Responding to Secure Facilities

by DENNIS CARMAN

A secure facility is any building designed to restrict access and to limit the ability of a person, a resident, or an inmate to move about it freely. Although the focus of this article is on the correctional environment, the information also can apply to a psychiatric center, a court facility, a police station, or a state trooper barracks in your response area. Your department must preplan for response to these facilities as well. Some larger venues, such as a professional football or baseball stadium, may also have facilities for detaining problematic patrons (photo 1).

(1) Photos by author.
(1) Photos by author.

Correctional facilities are divided into prisons and jails, although most people do not realize there is a difference between the two. A prison holds those who have been convicted and sentenced to state or federal time. A jail is usually a municipal or county facility housing a transient population awaiting trial or the posting of bond or bail. Most inmates in a jail will remain no more than two years.

NFPA Life Safety Code Security Conditions

National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 101, Life Safety Code, Chapter 22, “New Detention and Correctional Occupancies,” Section 1.2, “Classification of Occupancy Use in Detention/Correctional Occupancies” classifies facility security from Condition I (minimum security) through Condition V (maximum security). Chapter 23 is entitled “Existing Detention and Correctional Occupancies.”

Condition I allows inmates free movement in the sleeping space and as permitted by staff. An inmate can move to the building exterior without restraint. This condition exists more often in a halfway house or an outreach program center, not in a correctional facility.

Condition II inmates are permitted free movement between a sleeping area, which could be considered a nonsmoke compartment, and any other area considered a smoke compartment (a space equipped with a smoke barrier, a continuous membrane designed to contain the smoke to that compartment); egress to the exterior is through a secured exit. This still is not a true correctional facility.

Condition III allows free movement within a building that has a number of spaces considered to be smoke compartments. The staff can remotely control inmate movement, allowing the person to pass from one smoke compartment to another.

Condition IV restricts free movement in the building within one smoke compartment. Remote-controlled release permits movement from one compartment to another. Many older facilities (built before the 1960s) were built before these conditions were adopted. It would be unusual for an older facility to have any area that could be considered a smoke compartment.

Condition V restricts free movement from one space to another and requires facility staff to manually control access points during inmate movement from the sleeping area or from one smoke compartment to another.

Building Construction

These facilities can be divided into different construction designs; this is in addition to the basic fire service understanding of construction.

Linear construction, found in most if not all older facilities, includes metal bars, concrete, and multiple levels. Such structures were not built with fire safety in mind. Smoke barriers or fire stops are nonexistent because the bars are the primary materials used to secure inmates in their cells; additional bars would separate the inmate common area as well. Even the gates used to let an inmate out of his cell block are made of bars; there is very limited concrete separation. In many of these facilities, the ventilation system would run through the cell block wall, which acts as a barrier between a cell block and the floor lobby or a common area for correctional staff. Even a small fire in an inmate cell could generate enough smoke to enter the heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system, and it could spread to other areas of the floor.

Fire suppression or alerting systems were not widely used in older facilities. You will not find sprinkler systems, HVAC purge systems, or even readily available standpipe systems. More than likely, the older facility will have some kind of smoke alarm system; but, depending on how well it has been maintained, it can generate hundreds of false alarms because of dust and dirt buildup. Sometimes, even spider webs can cause false alarms.

In the older buildings, evacuation must be directed to a floor below or to some other open space such as the gym or the outside recreation space. In such an evacuation, a large number of inmates could be on the move on the fire department’s arrival. Ideally, the inmates will evacuate in the opposite direction of the arriving firefighting personnel. Your department and the correctional staff must understand the role that each agency will have in an emergency. Will the correctional staff limit your access until the inmates have been secured? How will this delay affect your firefighting efforts?

Podular design is the modern jail construction method. During construction, the designers must follow local building codes. The building is divided into smoke barrier zones that help to limit the travel of smoke and fire. Steel bars are used in very limited ways. Each inmate has an individual cell built of concrete and has a fire-rated door with vision panels. In addition to these designs, each cell has a rate-of-rise sprinkler head and a rate-of-rise smoke detector in the ventilation ductwork.

Each cell also includes a local purge system to vent the area. During joint planning and training sessions, it is important that the fire department and the jail administration discuss which entity will access and activate the HVAC purge system. If activated too soon, the purge could make fire conditions worse (photo 2).

