Self Storage Buildings

[Andy Cole]

Billy,
I have made no secret of the fact that I am a new FF (1yr), perhaps you have interpreted my last post as acritism I can assure that it was not intended in this way atall, I am in no position to critise anyone on this site, especially those who benefit from extensive knowledge and valuable experience as you clearly do! My sole reason for visiting this site and on occasion entering into debate is to broaden my own knowledge and hopefully gain some from the likes of yourself, hopefully the experience will follow and I will be better prepared for it's eventualities as a result of you sharing yours with me and others like me!, I concede that I had not read through all the posts thouroghly and was therefore unaware of the example you gave, I'm sorry.
I was of the understanding that you shouldn't leave your firefighting medium anywhere, that was the basis for my confusion. Is it not dangerous to move through a building involved in fire without a branch? if you are being relieved at a branch shouldn't the team relieving you bring their own branch which they then hand to you to make your way out with?, if this is the case I still see how it would be possible for you to meet a tangle of hoses but wouldn't it be easier to work out which was yours if you had the branch?
As I said I am by no means being critical just asking the question.
Thanks,
Andy.

[Billy]

Andy
I should apologise as the last thing I want to do is deter people like yourself who are eager to learn.
 My opinion in relation to the crews relieving me bringing in a branch is that they would get tangled, run out another branch for nothing, and only one crew could use the branch anyway.

If they are following the hose and we have done our job right- they will not come across fire as we would never pass fire anyway.

Hope this makes sense but the main point is that you are thinking about the situation and the solutions.

Keep questioning what you see on this site and make up your own opinions- I for one will encourage the likes of yourself whenever I can.

Hope this makes things clearer, but if it doesn't, post again.

Regards
Billy

[Andy Cole]

Thankyou I understand your point, do you have any ideas for what would be a good substitute/replacement for the the guidelines which we currently carry?

[Billy]

Guidelines that we can use safely and properly and feel with your gloves on would be good for a start (see www.simline.co.uk and make up your own mind).

I agree with all who feel that Guidelines should only be used in exceptional circumstances, and in some situations, TIC's could be used in conjunction with them.

I don't know of a replacement for a guideline, but if one comes up and it makes it safer for fire crews in these conditions, I will be as happy as the next person!

[Lee999]

Billy

Have any UK Brigades taken an interest in your idea?

Do your own Brigade use them?

During your research and develpopment phase, did you enquire to any non-uk Brigades, to see how they search large structures safely and effectivly?

[Paul]

I do not have the mindset to say I would never use them.  What I am trying to get across is that there are more options available than guide lines.

I do not believe that guide lines in any form are a viable option for recovering people alive from a burning building.  You must consider the time line.  On average and speaking very broadly, it will take a fire appliance approx, 3-7 minutes to book in attendance at an incident.  If we now consider it will take a further 3-5 mins to commit ff's into a job.  As you can see this kind of time line is already sufficiently long enough for occupants to die.

If we start deploying GL's then its a lost cause.  Although I admit in scenarios as you describe the options are limited.  For this very reason I say again, the only way to improve FF safety for this type of scenario is to improve the level of enforcement.  As I have said, this is NOT a quick fix and is not an immediate answer to what we are discussing.  The point I am trying to make, although it would appear badly, is that efforts are in my opinion best placed in fire safety management in order to provide a safer more controlled response to such incidents.

What is clear is that the type of incident we are discussing is one that is dreaded by most crews (entering on GL's).  We have more options available, lets develop them, lets put the duty on Landlords to ensure their fire safety management is such that systems are in place to ensure better controls and ultimatley consider how a building and its contents react under fire conditions.

OR DO WE JUST SIT BACK AND LET LANDLORDS DO WHAT THEY WANT AND ALLOW FF'S TO CONTINUE TO PUT THEIR LIFES AT RISK USING OUT OF DATE AND DANGEROUS EQUIPMENT.

[Billy]

Psmith

I think that most will agree that Fire Safety management would be a far better way to reduce or remove the scenarios where we may have to use guidelines.

Your timescale however, may not add up as the buildings we are talking about are large and it may take some time for the fire to trap anyone.
Therefore you cannot say that after 15 minutes everyone in the building would be dead as the fire may not be fully developed.

