Elevators in Emergencies: The Firefighter's Perspective

Key points firefighters must know when operating in a high-rise building fire.

For more than 40 years, the elevator industry’s message has been crystal clear: “Do not use an elevator during a fire.” That message was formalized in 1973 after a series of fatal fires in New York during the late 1960s and early 1970s prompted change. Prior to that, occupants tried to exit a building during a fire using elevators, stairs or any other available means of egress. Today, the elevator industry is taking a hard look at whether to change that message. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 have opened debate regarding whether elevators should be used during a fire. The debate is being fueled by the facts surrounding the evacuation of the World Trade Center. The fire service is now being forced to embrace change regarding the use of elevators for both tactical firefighting and evacuation operations.

This article will discuss long held historical perspectives and explore emerging technologies ,Outline the Fire and Emergency position on appropriate life safety design considerations for owners, designers and other building practitioners on the use of lifts if they are to be utilised in a fire emergency . 

Unique High Rise Fire Challenges

High rise structure fires pose a number of challenges both to the occupants and to the fire service. Several of these include:

? By nature of their height, smoke movement in high rise structures is very different from that of other structures. Temperature gradients result in varying pressures throughout the structure, which can allow for the rapid, uncontrolled movement of smoke and flame (known as the “stack effect”).

? High rises often contain multiple types of occupancies, including residential, commercial, restaurant, and underground parking. Each type of occupancy poses a challenge to firefighters and must be approached differently.

? By design, exits from high rise structures are limited. In an emergency, the movement of people out of a building is particularly difficult.

? The HVAC and other utilities in some high rises service multiple levels and can facilitate the spread of smoke and flame through a building.

? High rise structure fires require significantly more personnel and equipment to extinguish than do other types of fires. This further strains the responding fire department and firefighters.

? By their vary nature, fire department response times are significantly lower than the national average (Responding, Staging, Rescue, Extinguishing).

The use of Elevators for Emergency Fire fighting operations

Why utilize elevators for emergency fire fighting operations? There is only one reason: Speed.

Eventhough this is considered one of the most dangerous operations the fire service performs during a building fire. Thus elevators provide the third most common means of transport for firefighters, after apparatus and stairs. Elevators are the only practical means of quickly moving many resources to the upper floors of the building. The world’s two fastest elevators, located in the Taipei 101 building in Taiwan, carry people from the ground to the top (101st floor) in 39 seconds, or 25 mph. Elevators in modern towers are designed to move 12.5 percent of a building’s occupants within five minutes. That means a building can be completely evacuated within 40 minutes. Compare that to evacuation times of one or more hours through a stairwell in a tall building.

There is no doubt that their use has caused problems, the most notable being members becoming trapped in a stalled elevator car. It is for this reason that the use of elevators in a high-rise building fire must come with a strict set of operational guidelines. But prior to accessing an elevator and starting up, there must be an understanding of elevator type and design, bank and floor accessibility, as well as when and how to use them.

Since the advent of high-rise buildings, there have been incidents in which firefighters have been killed or severely injured in uncontrolled elevators during high-rise firefighting operations. Moreover, many civilians have lost their lives when attempting to flee using the elevator when the elevator has opened on the fire floor. As a result, laws have been passed requiring the installation and retrofitting of fire service override systems (emergency service, fireman's service, Fire Dept. Use, or firefighter's service) in elevators throughout the country

 Freight/service elevators

A Phase 1 and 2 freight elevator may be a viable option for firefighters to access upper floors at a fire incident.

Freight/service elevator use in a high-rise fire is a viable option that is dependent upon several factors. First is the age and code at the time of installation. Older freight elevators were not required to have Phase 1 and 2 firefighter service features that we find within passenger elevators. Independent control of the car is limited. It is for this reason that older freight elevators should not be considered for firefighters.

New and recently installed freight elevators are different. They are required to have the same protection and design features as a passenger elevator. Consider the advantages: An oversized elevator car that is designed to handle additional weight with Phase 1 and 2 firefighter control features becomes an attractive option for the fire department. If pre-incident information for the building shows that a newer designed freight elevator exists, give it early consideration.

However, there are other factors to weigh. Freight elevators have access and are exposed to each floor in the building; this can be both a pro and a con. Second, more often than not, fires that begin in commercial office high-rise buildings start in or near the freight/service elevator car lobby and floor areas, notably in piles of collected rubbish. So while freight elevators can be useful, you must first identify them as a safe option.

 Passenger elevators

Passenger elevators will vary in number and floor accessibility based on the building’s height and square footage. With that comes the additional concern of the size of the car itself. Older high-rise buildings often have small elevator cars—a concern when we need to put firefighters and equipment in a car. Newer elevator cars will be larger in their overall square footage.

