BY STEVEN S. RUETZ AND BRYN BAILER
On January 14, 2004, at 0932 hours, the Tucson (AZ) Fire Department (TFD) responded to a report of a building fire at a former cold-storage warehouse in an industrial section of downtown Tucson. The building was being renovated into luxury loft apartments, and sparks from a welder’s torch touched off a fire that quickly escalated into a two-alarm fire. But, January 14 was no ordinary day. That day, TFD would have the unexpected opportunity to unveil its new fireground tool.
That tool was COBRA (Critical Observations from Building Risk Analysis). Two TFD fire inspectors developed this computerized, photography-based preplan project as part of a pilot program. With COBRA’s assistance, fireground commanders could visually size up a structure before actually committing personnel to interior operations.
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Retired Tucson Fire Engineer Dave Spaulding and Fire Preven-tion Inspector Phil Gibson developed the COBRA Project logo, a hooded cobra. The hooded cobra represents hazards that might be encountered in an emergency situation. The motto In Omnia Paratus means “Prepared for all things” or “Ready for anything.”
COBRA’s goal is ambitious: Bring conventional preplans into two-dimensional reality and make the wealth of preplan information easy to update and readily available to fire companies across the city.
With fire departments experiencing ever-higher volumes of medical calls annually, fire companies have limited opportunities to conduct area preplanning; however, preplanning is still a fundamental part of firefighting. In risk management terms, a structure fire is a high-risk/low-frequency event-one in which a lack of proper preplanning can spell disaster. The COBRA Project is designed to help bridge that informational gap, because the more we know about buildings, the more likely it is that we will fight fire in those structures safely and efficiently.
TFD committed itself to taking another look at preplanning efforts with an eye toward creating a standardized preplan format for ease of use and maximum efficiency. Fire inspectors began working on the project in the wake of two tragic incidents in which firefighters became trapped in mazelike buildings: the 1999 abandoned cold-storage warehouse fire that claimed the lives of six firefighters in Worcester, Massachusetts, and the 2001 supermarket fire that killed Phoenix, Arizona, firefighter Bret Tarver.
THE GOAL IS TO REACH ALL FIREFIGHTERS
COBRA combines traditional building preplan information with digital photography and off-the-shelf computer software (Microsoft PowerPoint ) to create a user-friendly, multi-layered preplan tool that can be useful in many situations. The goal was to reach three audiences: (1) firefighters preplanning at the station, (2) command staff at the scene, and (3) first-arriving company commanders gathering information en route to a fire.
We launched a secure City of Tucson Intranet Web site-created and administered by TFD Fire Prevention Inspector Wayne Cummings-that contains complete preplans that are available at all fire stations. The site is available to all firefighters at their stations. The project’s value to command staff was demonstrated by its use at the cold-storage facility fire in January 2004.
We have not yet realized the goal of providing preplan information to responding units. However, progress is being made on new software that would enable that information to be readily accessible.
The idea for a better preplan method is not new. Tucson fire personnel had suggested alternate preplan formats as many as 20 years ago, but the efforts never gained traction. Since 9/11, however, TFD and fire departments nationwide have taken a closer look at preplanning methods.
PROJECT SPECIFICS
The COBRA Project is designed to create fully completed preplans covering all fire department issues. It can be customized to meet any department’s specific needs. It is based on user-friendly, readily available software.
COBRA’s presentation format was carefully considered. It provides a photographic tour that presents information in a manner that is “general to specific,” enabling the viewer to understand the “context” of a building or a particular feature, before dealing with specific information. This method helps the viewer to remain oriented while viewing photos throughout the presentation.
Each segment of information is covered in a series of PowerPoint slides. Each series begins with an orthophoto or floor plan, which can be a scanned architectural drawing or be created manually, for orientation. The grouping ends with a photo of the specific item being presented. Subsequent information groupings, including building construction and the interior photo tour, are presented in a similar format.
A total of 24 COBRA projects have been completed to date; more are in progress. The completed projects include preplans for a Tucson hazardous-materials storage warehouse; a bowling alley with bowstring truss construction; a 17-story high-rise building; and a large, 80-year-old church with unreinforced masonry construction.
