"Disguised" Buildings

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Brent Sanger on August 27, 2008 at 11:15am

I think the key to this involves your inspections department being more proactive in letting the first due companies know of new buildings going up in their districts. That will give you the opportunity to begin the preplanning process that much sooner. All the things you mentioned should be part of a preplan. They don't have to have dedicated checkblocks per se, but they should be noted. Most preplans I have seen have a space for notes that are not covered in other sections of the preplan. Just a thought.

Another thought is go tour these construction sites if the site foreman is willing. Schedule the trip in advance, and let the construction crew know the tour is not an inspection, but a learning process so you and your crew can plan for emergency responses both during construction and after construction is finished. Look at access points to the site, where temporary utility drops are, where equipment and hazmat are stored, etc... This is a process we're doing in my district right now, as we have a new school being constructed. The school board wants the fire department nowhere near the construction site, because as they say,"We have no business being there because nothing is going to happen." Fortunately, the construction company wants us knee-deep in the safety side of things at the site, so we get to go.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Chris Fleming on August 27, 2008 at 2:45pm

Brent,
I hear you loud and clear on pre-planning, and for target hazards it's a great idea. Getting to the construction site and seeing how buildings are being put together is also great for preplanning and training. However, does a trussed-out, hurricane windowed, building with insulated pannels as walls still get called a "woodframe residential" with smoke coming out of it at 3:00 A.M. ? It's a super tight building with light weight structural members and heavy fire load and, as statistics show, very hazardous for firefighters. Will our members recognize this building as such? Especially if it's a new house in an old neighborhood. You may be able to pre-plan a development, but what about those "rogue" buildings? Same thing with buildings down town. Just because it has bricks showing on the outside doesn't make it ordinary construction. A lot of the newer commercial construction in our city is built more like "non-combustible, light weight" construction. Worse yet, it will be stuck into a block of "ordinary" constructed buildings. I guess the dialogue I was hoping to get going had more to do with accuracy in size up. Call the building what it is, if you know, and don't mislead the troops if you don't. There was an article a few years back about "hybrid" construction that talked about the problems encountered with these buildings, but have we adjusted our size up to deal with this? Thanks for getting involved, and let me know what you think and what you've experienced. Stay safe, bro!
Chris

▶ Reply to This

▶ Reply to This