Any way, I am sure that the main use of guidelines is to retrace your way back to your point of entry so firefighter safety should be a major factor in whether to use them or not.

The point i constantly try and impress is the fact that we all know the problems with the current guideline, but no-one seems to care!

[fireftrm]

Billy we do care about the problems - that is why we advocate not using them and getting rid of them altogether, not replacing them with one with easier to distinguish directions, but still needing laying. Paul puts it quite succinctly - utilise all other options available to us and his last paragarph is by far the best.

I note that you haven't yet answered Lee's questions, or mine about the 'new procedures'.

As to the building you got lost in - how many persons were reported missing and how much of the premises was saveable on arrival? From the description of many hose lines, the heat (that burnt your helmet) and that much water there must have been a very serious fire burning and lots of Ffs committed? Please tell us about the  amount of contents saved, the spread tot he floors above, the external layout (fenestration) etc of this building so we might assess which way we would have dealt with the incident.

[ian gough]

What do you do guys - seal the doors with concrete and all go home?

[Billy]

Lee 999

With regards to your points above:

All Scottish Brigades have tried them and 95% out of over 200 firefighters prefer them-Their words not mine.

I was told that no individual Service would take them on themselves and they would need to be all or nothing!

In relation to other Services world-wide, most Commonwealth countries use our specifications and i have sent them samples with good feedback on the design.

Others such as the US have shown an interest and have purchased quite a large number!

Other Countries look to us in relation to crew safety and at present in the U.S, the majority of the time they don't use anything to search large buildings- not even hosereels!

[Lee999]

Billy, thanks for answering my questions

I would be interested to hear how Brigades in Australia, Canada, Japan, and Major European countries deal with the task of searching large structures.

[Billy]

Lee 999

Australia use guidelines the same as ours and Canada is similar to the USA. Don't know about the others but if they have something better, we should be having a serious look at it!

[ian gough]

OK: but in self-storage buildings are you all content to see single compartments up to 40,000m2 and 11m high - with simply 30min FR to corridors? Because that's what's on offer from ODPM at the present time.

[Apollo_SG]

i believe there is a fire incident recorded by NFPA where an incendairy by some thieves to cover their track resulted in a fire. but that was put off by the in rack sprinklers.

--
apart from this, the americans also have a requirement for cardboard carton to be made of certain fire resistive material so that they will not ignite easily. Swedish IKEA for example does not have plastic wrap over the carton to protect against moisture but the carton may be coated by wax or bromine/ other salts.
--
in shanghai, we have done a job where the Fire authorities requires a pair of steel ladders up the external facade and this comes with a dry rising mains where fire-fighters may be able to adapt their hoses for streaming.

[TallyHo]

If I may get back to the original point (self storage buildings), I have recently been training staff who work in these places and in my opinion they are a disaster waiting to happen.

I have visited many in England and Scotland and before I train the staff I always have a good look round the places.  From a fire safety viewpoint some of them are frightening.

They all vary in size but most seem to be between 4 and 6 floors, most have very few windows and some are windowless.  The individual lockups vary in size and are accessed by a myriad of internal (windowless) corridors.  At most locations the walls do not extend to the roof so expect a rapid fire spread.  Fire doors protecting escape routs are invariably wedged open and routes get blocked by discarded trolleys and barrows.

Many convert some of the space to offices so you have multi occupancy.  In one there was an area of about 2,000m² which was being rented out to a chain of shops, this area was packed to the ceiling with combustibles; they even had a forklift in there; looked very much like a warehouse to me.  I haven’t seen any with sprinklers.

As for the staff, on average there are only 2 or 3 on duty and they have no real control over who is on the premises.  There is a signing in system but it is not supervised and many customers don't bother to use it.  With only a couple of staff there, it would be impossible for them to carry out a sweep of the premises.

When customers first rent they are shown to their lockup, but are not shown exit routes, stairways or fire alarm points.  Although certain items are prohibited, the staff have no way in knowing what is being stored.  Many staff have also told me that they have experienced breeches in the ‘no smoking’ policy.

If you have one of these premises on your patch, I strongly recommend you go and familiarize yourself with it.