Since June 2004, the completed COBRA projects have been available for use by all TFD crews through the secure city Intranet site, accessible at all fire stations. This Web site enables crews to preplan sites not just in their first-due areas but also throughout the community.
TFD’s initial intent for the project was to identify buildings that posed a substantial and unique threat to firefighter safety and focus on the hazards. The first project, however, made it clear that hazards are only part of the overall preplan picture that COBRA can present. The challenge was to develop a template that would provide complete preplan details adaptable to any building in Tucson as well as by any city in the nation.
COBRA’s preplan format uses colors, graphics, fonts, and visual markers to help a viewer process information quickly. Red identifies a hazard or a system or service designed for fire department use. Yellow is the standard informational text. White is used to identify a transition in the presentation to another information grouping. A blue arrow is used on the slide preceding a photograph to identify location and direction of the view in the photo that follows. Slides are hyper-linked in a manner that provides for efficient navigation through the presentation, to facilitate the accessing of specific information groups quickly.
A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT
The creation and development of COBRA required a team effort. TFD administration, led by Chief Dan Newburn, was open to innovation and was supportive throughout the creative process. The Tucson Fire Fighters Association (IAFF Local 479) recognized the project’s potential to enhance firefighter safety and provided a digital camera and a photographer to help complete the first photo preplan.
Deputy Chief Jim Critchley, who oversees the department’s training and who has in recent years spearheaded an effort to increase departmentwide study of building construction, recognized the value of COBRA immediately. He required students to complete individual COBRA preplan projects as part of the 2004 captain certification process.
“In a training situation, while doing case studies, COBRA will enable me to show a similar building in my area to bring the hazard closer to home,” he said. “The realization that a ‘near miss’ in another jurisdiction can happen in our city is a great learning motivation. COBRA will allow me to show this.”
The project was also facilitated by numerous individuals in specific areas, from office staff to prevention inspectors to suppression units that provided feedback in the development process.
Inspectors created two types of templates. The “partial project” template was designed to develop a database containing a large number of projects. The partial template is called a “station to front door” plan and is ideal for uncomplicated buildings. “Full project” templates were designed for producing fewer but more thorough projects for structures that present significant or unexpected hazards. Both types of projects will enable a department to develop a large yet thorough database of buildings in its jurisdiction.
FIVE INFORMATIONAL AREAS
The program is designed to provide emergency scene personnel with information that will assist, not lead, decision making. Each template is divided into five areas of information
Geographic Orientation
This section helps the viewer develop familiarity with the building and its location. It includes a brief description of the occupancy, first-due units, a city map with the structure’s location, nearest fire station(s), and cross streets. The section concludes with a 360° photographed walk around the building, beginning on the address side and moving in a clockwise direction.
Fire Service Features
This information provides first-due units with details designed to facilitate a smooth and rapid incident setup. It identifies approach, hydrant locations, property access concerns, and issues regarding rescue. It also highlights the location and type of exposures, locations of the sprinkler/standpipe connections, utility shutoffs, and key boxes. In a “partial” project, a rapid overview of the roof structure for ventilation considerations is included here. (In the “full” project, roof information is contained in the next section: Building Construction.)
Building Construction
This information layer begins with a slide identifying general construction type and size. It features a systematic walkthrough of the building, from the basement, through each floor, to the roof. The section contains all area floor plans, identifies all exterior doors with a specific number (beginning from the address side and continuing in a clockwise direction, similar to the incident management system. It also identifies all exterior openings, bottom to top, and provides information on the roof structure.
Specific Hazards
This section, using written information and photographs, identifies all specific features of the building that could pose a threat to the life safety of responders. They can include access problems, basements, concealed and confined spaces, hazardous-materials storage, overhead wires, and so on. Information groupings of specific hazards covered in other PowerPoint sections are linked. For example, basements are identified in the specific hazard section but are linked to the basement information grouping in the building construction section.
Systems and Salvage
Information here identifies all systems inside the building that are critical to firefighting operations-alarms, electrical, HVAC, installed special extinguishing systems, sprinklers, and standpipes, for example. The locations of stairways and elevators are also noted in this section.
