Article and photos by Gregory Havel
A little extra attention to detail, and minding the clues that something doesn’t look quite right, can make a significant difference at an incident-especially if we make our observations during prefire planning and building inspections, without the adrenaline-fueled urgency we experience at an emergency response with red lights and sirens.
Even an initial size-up during incident response can be more effective if we remember to take a breath and mentally process everything that we observe before we communicate the incident action plan. That brief time may seem like forever at the time of our arrival, but it is a valuable investment, especially in these days of reduced budgets and limited personnel. One highly effective officer I worked for decades ago (before the days of enclosed apparatus seating and communication headsets) would not key the radio mike or issue orders until the apparatus was stopped, shifted into neutral, and had its parking brake set. These few seconds allowed him to make decisions and issue his orders in a way that allowed us all to accomplish our tasks quickly, effectively, and safely; and with full knowledge of the details of the incident environment.
The building in the photos was built in 1884. Originally, It had a dairy on the ground floor, two apartments for the dairy’s owners on the second floor, two rental apartments on the third floor, and an attic for storage. The cellar contained the boilers, a water heater, a water meter, a gas meter, and storage space. It is of Type III (ordinary, or brick-and-joist) construction, and is 20 feet (6.1 m) wide on the street side.
The “A” or street side of the building in photo 1 has three stories and the original front entrance is bricked up; yet the “B” side, to the left, has windows for the three floors plus an attic or cockloft. The present main entrance is to the left beyond the fire escape, on the ground floor near the center of the building. The interior stairway is at the present main entrance; it rises to the second floor, third floor, and attic; and descends into the cellar.
Photo 2 suggests that the fire escape balconies connect two apartments on the second floor and two on the third floor, with a counterbalanced stairway connecting the second floor balcony to the sidewalk. The fire escape does not serve the attic level-yet there is an air conditioner in one of the attic windows. There are also two cast-iron stars visible below the attic window sills.
In addition to multiple gas and electric meters on the side or rear of a building, the following clues should make us wonder what is inside the building:
- A different main entrance is in use than the one originally built.
- There appear to be a different number of floors in a building when viewed from different sides.
- An upper level of windows (a floor) is not served by the fire escape that serves the rest of the floors.
- An attic or cockloft window or ventilation louver contains an air conditioner.
- The cast-iron stars, other decorative shapes, or bolts or nuts with large washers indicate the presence of rods and turnbuckles that stabilize the connections between wood joists and masonry load-bearing walls.
- There are different types of window lintels on the same building (in the photos, cut stone, wood, and terra cotta).
What has happened to this building since it was built? The ground floor was converted from a dairy into retail sales space, and later into apartments. The second and third floors are still apartments. The attic has been converted into an apartment with a low ceiling, and includes a 24 × 24-inch (61 × 61 cm) hatch in the floor with a wall ladder as a secondary exit (into the apartment below, between the two windows on the fire escape balcony). The cellar contains heating and central air conditioning equipment for the lower three floors, water heaters, gas meters, the electric service, and storage.
As we conduct our initial size-up on arrival at an incident at this location, we must recognize the age of this building and its type of construction, the presence of an occupied apartment with limited access in what was originally designed as a storage attic, and the probability that the rest of the building has also been extensively remodeled from its original design. If we fail to recognize these indicators, we are likely to find ourselves short of resources to deal with a fourth floor containing trapped occupants and the potential for trapped and injured firefighters.
Subjects: Building construction for firefigher operations, construction hazards, reading a building, renovated structures
