In discussing high-rise fires, the term “reflex time” is sure to come up. It refers to the agonizing time between dispatch and the arrival of the first companies at the fire floor. But there is a second reflex time that seems to be even more of a contributor to poor-outcome high-rise fires: the time between the arrival of the first companies at the fire floor and the time when additional companies—and air bottles—are in place to support a sustained attack. It’s not much of an issue in small, easily managed fires, but the tragic results of tougher, more difficult fires can regularly be traced back to it.
Dilemma: stay or go?
We are all aware of the limitations of a single air bottle. High-rise fires frequently deplete your air supply before you even get started. When your low-air alert goes off, you are forced to choose between leaving the hazard area or pressing on to complete the job with a waning air supply. The latter choice has been the death or near death of far too many firefighters.
Perhaps the greatest high-rise challenge to firefighters is the danger of venturing too far in, running out of air and dying. But the choice to press on is such a compelling temptation, especially when no one is in place to relieve you and you know the nearest air bottles are at ground level. But because of the long travel distance back to safety, coupled with the lethal nature of the smoke and the extreme temperatures common to high-rise fires, ignoring the warning bell can be akin to a death wish.
When the initial attack team starts running low on air during serious high-rise fires, a sustained attack can only happen if two elements are in place. First, enough fresh companies must be in place to smoothly continue the attack. Second, full air bottles must be in place near the fire floor so the initial team doesn’t have to return to the street.
My personal observations and study of deadly high-rise fires shows this to be where operations often begin to fail. A close look at history shows this breakdown is almost always the product of—and in line with—fire department standard operating guidelines (SOGs).
A deadly scenario
Typical SOGs rush most of the first-arriving companies to attack the fire. Remaining companies are used for some combination of water supply, searching adjoining floors, stretching back up lines or a too-late lobby control. That leaves no one to move up and take over when the first team runs out of air and energy.
Consequentially, a common scenario sees the initial team randomly picking an attack stairwell, hooking up to the standpipe and advancing the hoseline toward the fire. Then they are very often forced to abandon the effort because of some combination of too little hose, too little water and an inadequate air supply.
Soon, the entire first-alarm assignment is back on the ground, leaving the stairwell door propped open by their hoseline, creating a deadly atmosphere for building occupants in the stairwell. Once back on the ground, some members will invariably be unable to return to the fire area, beginning the breakdown of company units. From this point on, it is extremely difficult for the incident commander (IC) to regain control.
This is the product of well-intentioned SOGs, guidelines focused on quickly getting water on the fire. But as well meaning as they are, they not only rush the first companies up unsupported, they also send them up woefully unprepared. And they entirely ignore fire department responsibility to building occupants.
In its rush to the fire, the initial attack team typically has no handle on the location and extent of the fire. They can’t be sure which stairwell is nearest the fire or how much hose is needed. They don’t know what unusual hazards they may encounter on the fire floor (e.g., high-voltage mechanical floors, telecom floors, high-density file storage floors). But worst of all, they’ve given no thought to the well being of the building occupants, often taking action that may further endanger people trying to escape the building.
They go up blind, with no information, no backup and no spare air bottles. They are dependent on luck. They are depending on the standpipe pressure being compatible with their hose pack and on the fire being within reach of their nozzle. They are depending on having the strength and endurance to advance an operable hoseline to the fire and on being able to extinguish the fire before running out of air. And finally, they are blindly dependent on the attack stairwell being free of people above the fire floor.
Without good fortune, no matter how good they are, they will be forced to bail out. This is where that second reflex time comes into play. Unless fresh troops and spare air bottles are in place, a bad situation has become immeasurably worse. Wouldn’t it be better to alter this dynamic?
A problem of control
This can be accomplished by bringing high-rise SOGs more in line with hazmat incident management. In both types of emergencies, the wrong initial action can be an irreversible path of disaster. In both types of incidents, favorable outcomes hinge on the actions of the first fire companies. In both types of incidents, success hinges on gathering certain information and touching certain bases before committing to action.
Most high-rise SOGs require the first-arriving company to assume mobile command. That sounds good in practice, but history shows that it doesn’t work. Common practice shows the first-arriving company assuming command on arrival, loading up their equipment and rushing into the lobby. In the lobby, they gather just enough information to get to the fire floor. Then they take that bit of information up to the fire floor, all semblance of command forgotten.
The next arriving companies follow suit, each gathering a scrap of information, then taking it to the fire area. Each arriving company starts from scratch, everybody knows a little something, but nobody is putting it all together. And unless a chief has arrived, no one is in command. Even if a chief has arrived, no one is actually in control because nobody really knows what’s going on. This common scenario has been responsible for the deaths of firefighters and civilians alike.
We can do better, and that begins by changing the way we think about high-rise emergencies. For all their wordiness, typical SOGs treat high-rise fires as ordinary structural fires, as evidenced by their single-minded focus on getting water on the fire. But history shows this to be a deadly mistake. This is not a warehouse fire, not a lumberyard, not a house fire. It is a very unique environment calling for specialized action—and we should think of it as such.
A revised game plan
Considering the uniqueness of high-rise incidents, we should change the way we approach them. For instance, the first-arriving company should never leave the lobby. And the command post should be set in the lobby, regardless of who is in command. At well-run high-rise incidents, Incident Command and Lobby Control mesh closely, working together toward a common goal through close communication and teamwork. For optimum performance, both must be established from the onset, before anyone has a chance to muck up the works.
