by Robert J. Maloney
In San Francisco, where 60 percent of the structures are made of wood, “the greatest threat to our city is fire,” said David Franklin at his Tuesday afternoon workshop, “What Do You See/Hear? What Does It Mean?” An assistant chief with the San Francisco (CA) Fire Department, he said the wood structures are often about 100 years old, close together, and have little or no yard. So to do the 360-degree size-up survey at an incident is not practically possible, since it would mean walking around the block. Still, conditions at the rear of the building must be evaluated.
“You’ve got to know your building construction,” Franklin emphasized. With the attendees, he presented numerous slides of buildings, asking them to identify the building type. In historic districts, the construction type may not be so obvious. New construction may be so designed to blend into the neighborhood, and mimic features of older structures. Whereas an historic brick building may have two or three layers of brick in the wall, the contemporary structure’s brickwork may just be a veneer.
Another issue is older buildings renovated for a use other than what they were first designed. Showing a commercial storage facility, the six-story, decades-old structure was obviously not originally designed for the purpose. Moreover, with any storage facility, each unit is like a garage, and can contain anything and everything.
In other renovations, an old warehouse, factory, or church may be turned into apartments. Although structure may appear to be obviously of one type, its occupancy may have been changed, Franklin said.
Franklin urged students to learn about building construction by gathering information at every opportunity—alarm calls, EMS runs, building inspections, and so forth. Monitor buildings under construction as they are built to see the construction type, components, and challenges you will face at a fire response.
