HIGHRISE FIREFIGHTING PROTOCOL
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For an extremely scary story about an August 1999 Chicago highrise fire please see the CHICAGO FIRE file on this website.
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1. On arrival, check ALL sides of the building for evidence of fire or smoke.
2. Post radio equipped firefighters at all corners of the building to assure direct radio communications to all interior firefighters.
3. Set up ladder pipes on windward side of fire building to ensure that blowtorch conditions cannot keep firefighters out of hallways on the fire floor(s).
4. Take multiple inhalators / resuscitators / oxygen tanks to upper staging areas. Also take multiple lengths of hose, stokes stretchers, stair chairs, portable radios, handlights, Jaws of Life, portapowers, Rabbit tools, spare SCBA masks and tanks.
5. Advance 4 or 5 inch hoseline up aerial to stairwell to upper floors to serve as backup to standpipe. Note - this will prevent this aerial from being moved around to do rescues.
6. Implement 1 radio channel per fire floor. Assign 1 dispatcher per fireground channel and utilize digital playback equipment.
7. Have a helicopter orbit the building looking for persons in distress. Also place spotters in adjacent buildings with binoculars to spot people in distress. Have interior firefighters place large signs in windows every five floors so outside observers will have reference points.
8. Equip the dispatch center with telephone numbers for every business in every building in order to relay instructions to occupants or to make contact with firefighters who are having radio problems.
9. Equip every chief officer with multi-frequency business band radios so they can communicate with security guards and maintenance staffs.
10. Require every hirise to have completely labelled stairwells which contain floor info and stairwell designator at every landing.
11. Require radio signal penetration studies of every building to ensure that a prone radio user can communicate with a dispatcher from anywhere within any building.
12. Page 30 of the July 1999 Firehouse Magazine starts a very intersting article by John Nornan of FDNY titled "Why Are High-Rise Fires Killing & Injuring People?" (There are 2 photos of a fireproof tarp/blanket being used to block wind flow into a window - this could be very useful in a highrise fire if wind speeds are high.)
Updated - June 13, 1999 by Peter Szerlag