Dormitory style offers a large open area with individual bunks in which inmates have full movement inside the dormitory but cannot exit the area without staff permission (photo 3).

Some agencies use stretch membrane structures or “sprung” buildings. Although similar to a dorm, the structure is made of a lightweight construction material, and the exterior is made of material similar to that of a tent.

Prisoner Security Levels

Responders must understand the security level classification of the inmates at a facility. Correctional staff may refer to inmates as maximum security (a high risk and the most dangerous), medium security (a moderate risk), and minimum security (the lowest security risk). In many facilities, minimum-security inmates are used as workers inside and outside the facility.

Knowing the security level of inmates housed in a particular facility will give you an idea of how hardened the building may be. The higher the security risk, the stronger the building. However, do not let this information mislead you. Many facilities originally built as maximum security facilities may house prisoners of all security levels.

First responders should be aware of the size of the population housed in the facility to which they may respond. A smaller municipal or county facility could hold as few as 10 inmates, whereas a larger county facility could have 2,000 to 3,000 inmates. Most state facilities have a larger population of inmates. The incident commander (IC) need not know the exact number of inmates, but even a rough estimate will definitely help in preplanning (photo 4).

During my research, a number of fires have occurred in facilities built in the late 1800s and early 1900s (Table 1). These structures did not include smoke barriers; many had no smoke or heat detection or suppression equipment. Evacuation would mean getting out of the building since the steel bars did little to contain the smoke and its movement. Facilities of newer construction may include smoke barriers, smoke zones, and other places to which inmates and staff can evacuate.

Like a Small Town

A correctional facility is essentially a town inside of a town. It may have a postal service, a library, a school, a church, medical services (ranging from a registered nurse to a fully functional infirmary), a dentist, a visiting center, and an environmental control unit responsible for maintaining the facility’s cleanliness.

At hotels, motels, and many other large venues, a person can come across a problem and simply pull the fire alarm, which would alert the occupants and facilitate a safe evacuation. In a correctional facility, this is not the case. No one can leave the building freely, and the correctional staff controls all movement. Some larger facilities may have an established fire brigade, but not all do. These facilities operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, so the correctional facility and the local fire department must be on the same page (photo 5).

Facility Access

At a recent major fire in a maximum security facility in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, the local fire chief commented, “We had some issues to overcome initially because the building was designed to keep the bad guys in and the good guys out.” That is why your agency and the correctional staff must have a working relationship.

The staff can move about the facility in different ways. The locking devices in some much older, post-1960 facilities may consist of manual switches with key override. However, this requires the correctional staff to enter the cell area to key the override. In a modern facility, a touch screen may control the cell doors, the emergency doors, the lighting, and the ventilation system. During an emergency, the remote control room can take over the housing unit touch screen, which allows the housing officer to start moving inmates to a safe area.

If you have such a facility in your response area, you must know how the staff will work with you, and you need to work together within the facility’s emergency framework. Older facilities will have double fencing on the perimeter or a concrete wall surrounding the facility (photo 6). These restricted areas are accessed through vehicle sally ports, which have at least two interlocked gates that will not be open at the same time. This prevents continuous unobstructed passage to maintain security. An emergency is not the time to find out that the nice new shiny engine or tower ladder won’t fit in the sally port. Not all sally ports are staffed 24 hours a day either. Correctional staff may have to retrieve keys to open these gates (photo 7). After all of this, the responders haven’t even entered the building yet.

Once they have access to the property, companies will need to locate a water source, which may be inside or outside of the secure perimeter. If it is outside of the secure perimeter, then having a plan to secure the water source for you and the facility’s perimeter is essential.

Additional access issues for older facilities include the need for keyed entry. Very few control gates are operated from a remote-control room. The correctional staff must retrieve the fire key ring from a control room. The ring may have as few as three keys or as many as 10 keys, which look similar but are different; the correctional staff could be struggling to find the correct key because of the situation. In the facility in which I worked, we designed a facility zone system that used a color code, which allowed the fire key ring to be more manageable. These key rings would have a color tab attached to the key ring, making it easy for staff under stress to quickly hand out the correct keys.

