments; you might find a store or other commercial establishment on the first floor. If the store takes up the entire first floor, the entranccway to the apartments above usually will be off to one side in the front. The staircase then will run along the outside wall and the apartments will be off a landing, usually one apartment to the front of the building and one to the rear. In some unusual cases, the entrance, if a store occupies the first floor, is in the rear or a side alley.
If the first floor contains apartments, the entrance and stairs generally will be in the center of the building and there will be a left and right railroad-style apartment, or there will be four apartments per floortwo front and two rear. These are standard layouts; variations exist, so identify them during drills and inspections. One way to determine the number of apartments per floor is to count mailboxes in the lobby. Eight mailboxes in a four-story building means two apartments per floor.
Open, unenclosed stairways are a major weakness in these older buildings from a fire protection standpoint. Most times, the stairways are made entirely of wood. Apartment doors also usually are wood and sometimes a glass transom is over the door. New construction techniques and modern building codes now require that apartment doors be of a fire-resistive material. At the top of the stairway is a ladder leading to a scuttle opening or a flight of stairs that leads to a bulkhead and door.
Underneath the stairs on the first floor is the entrance to the basement. There also may be another entrance to the basement from the outside, either in front under the front stoop or in the rear or side yard. Basement ceilings of these older buildings are not fire resistive, and fire spread to the floor above will be rapid.
SHAFTS
Besides spreading through the ceiling itself, fire can spread vertically through a number of interior shafts. Pipe chases for plumbing extend from basement level through the roof, where the soil (vent) pipes from the bathrooms terminate in the outside air. Usually the bathrooms and kitchens are served via a common shaft.
Some older buildings have dumbwaiter shafts. Although most are sealed, a fire entering the shaft at basement level will rapidly spread upward to involve the cockloft and top floor. The sealed dumbwaiter doors on each floor make the job of opening up and applying water into the shaft more difficult.
In addition to interior shafts, most older buildings have exterior shafts that are open-ended, diamond-shaped, and rectangular. They may be uncovered or covered over by skylights. Their original purpose was for light and ventilation; unfortunately, they also help fire extend rapidly from floor to floor and into adjoining buildings. This is especially likely to happen in the summertime, when windows in the shaft are likely to be open and the warm weather produces a natural updraft of air current within the shaft. If fire extension remains unchecked in the shaft, a serious fire condition soon will exist in multiple buildings on multiple floors. Sector commanders or members working on the roof should report the type and size of each shaft as well as the conditions inside the shafts. Intensity and volume of any visible fire and smoke conditions in these shafts will help the incident commander (IC) take appropriate actions to stop the spread of the fire.
In all cases where fire has entered a shaft, you must open the top to prevent mushrooming. This includes stairways; dumbwaiters; light and air shafts if covered; and utility shafts, which will necessitate the cutting of the roof to open.
As these buildings age, they are renovated, which may make firefighting more difficult. Originally these buildings had interior partitions constructed of plaster on wood lath. Fire breaking through the plaster would find dry, easily ignitable wooden lath and race up the exposed channel. Many renovations now taking place use metal studs with a covering of gypsum board. Heavy plaster ceilings also are being replaced or covered over. If only covered over, the drop ceilings give the fire an additional void to travel through undetected.
NEWER BUILDINGS
After the turn of the century, as the need for more housing arose, buildings began to have larger dimensions. Groups of older buildings as well as vacant land were cleared, and “modern” apartment houses were erected. They often were 50 feet wide by 75 feet deep. Instead of two railroad apartments or four smaller apartments per floor, they have at least five roomy apartments per floor. To support them, steel I-beams carry the floor joists, which could not span the increased floor areas. These I-beams generally run from masonry w’all to masonry wall. Stairs are made of steel framing with marble risers and steps and are separated from the apartments by partitions of fire-resistive construction. Interior basement entrances are in the rear or side yard.
VARIATIONS OF THE “H” TYPE BUILDING WITH DIFFERENT STAIRWAY CONFIGURATIONS
From around 1915 into the 1920s, the demand for housing once again brought about more changes in apartment house construction. The overall size of these apartment houses covered the same floor area as two or three of the previous “modern” apartment houses. Sizes ranged from 100 by 100 feet to 200 by 150 feet and larger. This is commonly called an “H”-type building. The many wings associated with this building style made the building look like an “E,” “H,” “U,” or “()“ when viewed from above. The many wings give every line of apartments an opening to the outside via a shaft for light and air and a secondary means of egress— usually a fire escape. The numerous wings can be a logistical nightmare as operating forces try to identify which stairway or fire escape gives access to the fire apartment. Sometimes stairs serve only one part of the building; in other buildings, one stairway gives access to an entire floor, due to a transverse hallway.
Most codes required the largest structures to be broken down into individual units of around 2,500 square feet. These units are separated from other areas by fire walls or fire-resistive partitions. Most times, these limiting walls only extended to the top-floor ceiling, leaving a large, undivided cockloft that runs the entire length of the building.
The biggest change in these more recently constructed, larger buildings is that steel columns rather than brick walls support the steel I-beams. These vertical columns run from the basement and terminate at the ceiling level on the top floor. When covered by lath and plaster, they form a vertical flue that runs from the cellar to the cockloft. Fire entering the void can run unchecked from the point of entry to the cockloft. Fire also has been known to drop down into these chases, only to break out below operating forces in the basement or on a lower floor.
These larger buildings present many challenges to the 1C and operating forces due to the many variations in construction features and floor plans. If adequate forces are not brought in early in the firelight, the building may be lost before the first water is put on the fire.