If a chief hasn’t arrived, the first-arriving company should take command. If a working fire is suspected, they should call for help. They should call for a lot of help. Then, leaving their equipment on their apparatus, they enter the building and start building the foundation for a smart, professional operation. Until relieved of command, they will function both as Incident Command and Lobby Control.
There is much to be done. It begins by learning where the fire is (down to which quadrant of which floor), followed by determining how many people are in the building, where they are and the details of evacuation already in progress. Then, it is important to determine the stairwell designations and where are they in relation to the fire. Are they pressurized? Are they smoke towers?
Then make arrangements for transporting firefighters to the fire area and, if appropriate, for getting evacuees out. As for the firefighters, that means deciding which elevators provide the safest transport and getting those elevators ready to go. For the evacuees, it means using what has been learned about the stairs to make a preliminary decision as to an attack and evacuation stairwell as well as deciding if it may be best to allow some evacuation by elevators.
It’s time to start making PA announcements to occupants. Evacuation decisions will depend on the nature of the incident, whether it’s an office building or residential and so forth. If you haven’t yet made a decision, tell building occupants to stand by or tell them to start evacuating, whichever seems most appropriate. Either way, they should be kept informed.
It’s also time to start getting fire companies up to the fire area. Do everything possible to supply ascending teams with the keys they need to access the floors. Floor plans are needed to give them an idea of what they’re facing. If an attack stairwell hasn’t yet been chosen, the companies going up will provide the information needed to move forward with that.
The IC should send as many companies as possible, enough to check out the fire floor as well as the floor above and floor below the fire—enough to get a hoseline ready to go and enough to set up a strong reserve force in a staging area a couple of floors below the fire.
The IC should try to put responsible, reliable officers in charge of the operational force and in charge of the staging area. Assignments should not be based on seniority or arrival sequence. They should be based on who is most capable.
At least two elevators should be put into operation to shuttle staffing and air bottles to the staging area. As soon as an elevator delivers its passengers and cargo, it returns to the lobby for more.
The IC/Lobby Control must record all companies going up and note where they are going.
Someone must be assigned to monitor the alarm panel to track fire and smoke movement as well as to make PA announcements. If the elevators have two-way communication to some point in the building, that communication point must be staffed as well.
If the building engineer is not present, someone should get them on the phone. The engineer may not know the answers, but you have to ask them about the locking characteristics of the stairwell doors, what the standpipe outlet pressures are, what the top floor of the standpipe zone is, what the HVAC response to alarms is. Is smoke likely to migrate and, if so, where?
If the stairwell door-locking characteristics cannot be determined, a team must be sent to clear the attack stairwell above the fire before the door to the fire floor is opened. This should be done in conjunction with frequent PA announcements.
Of course, by now a chief officer has probably been in charge for a while. But you can see how having the first-arriving company establish a strong command presence in the lobby will get things off on the right path as opposed to the common path to confusion and eventual failure.
Why it works
The circumstances of high-rise fires vary greatly, so SOGs assigning each first-alarm company to a specific task are often off target. This policy of trying to fit square pegs into holes of any shape consistently leads to freelancing and confusion. Combining that realization with the fact that there is so much to learn and so much to do before leaving the lobby, logic dictates giving the first-arriving company the responsibility and authority to make assignments to fit the challenge at hand.
In spite of the wide-ranging variables of high-rise incidents, one thing is constant: The second reflex time is always the firefighter’s enemy and should be addressed. Unfortunately, change is hard. But if department leaders look closely at the history of difficult high-rise fires, they will see that the myopic rush to get water on fire has been a huge factor in failed high-rise efforts.
If they look at it with an open mind, they are likely to agree that high-rise fires should be treated similarly to hazmat incidents. Focus on protecting citizens while gathering facts, develop a rational plan, and then implement the plan in as safe a manner as possible.
If the first-arriving company doesn’t have to gather equipment before entering the building, they can get in much more quickly to begin laying the groundwork for intelligent incident management. In urban areas, the arrival sequence of first-alarm companies is usually in very close succession, so by the time the first company has begun getting a grip on the nature of the incident, other companies will be standing in the lobby, geared up and ready to go.
In areas where the arrival sequence is more spread out, the need to lay the groundwork for organization is still critical. Combining that reality with the fact that there is little a single company can do when working alone and unprepared on the fire floor, it would seem to be common sense for the first company to stay in the lobby, addressing the needs of the building occupants and preparing for the arrival of additional companies.
In sum
High-rise fires are universally considered a department’s greatest challenge. But because of their infrequency, the greatest impediment to preparing for them is probably complacency, followed closely by tradition. Progressive departments will avoid the heartbreak and embarrassment of poorly managed high-rise fires by overcoming those formidable obstacles and rethinking their approach to high-rise firefighting.
Matt Stuckey
Matt Stuckey is a 36-year retiree of the Houston Fire Department. As a frontline downtown district chief, he became an ardent student of high-rise systems and of the details and outcomes of actual high-rise fires. Both before and after retirement, he worked 20 years for a leading high-rise life safety consulting firm, studying the systems in hundreds of buildings across North America. Stuckey has published two books, the latest of which is titled Firefighters and Highrises, 2nd Edition.