Newer facilities are fire-resistive structures that include many fire protection systems designed to report a problem to a main control room, which is staffed 24 hours a day. Protection elements include smoke barriers, sprinklers in each cell and in common areas, standpipes, smoke-purge capabilities, and heat/smoke detectors. Standpipe systems are secured from the inmates with a security locking device. Facility staff must have the keys either on their person or readily available.

During past incidents, the keys may have been unavailable because the staff didn’t have them; in a few cases, the keys had been lost in the commotion, which resulted in a number of additional deaths (photo 8). Newer facilities are designed to be more aesthetically pleasing, so the money once spent on a double fence is now spent on fortifying the structure itself. Some new facilities blend in so well that most people wouldn’t even give them a second look. However, entry is no less complicated-you just have one less hurdle. Like other buildings in the community, such facilities have a number of entry points, but every single entry point with outside access includes a sally port, which will be interlocked for security reasons. Responders will have to depend on the correctional staff for every task they need to complete and every move they have to make.

Forcible Entry

Forcible entry is a whole new animal in these buildings-the design that keeps the bad guys in also keeps the good guys out. For a number of facility locations, the staff may be able to override the security gates, but not in all cases. The basic hand tools we use for forcible entry will be virtually useless. In fires in Biloxi, Mississippi (1982), and Maury County, Tennessee (1977), a tow truck was used to assist with forcible entry. You will need saws for steel or concrete, maybe even a cutting torch. You and your staff should become familiar with the many different security devices and systems used in the facility that you are responsible for protecting. There are slide gates or doors and swing gates or doors the staff can control locally with a key. You will encounter similar devices that are controlled remotely from a control room. You will need to work with the security staff during these incidents. While you and your firefighters are dealing with access issues, the fire is growing.

Accountability

Accountability in these facilities rises to a whole new level compared to the run-of-the-mill structure fire. The IC must assign an accountability officer, and this assignment must be taken seriously. The accountability officer will need to know exactly which firefighters and what equipment have entered the facility. Once the incident is under control, correctional staff will want to verify that each firefighter exiting the facility is indeed one of your members and that the equipment carried in on the initial attack was not left behind. How many of us have laid down a halligan or an ax at an incident only to realize later that we did not return the equipment to the rig? Imagine how such a tool might be used inside a correctional facility!

Firefighting

If you are there for a fire, you may face longer than normal handline stretches. Hopefully, you have trained at the facility or at least arranged for a tour of the building with some of your members. You may have a standpipe system in place that will help with the hoseline.

According to the 2010 NFPA study “Prisons and Jails,” municipal fire departments responded to 590 structure fires annually between 2003 and 2007. Most fires in these facilities had fatalities. One of the deadliest fires was in Ohio in 1930, which killed 320 people. Unfortunately, because of the physical security in place, the inmates will be unable to escape. In some incidents, correctional staff may perish while assisting the inmates. The good news in this report is that since 1980, structure fires in these facilities have fallen 88 percent. Fires in these facilities occurred mostly in the kitchen or the cooking area. One out of every four fires was set intentionally by inmates to create a distraction, to get attention, or as part of a larger disturbance within the facility.

Another point in the study is that a large number of intentionally set fires occurred in isolation cells, which have padding on all four walls. Once ignited, the fire would rapidly burn the padding, producing a large amount of black smoke and heat. The rapid fire growth, the lack of smoke barriers, and the uncontrolled movement of smoke caused much confusion. Although many of these fires were contained to the single cell, the smoke filled the rest of the building.

Ventilation

Ventilation can be a challenge unless the facility has a smoke purge or other such systems. Again, these systems must be maintained in good working order, so you need to consider how good the past maintenance has been.

All glass in the facility is rated glass or detention glazing, designed for fire and smash resistance. Smash-resistant glass is rated according to how many blows it would take someone to smash through it in a given amount of time. For example, a firefighter using a sledgehammer could spend up to 20 minutes or longer to breach a single piece of detention glass, opening a hole only the size of the sledgehammer, not the full opening.

Some older facilities may have windows that will open for fresh air but are restricted because of some other security material (mesh or steel bars) placed in front of the opening. Vertical ventilation will be impossible because of the building materials used to fortify the building.

