STAIRS, PART 3
RANDOM THOUGHTS
Here we are again with more about stairs.
Commercial buildings. While they have problems of their own, they also have some pluses for firefighters. Most (high and low-rise) are enclosed from top to bottom. For most this includes from the cellar past the top floor, through the roof, and terminating at that level by a bulkhead door of some sort. Great for fire floor setup and for safer access to the floor above the fire. However, there are some additional drawbacks.
Straight-run stairs. In older buildings usually known as “loft buildings,” these stairs serve every floor in these large areas (up to 100 feet or more by up to 200 feet or more). They begin just inside the door at the sidewalk and continue in a straight run—stopping only to provide a landing for each tenant floor—to the top floor, where they terminate at the rear of the building. Most engine company personnel like this stretch better because it is a straight run from the street to the fire floor. The “kicker” is that you must plan for the amount of hose you will need for the fire fkx>r in this type of structure, not to mention the floor above the fire. For example, if you need 100 feet on one floor to reach from the door to the front wall and opposite to the back wall, you will need 50 feet more to get to the floor above you and 50 feet more to get back to the same place you were on the fire floor. Sounds confusing, but put it on the blackboard at drills— you’ll see and understand it better.
Return stairs—factories and other commercial occupancies. The additional problem here is forcible entry. Most of America’s factory buildings have been sublet and subdivided—some at each floor and others at sections of floors. Each occupancy has its own set of high-security locking devices. These can run the gamut from sliding bars to vertical bars, fourway sliding bars, roll-down assemblies, and the like.
High-rise commercial. The stair assemblies are solid and tightly enclosed, and they rarely spread fire. Law prevents building services, gas and electricity, from using the enclosure. This is true despite its being the cause of fire spread in the movie “Towering Inferno,” as many of you recall.
The problems with these staircases are many. First is the labeling, as I mentioned before. If the person assigned to label uses the staircase (scissor-type), we are all set. However, if he or she uses the elevator to get from floor to floor, we are in trouble, maybe.
Second is the location within the massive floor area. Where is the fire, and then which stair do you need to fight the fire properly? In other words, which stair do you want to fight the fire from and which do you want to use for safer, more isolated evacuation of occupants? You have to pick one— you can’t have both!
Third is security. Most areas permit these access doors from the stair side to be locked. New York City requires that every fourth floor be openable from the stair side. But in reality, forget it! You have a key-in-the-knob lock problem on each floor from the stair side.
Smoke towers or fire stairs.
Many codes have abandoned them, but they still exist in older commercial buildings and new construction in some areas of the country. I think we lost ground here. These stair assemblies were excellent for evacuation procedures. They were so tenable, smokeand heat-free, that most fire departments prevented fire teams from using them for access for firefighting because once the hoseline breached and held open the double door air lock, the tower would fill with smoke and other harms for the civilians using them. The second reason is that the interior stairs must be protected—that’s basics.
However, if they are in your district and you plan on using them, you must know that they are designed to be entered (openable) from the occupancy side of the building. Civilians who enter the stair shaft from any floor cannot open any doors from the tower side again until they arrive at the street floor. Firefighters using these stair assemblies to gain access to the fire floor and, more important, the floor above the fire, must know that they will have to force entry out of the stair tower into the air space separating the tower from the building and again force entry into the occupancy floor.
With these buildings it is better to encourage the occupants, during onsite fire prevention education/inspection activities, to get into the tower as a second means of escape and continue down the stairs to the street. You should enter the occupancy from the interior stairs. More next month.
