Protecting Residential Construction
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SPECIAL RISK FIRES
Photo courtesy ot the Mississauga News
Fire spreads fast through unfinished subdivisions. One Canadian city uses good firefighting basics to fight back.
When a fire starts at a residential construction site, it can grow to conflagration proportions in just a few minutes.
At these new subdivisions, it’s common to find 100 or more structures of only frames and asphalt paper cladding which await the finishing brick or other exterior material. An entire framed house structure can be engulfed in as little as five minutes. And when this setting is combined with high winds or other adverse weather conditions, the fire will extend beyond the suppression capabilities of any fire department.
Mississauga, Ontario, and the communities surrounding it have seen more than their share of residential construction site fires. Over the past five years, the Mississauga Fire Department has attended an average of six such blazes per year. These types of fires are a severe challenge to even the most experienced firefighter.
But experience has enabled Mississauga to develop an efficient tactical plan for this type of incident. By combining fireground procedures with fire prevention precautions, the department hopes to reduce losses at construction sites in the community.
For fighting this type of blaze, the adage “Big fire, big water” has never been more true. All of Mississauga’s pumpers are equipped with 4-inch supply lines and a deck-mounted deluge. The deluges on all of the new pumpers are prepiped and can be removed and placed in stands for use on the ground. The city’s older pumpers have ground deluges that are deck-mounted and supplied by short, 2V2-inch hoses connected to two pump discharge ports.
Most of the aerials are equipped with ladder pipes. All vehicles are equipped with preconnected, 1½inch hose lines; the newer vehicles also have 2V2-inch preconnect lines.
The department also has a 1,000gpm standby pumper specially equipped for residential construction site fires. It’s equipped with 1,000 feet of 4-inch hose and two mounted deluges. This pumper is used to bring in additional water supplies by pumper relays from distant water supply sources and to apply two master streams in serious fire situations.
Assigned duties
A normal first-alarm response for a construction site fire consists of two pumpers, an aerial, a rescue squad, and a district chief. The first pumper at the scene catches the closest fire hydrant and uses the deck-mounted deluge to protect the first downwind house that’s exposed to the blaze. The pump operator uses the pumper’s 500-gallon tank until the hydrant supply is established. A welltrained crew can have this first stream in action in approximately one minute. One or two 2‘/2-inch handlines are also laid to protect exposed structures.
The second pumper at the scene, or the aerial, will set up a deluge or ladder pipe to protect exposed structures at the other end of the fire. The next engine company to arrive concentrates on extinguishing the blaze. If additional master streams are required or if flying brands create an additional exposure problem, either a second alarm or additional special vehicles are called.
By following this plan, the Mississauga department has been able to achieve a quick knockdown and has limited fire damage to the buildings that are ablaze when the first-alarm crews arrive. When the fires are discovered early, the damage is usually limited to five or six buildings. However, when there’s a delayed alarm, adverse weather conditions, poor access to the fire, or water supply problems, the loss can be much greater.
Even with a well-planned fireground response, obstruction of streets and fire hydrants by construction materials is a constant problem. Contractors are warned about obstructions, with repeat offenders facing charges under the fire code and municipal bylaws.
Damaged and obstructed fire hydrants and poor water supply have been problems at some construction fires. The regional water authority has instituted a number of measures to ensure adequate water supply for firefighting. The fire department flow-tests water supply for all subdivisions, and development can’t take place until the department is satisfied that there’s adequate pressure and flow.
At all new construction sites, developers must pay a special fire hydrant levy. This covers the cost of periodic inspections of hydrants during construction. To help firefighters find the hydrants when they’re responding to an alarm, hydrant signs are being installed on eight-foot posts beside the hydrants. The signs are removed after construction is completed.
The Mississauga Fire Department has also learned lessons on how to prevent such a blaze as well as how to fight one. The department recently instituted a number of prevention practices and is strictly enforcing fire code requirements that can be applied to construction sites. Firefighting personnel tour all construction sites in their first-response areas on a regular basis, and infractions of the codes are reported to the department’s Fire Prevention Division.
Burning of debris may be done only if the builder acquires a fire department permit, which mandates stringent safety requirements. Anyone burning debris without a permit or disregarding the permit’s regulations is prosecuted in provincial court.
Because of the high cost of serviced land, the lot width in the new developments might be as little as 30 feet. When these closely spaced buildings are framed without any exterior cladding, they present a severe exposure problem. In an attempt to limit this danger, the city of Mississauga has limited the number of uncompleted houses in a row. The engineering and financial agreements for all new developments prohibit the developer from constructing more than six houses in a row without a fire break. A seventh house’s foundation may be constructed, but no further work can take place above the ground floor until at least one house in the row of six is bricked and all doors and windows are installed.
Subdivided
In townhouse and low-rise apartment projects, the Ontario Building Code requires that buildings be subdivided by fire walls into areas of less than 6,000 square feet. When fires have occurred in areas with open lots or bricked houses, the fire department has been able to stop the advance of the fire at that point.
Approximately half of the construction fires have been of incendiary origin. The Fire Prevention Division thoroughly investigates all fires; when arson is suspected, the Peel Region Police and investigators from the Ontario fire marshal’s office are called in. Many contractors are using security staff to patrol during nights and weekends, and some are using guard dogs. These security patrols have reduced incidents of vandalism and theft, and, we hope, are deterring would-be arsonsists.
The fire department has prepared a brochure that outlines the requirements of the fire code, suggests guidelines for compliance, and provides general fire safety information. To tie together all the fire prevention efforts through education of developers and contractors, the department gives the home builder a copy of the brochure when that person receives a building permit.
Through this combination of fire prevention and standard operational procedure for response, Mississauga is improving fire safety in the growing community it protects.