A facility I once worked in had a fire in the kitchen. Although the fire was contained to the commercial oven, the smoke wasn’t. Imagine a “food on the stove” call multiplied by 100; this is what we had to deal with. The smoke filled the kitchen and all surrounding areas and drifted into the inmate housing areas. Even though the fire was relatively small, containing the smoke became the major problem. This really was a smoke-management issue. With few access points to extract the smoke, we needed to use a number of exhaust fans to move the smoke toward an exit in the facility.

Victim Removal

Specific issues must be addressed before anyone-whether an inmate, a civilian victim, or a firefighter-leaves the facility. You will not be allowed to just scoop up a patient/inmate and transport him to the local hospital. One or two correctional officers must escort any inmate requiring transportation wherever he goes. You must inform the hospital to which you are transporting the prisoner which category of individuals you are bringing there. The IC may consider setting up a triage area inside a fenced and secured section of the facility. Assign some of the responding emergency medical service (EMS) staff to this area with an EMS coordinator, who will work with correctional staff to coordinate the secure transport of the most seriously injured.

False Alarms and Complacency

In many older and larger facilities, a large number of false alarms will occur for many reasons-including a lack of maintenance and the system’s age. Often, the inmates will cause a false activation to attempt to conceal prohibited behavior (e.g., smoking, drug use). For example, squeezing a powder container causes a cloud of dust that the smoke detector will interpret as smoke from a fire. The more frequent the false alarms, the more likely the correctional staff will not respond to them as urgently and, in turn, delay notifying the fire department. This is similar to a fire department’s becoming complacent about repeated false alarms at the same location until that one time when it’s for real; this is the one we must be ready for. Whether a fire, an EMS call, a stopped elevator, a man vs. machine entrapment, or any other type of incident, note the time it takes to move through these facilities and the procedures that the correctional staff follow.

Facility Staff and Emergency Procedures

Most facilities are governed by town, county, or state agencies that require the correctional facility to have established emergency plans. Some facilities I have visited may just have an evacuation map on the wall, as in a hospital; others have extensive “all-hazard” plans with mass-evacuation provisions. In an ideal evacuation plan, the inmates would evacuate in the direction opposite of the one where the firefighters are entering. In many plans, the inmates are just moved to another section on the same floor. If that isn’t an option, they are moved down to the floor below and then to a large secure area within the facility, such as a gym. For facility staff, the worst-case scenario would be leaving the building altogether. I have found in some of these facilities that an emergency procedure requires staff training on it and, as at many other agencies, money drives training. Some people feel that it has never happened before, so why would it happen now? All it will take is one serious fatal fire in your facility, and all of that money saved on training will go out the door to cover the resulting legal issues that will come your way.

When people work and train together, they perform better when an emergency occurs. As a chief, you must reach out to the facility administrators and communicate, which ideally will lead to a meeting between the fire service and the correctional administrators to see what plans are in place. In a best-case scenario, the facility will invite your department to tour the facility. The program could start with a walk-through, followed by a tabletop exercise. As everyone gets to know each other and appreciates each organization’s needs and expectations during an incident, you may agree to participate in a joint fire drill, set up training in a closed section of the facility, and finally have a drill that will require relocating inmates.

In the end, the fire department and the correctional administration should agree on a timeline for completing each training program. Once each agency is comfortable with the basics, all parties involved should formulate a time frame for continuing the training. One drill or walk-through is not enough. The more you work together, the more comfortable each agency will become with each other. A working relationship prior to an emergency response will ensure success.

References

“Chaos on streets, coughing guards, evacuations as prison burns,” The Morning Call, January 15, 2015. http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/pennsylvania/mc-northumberland-county-prison-fire-20150115-story.html.

Bell, James R. “Twenty-nine die in Biloxi, Mississippi jail fire.” Fire Journal, November 1983, 44-49.

Demers, DP. “42 Die in Maury County, Tennessee, Jail Fire.” Fire Journal, March 1978, 30-33.

Flynn, J D. “Prisons and Jails.” (March 2010) National Fire Protection Association. http://www.nfpa.org/research/reports-and-statistics/fires-by-property-type/prisons-and-jails/prisons-and-jails.

DENNIS CARMAN is a New York state and nationally certified fire instructor and a deputy chief instructor for the Suffolk County (NY) Fire Academy. He is a 29-year member of Selden (NY) Fire Department Truck Co. 1 and has just retired from the Sheriff’s Office after 25 years of service.

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