Firefighting 360
Size Matters
Operations in large structures put situational awareness & task management to the test
By Billy Schmidt

Firefighters learn and hone their knowledge, skills and abilities on fires in single-family residential houses—structures that are very compartmentalized and usually not much larger than 2,000 square feet. These are the most common fires that firefighters respond to. Most are successfully handled by an aggressive offensive attack where a quick search is completed and the fire is effectively controlled. Hoseline placement and air management is simpler because of the typically small size of the structure.

Occasionally, firefighters respond to fires in larger and more complex occupancies, such as strip stores or small industrial complexes. Again, because of size and compartmentalization, these fires are usually handled by standard attack modes including aggressive interior fire attack and search operations. These incidents don’t happen as often as single-family residential fires, but most firefighters do have some experience with them.
Responding to fires in very large structures, such as supermarkets, malls or multi-story industrial buildings, is very rare. Compounding our lack of experience with them, these buildings present unique challenges: The ceilings are higher, the rooms are bigger and filled with more obstacles, time deployment is increased, communication and accountability suffers, and the likeliness for firefighter fatigue and disorientation is greater.

Firefighters must understand that size does matter. Fighting fires in large structures requires a higher level of situational awareness (SA) and an increased focus on task management; both will be put to an extreme test at these types of events.

Two tragic fires that occurred in large structures include the Worcester Cold Storage & Warehouse Fire (1999) and the Southwest Supermarket Fire (2001). Much has been written about both, and there are excellent lessons to be learned from their investigations and after-action reviews. Firefighters must be able to “think historically,” to use these lessons of the past to make decisions in the present and plan for the future.

Worcester Cold Storage & Warehouse Fire
On Dec. 3, 1999, the Worcester (Mass.) Fire Department responded to a fire at the Worcester Cold Storage & Warehouse Company. Originally built in 1906, the 43,000-square-foot building had been vacant for 10 years. There were no windows or other openings in the space above the second floor where the fire was initially found. Twenty-two minutes into the fire, interior conditions began to rapidly deteriorate, visibility was lost on the upper floors, and a rescue crew searching for two reported homeless people became lost in the dark space on the fifth floor. An extensive search was conducted and suppression efforts continued to be ineffective due to large volumes of petroleum-based materials lining the inside walls of the building. Ultimately, two more crews became disoriented on the upper floors and were unable to escape. When the evacuation order was given 1:45 hours into the event, five firefighters and one officer were missing.

The U.S. Fire Administration’s Technical Report (USFA-TR-134/December 1999) identified the following as key issues that affected firefighting operations and situational awareness at the Worcester Cold Storage fire:

·Access limitations for fire suppression and rescue: The building construction featured a single staircase from the basement to the roof, which was the only vertical opening for crews to move through all levels of the building.

·Unusually long interior travel distances: Firefighters had to crawl more than 200 feet through heavy smoke from the single staircase to conduct a proper search, adding to the air-management problem.

Worcester Fire Department District Chief John Sullivan was the lieutenant on Engine 3 that night. Chief Sullivan stated that situational awareness was lacking in their operations that night: “The WFD had not employed any formal SA techniques for commercial structure fires, as opposed to residential. We were attempting to use our SA experiences from our residential history on an extremely complex commercial occupancy, the most blatant being SA with regard to air management.”

The building design and construction of the Worcester Cold Storage & Warehouse building was complex and hazardous. It was a large, vacant building with multiple levels, very few openings to the outside, and a confusing, maze-like interior that increased the potential for firefighters to become lost, trapped, and run out of air.

Southwest Supermarket Fire
On March 14, 2001, the Phoenix Fire Department (PFD) responded to the Southwest Supermarket Fire just like they had many times before—for a dumpster fire in the rear. This time, however, the fire had already extended into the building and the end result was a five-alarm fire and the death of Engine 14 firefighter Bret Tarver, who ran out of air after becoming disorientated inside the fire.

Following this tragic incident, the PFD completed an extensive study of the events that occurred at the Southwest Supermarket Fire and developed recommendations that addressed personnel, equipment, standard operating procedures, technology, training and strategies.

An examination of the operating procedures followed by the PFD at the Supermarket Fire revealed that, “While effective procedures were in place to allow command officers and crews to manage this specific event, task-level training on these procedures was not sufficient to prepare the command teams and crews to react effectively to this specific incident.”

Situational awareness and task management tested the PFD at the Supermarket Fire, most notably in the areas of managing air supply, keeping crews intact and under control, effective techniques for removing downed firefighters and effective communications.

The PFD took the lessons from the Supermarket Fire and developed fire department training in several areas, including air management and self-survival. Air management training was divided into two areas: air management as a crew and air management as an individual. The training also focused on the concept of air management as it relates to firefighting, scene size-up as it relates to air management, work-vs.-air consumption, company officers’ responsibilities related to air management, critical thinking and behaviors relating to air management, and emergency SCBA procedures.

Self-survival was also broken down into two areas: self-survival as an individual and as a crew. Most of the training focused on prevention, or how to stay out of trouble, with the remainder addressing self-survival techniques. Training focused on self-survival as it relates to firefighting, scene size-up and keeping crews out of trouble, company officers’ responsibilities related to self-survival, critical thinking and behaviors when crews are in trouble, and basic self-survival techniques.

The Southwest Supermarket was a 26,000-square-foot building that was unforgiving when a firefighter became disoriented and ran out of air. In its final report, the PFD made the following statement concerning firefighting operations in residential vs. large occupancies: “In simple residential occupancies, we often leave the hoseline performing fireground tasks and are very successful in obtaining our tactical objectives of All Clear, Fire Control and Loss Stopped. We say in large complex occupancies, ‘Don’t leave the line.’ We need to finish that sentence by saying that if you leave the line and become lost, you could die.”

To move forward, the PFD added: “First, we must make a conscious decision to review our past and present practices, to alter, and to improve wherever possible. These changes and improvements will allow us to continue forward and hopefully never repeat a similar event.”

Learn from History
Firefighting operations in large structures put situational awareness and task management to the test. Size really does matter when trying to move bigger hoselines, deploy equipment to higher levels and perform a search in large areas that contain more obstacles and hazards, all while managing air supply, crew accountability and communications. Firefighters must recognize the different challenges and demands that come from firefighting operations in a large, complex building, as opposed to fighting fires in smaller, single-family homes.

Your fire department probably handles fires in a 2,000-square-foot house safely and efficiently. How well do you handle the big, complex and confusing structure fires that disorient firefighters and makes it more difficult to complete tasks?

Billy Schmidt is a district chief assigned to the 3rd battalion with Palm Beach (Fla.) County Fire Rescue. An adjunct instructor for the department’s Training and Safety DivisSon, he has a master’s degree in organizational leadership, a bachelor’s degree in human resource management and an associate’s degree in fire science. He’s a member of FireRescue magazine’s Editorial Board.


Further Reading about the Worcester Cold Storage & Warehouse Fire
U.S. Fire Administration Technical Report
http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/downloads/pdf/publications/tr-134.pdf

“Remembering the Worcester Cold Storage Warehouse Fire”
By Christopher Naum
http://www.firefighternation.com/forum/topics/remembering-the-worce...

Further Reading about the Southwest Supermarket Fire
Phoenix Fire Department Final Report on Southwest Supermarket Fire
http://phoenix.gov/FIRE/report.pdf

NIOSH Investigation on Southwest Supermarket Fire
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/fire/pdfs/face200113.pdf


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