Don't Worry! The Fire Department is Only Five Minutes Away!

“I need some help responding to some design review comments,” said the Brash Young Fire Protection Engineer (BYFPE) to the Wise Old Fire Protection Engineer (WOFPE). “With the agreement of the project architect, the project manager for the new Amalgamated Industries Warehouse says that they only need the absolute minimum fire protection because the fire department is less than five minutes away.”?

“Ah, an age-old misconception,” observed the WOFPE. “The distance between the fire department and the facility has nothing to do with the level of fire protection needed for a building or operation.”

“That’s what I told them during the design review meeting,” explained the BYFPE. “But I didn’t make much headway. I tried to explain the fire life cycle timeline described in “Industrial Fire Control Concepts,” but nobody was very receptive to my ideas.”

“A meeting with the fire department might move the design team off of dead center,” offered the WOFPE. “I had a similar situation a few months ago, and the city fire marshal gave a presentation to the client on the First Interstate Bank fire in Los Angeles to demonstrate the fallacy of equating fire department proximity to fire protection.”?

“I’m familiar with the fire,” said the BYFPE, “but how does a high-rise fire in mid-town Los Angeles equate to an industrial facility in our area?”

“An explanation of the First Interstate Bank provides the public with a glimpse at actual fire department response time and what it means,” explained the WOFPE. “If you remember, the building was a 62-story high-rise building in mid-town Los Angeles. The Los Angeles City Fire Department, one of the best-trained, best-equipped fire departments in the world, received an alarm for a fire on the 12th?floor of the building at 10:37 PM. The first fire company arrived two minutes later at 10:39 PM to find a fire involving most of the 12th?floor. It then took until 11:15 PM to move enough firefighters and equipment up in the building to mount an attack on the fire. In the meantime, the fire spread upward to involve the 13th?floor. It was 2:19 AM the following day before the incident commander declared the fire under control.”

The WOFPE continued, “The effort involved the response of 64 fire companies and 383 firefighters. Unfortunately, the quick arrival of the fire department did not equate to quick fire control. In this case, a well-trained, well-equipped fire department arrived within 2 minutes, but establishing fire control still required over 3.5 hours. The extended time between the arrival of the fire department and actual control of the fire was due to the time necessary to assemble sufficient personnel to attack the fire with a rate of flow adequate to control it and the time to provide the logistical support needed to mount a sustained fire attack. The critical flow rate, or flow rate necessary for fire control, is an important concept. Many ill-informed people measure facility “fire protection” based on how fast the fire department can reach the front door. Unfortunately, the public does not understand that quick fire department response does not equal quick fire control.”?

“Outside of those within the public fire service, the planning and logistics required for an effective fire attack in a large commercial or industrial facility and the time necessary to mount the attack are poorly understood. There is much more to effective manual fire suppression operations in industrial, commercial, and institutional facilities than merely ‘putting the wet stuff on the red stuff.’ While quick, efficient response by the fire department is an essential element of the total fire control system, proximity to the fire department does not equal good fire protection.”

“How do we apply a high-rise building case study to an industrial facility?” questioned the BYFPE

“A large area industrial facility is just a high-rise building laid on its side,” explained the WOFPE. “A fire truck arriving at the front gate in two minutes does not suppress the fire. It may be ten, fifteen, thirty minutes or more between the arrival of the first fire apparatus and firefighters at the facility and establishing the water supply and logistical systems necessary to apply the critical water flow rate to bring the fire under control. That’s why we need sprinklers, firewalls, fire barriers, and other fire protection features in the facility. They can limit fire spread and establish fire control while the fire department sets up to extinguish the fire.”

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This is just one of the conversations between the Wise Old Fire Protection Engineer (WOFPE) and his young protégé, the Brash Young Fire Protection Engineer (BYFPE), found throughout?Industrial Fire Control Concepts?and collected in the new?51 Conversations with the Wise Old Fire Protection Engineer?by Jeffrey Moore, PE, FSFPE.?

Industrial Fire Control Concepts?is a fire risk management course in a book. Originally written as the textbook for the one-week Industrial Fire Protection Course taught for decades by Industrial Risk Insurers, this 540-page third edition, updated to reflect current technology and fire protection practice, maintains the original purpose of serving as a means of providing not only technical information but also explaining the fire protection decision-making process for those responsible for facility fire protection and fire risk management. The book uses practical examples and extensive color photos and graphics to explain the “hows” and “whys” behind an effective site-specific fire protection and fire control program.?

51 Conversations with the Wise Old Fire Protection Engineer?contains the forty-six conversations between the WOFPE and the BYFPE contained in?Industrial Fire Control Concepts?and?five additional conversations not used in the book. Both books are available on Amazon. The conversations between the WOFPE and the BYFPE provide background information and context behind many common questions and misconceptions and the methods used to make site-specific fire risk management decisions.?

Electronic versions of both books are also available in the iTunes store for Apple Books. Email [email protected]?for additional information or to obtain a fifty-page sample of?Industrial Fire Control Concepts.