MAINTAINING FIRE SCENE SECURITY FOR HIGH-RISE INVESTIGATIONS
In May 1989, members of the Philadelphia (PA) Fire Department fought for three days to extinguish a stubborn fire on the windowless ninth floor of the Penn Mutual Insurance building. In February 1991, three Philadelphia firefighters died battling a raging fire that involved the upper floors of One Meridian Plaza. In both cases, the fire department maintained control of the building long after extinguishing the fire.
We in the fire service frequently judge our success in terms of lives and property saved. The owners and occupants of the building, the insurance companies involved, and the legal community also will judge your success-based on how well you manage the fire scene after the flames arcextinguished.
High-rise buildings, depending on their size, may be occupied by hundreds or even thousands of people. If the fire grows beyond the incipient stage, almost every tenant floor is certain to be affected. The open-floor plans popular today in high-rise office buildings make it easy for fire to spread quickly throughout the floors. Smoke travels up through the building, coating walls and ceilings with soot. Water used during fire suppression will run down shafts and stairs to the lower portions of the building and seep through floors to damage walls, ceilings, and furnishings.
Computers, computer tapes, communication equipment, files, stocks and bonds, and day-to-day business records are all at risk. In today’s competitive market, a business cannot afford to let its competition get the edge. Business owners and managers want to get back on line as quickly as possible, perhaps at another site. Their businesses and the financial well-being of their employees are at stake-they stand to lose everything. But if access to the area of origin is not controlled, the fire department’s investigation will be jeopardized.
RESTRICT ACCESS FOR INVESTIGATION’S INTEGRITY
Typically, the fire department retains control of all or portions of a building involved in fire until the fire investigation is complete and all public safety issues are resolved. Access restrictions are designed to protect the lives and property of the occupants as well as ensure the integrity of the fire investigation. But even before the fire is controlled, building occupants will begin to make requests to reenter the building. Then, when the fire is under control but well before the fire investigation and final extinguishment are complete, the building’s occupants will become more persistent in their requests to reenter the building. Suddenly, owners, occupants, owners’ and occupants’ attorneys, the attorney’s origin-and-cause and life-safety experts, national investigative reporters, and local media all will be demanding immediate access to the building.
Depending on the municipality, either the fire department or local or state law enforcement officials will be responsible for determining how the fire started. Until the investigators have completed their investigation, access to the area of origin must be strictly controlled. Civil litigation is almost certain to follow. Expect all fire and life-safety elements surrounding the fire to be placed under the judicial miscroscope. Active and passive fire protection systems, building construction, firefighting strategy and tactics-all will be closely examined. The investigating authority may request that access to areas of the . building remote from the area of origin be strictly controlled as well until relevant information regarding fire and life-safety systems is documented.
SAFETY AND SECURITY ISSUES
Structural safety is a primary concern at any fire scene. Structural steel may sag. Concrete can crack and spall when heated. Glass curtain walls may be missing. On severely damaged floors, reentry may be dangerous. Areas of the building deemed safe for firefighters may not be safe for others. When a serious fire occurs in a highrise building, suppression forces cut electric service to the involved floors. Battery-powered emergency lighting may last for only a few hours, so stairs and hallways may be dark. Hoselines and debris may make footing hazardous.
Other dangers may not be apparent. Asbestos fire protection applied to structural steel may be exposed and become an airborne contaminant. Soot from smoke may contain toxic products of combustion. Because of temperature differentials between the exterior atmosphere and that inside the building, pockets of carbon monoxide may remain on floors other than those in the fire area. At the Penn Mutual fire, the command post was set up in the first-floor lobby of the adjoining 18-story building. Carbon monoxide levels, which were 150 to 170 ppm at the command post, probably were the cause of the headaches and fatigue reported by firefighters working on the lower floors.
For the period of time the fire department is in control of the building, security is vitally important. Because of search and forcible entry conducted by rescue teams, otherwise secure areas of the building arcnow open, providing a unique opportunity for theft or vandalism.
It was reported that a Philadelphia bank with offices in the Penn Mutua building safely retrieved millions of dollars worth of stocks and bonds from its offices in the adjoining building. Disreputable individuals aware of the presence of these valuables could take advantage of the confusion, misrepresent themselves, and walk off with the valuables. When people are permitted to reenter a high-rise building damaged by fire, the opportunity for theft arises. You must ensure that only bona fide tenants are given permission to reenter the building. Access should be restricted to specified areas and should be closely monitored.
WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY?
Handling requests to reenter the building will be a task in itself. It should not be the responsibility of the investigative team or the fireground commander to fulfill these requests. They will be busy enough overseeing fire suppression, salvage and overhaul, and the fire investigation. Setting up a building access team to handle and monitor reentry requests can make everyone’s job easier.
The ideal team is composed of fire and police personnel and a building representative. The fire department representative serves as the liaison with the 1C and/or the individual supervising the fire investigation team and should be aware of which areas are safe for reentry and which are off limits. The police and building representatives screen individuals who request building access. The building representative, who should be familiar with the tenants, verifies the identity of tenants requesting access to the building. The police representative provides the legal backbone for the team.
WHAT RULES GOVERN ACCESS?
Requests to reenter the building should be prioritized. Some requests will necessarily be considered even while the fire is being fought. A request to remove computer tapes from an area a safe distance from the firemight receive immediate attention if, for example, the tapes are vital to the nation’s economic security. But a request to retrieve an individual’s car keys from a work station very well may have to wait.
Individuals permitted to reenter cannot do so unaccompanied, for their own safety and to prevent intrusions onto unsecured floors. Since your staff is not unlimited and you may receive many requests, you will have to establish time limits. The individual sent to retrieve the vitally important computer tape may be allocated sufficient time to retrieve the tape, but no more.
Even after conditions have stabilized, staffing constraints may force you to impose time limits. For example, if five firefighters are assigned to escort occupants to their floors, no more than five small groups of two to three occupants should be permitted to enter the building at the same time. Their trips may have to be limited so everyone will have an equal opportunity to retrieve important documents.
In the interest of fairness, tenants should receive equal treatment. What you do for the largest tenant you must be prepared to do for the smallest. Attorneys and private investigators who request entry to conduct their own investigations will have to wait until the municipality’s postfire investigation is complete. Do not permit these requests to pressure the municipality’s investigative team into rushing through its investigation.
Not everyone will be happy with the limitations you must impose. Multifloor tenants in high-rise buildings are used to getting what they request from building management. An appeal to common sense in the form of an explanation of the reasons reentry is not permitted at this time is the most you can do. Attorneys representing occupants or owners will want to begin their own investigations as soon as possible and may try to countermand your decisions with court orders. Alert your municipality’s law department to this possibility early and ensure that it is available to assist you with the related legalities.
Human nature being what it is, expect some people to try to take advantage. During the mopup stage of the Meridian fire, two businessmen requested access to their offices, saying they wanted to retrieve their personal computers. Their identity was confirmed and they were escorted to their floor. One of the men slipped off to a side door, where a half dozen of his employees were waiting with hand carts and a moving truck. The individual was reminded of the agreement, and the moving truck and movers were sent on their way.
When you are preplanning for highrise fires, consider including a building access team in your game plan. Setting up such a team to handle building access as quickly as possible makes sense. During the fire, it allows the IC to focus on extinguishing the fire. During the postfire phase, it allows the suppression forces to perform final extinguishment, salvage, and overhaul and the fire investigation team to go about its work.