There is also a place for the building owners/occupants to identify the salvageable items most important to them. If necessary, the project can also provide a demonstration of the best method for salvaging those items. This has generated interest in the business community and a desire among Tucson business owners to be part of the project.
The building chosen for the first COBRA preplan project was a 31,300-square-foot former ice-manufacturing plant and warehouse. As with the Worcester building, Tucson’s Icehouse was also virtually windowless and featured concrete walls with a six-inch-thick layer of cork insulation. Its “Alaska Room” and chiller rooms posed a number of hazards: above-grade exits, large concealed spaces, and five-foot-diameter floor pits used for core sampling during the renovation process.
Ironically, that building was also the scene of the program’s first (and unscheduled) use at a working fireground incident. Fire prevention inspectors heard the January 14 dispatch on handheld radios, and they rushed to the scene with a laptop computer containing the COBRA preplan for the building.
Battalion Chief David D. Hanneman, who served as incident commander (IC) at the Icehouse fire, was able to take advantage of the preplan information and photographs.
“You could see that you had doors here and here and here,” he said. “I could actually see what my firefighters would be able to see if it wasn’t so smoky, and I could guide them.”
Captain Rick Raimondi, who commanded the first-due engine company, also praised the project. As his crew worked its way through the darkened structure, the IC radioed him with specific details about the building’s hazards.
“They came up with some information when we were in there, and we had no idea that they were using COBRA,” he said. “They informed us about a fairly large pit. It was completely charged with smoke, and we had no idea that there was a hole in the floor until they passed the information on to us.”
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 5 (4) A Tucson Fire Department ladder company conducts ventilation operations at the Icehouse. (Photo by Shawn Ryan.) (5) Engine crew conducting interior operations. (Photo by Shawn Ryan.) |
He said COBRA will make preplans more useful. “The old way … engine companies and ladder companies preplanned just on the major buildings,” he said. “You’d jot down notes, draw it on a map, and then stuff it in a file in the chief’s truck-and it rarely got pulled out. Or we’d get a battalion chief out of a different district who wouldn’t have that stuff anyway.”
Capt. Brian C. Delfs, who commanded another engine company at the Icehouse fire, said that he previewed the building’s layout on a laptop computer at the command post, which enabled him to “visually preplan the structure before committing my crew to the interior.”
Information supplied by the project helped interior crews safely locate and open the door (identified in the project as Door 14). This provided a secondary means of exit and ventilation of the smoke-choked building.
“Even with our thermal imaging cameras and two companies inside, we didn’t know there was a back door,” Delfs said. “We couldn’t find it until the IC directed us to it” using information from COBRA.
The preplan information not only showed the door’s location but also included a close-up photo of its slide-bolt locking system, which had presented a formidable obstacle to forcible entry from the exterior. The information was radioed to interior crews, allowing the IC to reassign exterior forcible entry crews from Door 14 to other tasks.
“I don’t see it changing the way we fight fires,” Raimondi said. “But it’s going to change our comfort level and our tactics a little bit, in that we’re going to be able to extinguish [fires more quickly] because we’ll see the inside layout.”
The City of Tucson is working to upgrade its emergency response system. COBRA Project development is being directed toward creating 3-D software to integrate with this emergency response system. Additionally, TFD has been working with the Tucson Police Department to examine how the project might be tailored to the needs of its SWAT team. ■
HOW DEPARTMENTS CAN OBTAIN COBRA FREE OF CHARGE
Because COBRA has the potential to enhance firefighter safety, the Tucson Fire Department wants to provide the technology to other departments free of charge. On request, TFD will mail out a compact disk containing a customizable COBRA preplan template the requesting agency can immediately use to preplan its buildings.
To create its own preplan, all a department needs is a digital camera, time to perform a walk-through inspection, and the ability to enter the information into a computer using the step-by-step template. The format can be tailored to fit everything from a modest, one-story home to a modern high-rise building.
To obtain a copy of the preplan template, contact TFD’s Fire Prevention and Community Safety Division at (520) 791-4502.
■ STEVEN S. RUETZ is a fire prevention inspector for the Tucson (AZ) Fire Department. He and Tucson Fire Department Inspector Shawn Ryan created the COBRA Project.
■ BRYN BAILER is a freelance writer based in Tucson, Arizona.