Since the World Trade Center attacks in 2001, an aggressive effort has been underway to require buildings of heights beyond 420 feet—also referred to as “mega high-rises”—to contain elevators that provide greater protection for firefighters. Phase 3 robust-designed elevators and shafts (also nicknamed “hardened elevators”) are being designed to eliminate the common problems firefighters encounter during fire operations. This is all in an attempt to provide uninterrupted elevator service so the fire department can continue to move staff and equipment to the upper floors. Some of the many protection features include water drainage and water diversion from shafts, pressurization of shafts and lobbies, and protection of elevator power supplies.

 Bank/floor accessibility

When the fire service has multiple elevator banks/shaft options within a building, it is important to know as much as possible regarding each bank or shaft and the specific floors that each serves.

Depending on the height of the building, elevator banks can be categorized as low-rise, mid-rise and high-rise. The reasons for their design are simply based on occupant/tenant need and speed. For example, if you have a 30-story building, you will likely find a low-rise bank of elevators that serves floors 1 through 10, a mid-rise bank that serves floors 10 through 20 and a high-rise bank that serves floors 20 through 30. Now, let’s add a few additional features to this concept. The mid-rise bank would also be accessible from floor 1, but would be a blind shaft up to floor 10. The same would apply to the high-rise bank, where you could also access this bank of elevators from floor 1 but it would be a blind shaft up to the 20th floor. You could also expect a sky lobby on the 10th and 20thfloors, where occupants could traverse from one elevator bank to another elevator bank.

So what are the advantages of knowing the bank and accessible floors? If you have a fire reported on the 15th floor of the building, the safest route for firefighters assigned to attack the fire would be to take the elevator bank that terminates on floor 10 and then walk up. For firefighters assigned to search the upper floors and staircases of the structure, the safest route would be to take the elevator that is blind from 1 to 20 and exit there. 

 When to use and where to go

There are slight variations among firefighters as to when to use an elevator in a high-rise building, but floor references across the country are generally within a floor of one another. Our policy: If the fire or smoke condition is reported on the 7th floor above the lobby or sky lobby, use of a fire service elevator is authorized. To further clarify, if the fire or smoke condition is within six floors of the lobby or sky lobby, members are required to walk up.

Another floor reference that most in the fire service will agree upon is that use of an elevator will be limited to two floors below the lowest floor indicating/reporting smoke or fire. For example, if a fire is reported on floor 10 with smoke reported on floor 9, members will take the elevator to floor 7 and exit on that floor. The key here is to build in a margin of safety. With this in mind, we also remind our members to consider adding another floor to this procedure on very hot days, exiting three floors below the smoke/fire floor in the event a reverse stack effect is pulling smoke below the actual fire floor. Another consideration: If building information indicates an access, convenience or tenant stair is located in your commercial office high-rise floor plan as well as a duplex or triplex apartments in your residential high-rise floor plans, you need to factor these areas into your decision-making. 

To add a challenge to this procedure, consider the following: For as long as many of us can remember, the number 13 has been believed by some to be unlucky. As such, some building owners and property managers have eliminated the number as a floor reference or apartment reference in their buildings. Many of us in the fire service are reminded of this as we note the lack of the number 13 as we start to ascend into a high-rise building. But it doesn’t end here. Some Asian cultures also fear the number 4 because it can be a homonym for death in certain languages. In many areas of the country, fire departments must expect to encounter and be prepared for distinct practices like this.

Pressurized stairs

In newer, more modern high rises, firefighters can expect to find stairs that are pressurized via a built-in supply and exhaust system. To simplify the design, the intent is to maintain a positive pressure within the stairwell to retard smoke from entering the stairwell in the event a door (on a floor that contains smoke) is opened. If all the doors in the stairwell remain closed and if equal pressurization is reached, some of the air within the stairwell is exhausted to correct the air pressure within the stairwell. Too much pressurization or air in a stairwell could make it difficult to open doors. Likewise, if too many doors are left or chocked open, the stairwell pressure can be negated. Stairwell pressurization is a critical tactic that must be considered within the fire department’s arsenal. Whether it’s part of the building’s design or we attempt to pressurize the stairwell ourselves through the use of positive pressure fans, its use must be understood.

 Lobby/building intelligence

Just from the information listed so far, I think you will agree that preplan or pre-incident information for high-rise buildings is invaluable. With many towns and cities having dozens or hundreds of high-rise buildings, building information for each must be available from many sources, such as a simple preplan book or log, a database terminal in the apparatus, or an alarm sheet (ticket) print out. 

The building information cards have proven to be a valuable source of information in assisting us in our high-rise operations. They are an immediate gathering point of information that you need to know before you go. From identifying the safest elevator bank to use or the staircase that contains water to confirming the attack stairs, the easily referenced cards that we use in the lobby are starting to be entered into our on-board computers so members can also reference the information while they are responding into the incident. They are a tremendous asset. But these by themselves are not enough. Members, notably officers, must be well versed in building construction and design. The fireground decision-makers must understand how internal features can assist or hinder a fire department’s operation. In the words of Professor Frank Brannigan, “you need to know the enemy”; the enemy is the building.