More Dangerous Myths
BUILDING CONSTRUCTION
Firefighting is no place for the uninformed or misguided.
Insurance Companies Are The Friends Of The Fire Service….
No doubt there are some insurance companies that appreciate the fact that you take your life in your hands and suffer tremendous punishment to reduce their loss, but there are others that look only for a way to recover what they have paid out.
When an insurance company pays a claim, it acquires any right the policyholder had to sue anyone for negligence. This is called subrogation.
Vincent Brannigan, J.D. tells me that his legal research discloses a surprising number of cases in which insurance companies, subrogating the right of the policyholder whom they have paid off, sue the fire department for real or imagined inefficient operations.
Insurance companies are in the riskassumption business, and a portion of the premium covers the risk that the fire department will not function “perfectly” and the property may suffer a total loss. The insurance company is, in effect, attempting to collect for a risk for which they have already collected an adequate premium. The courtroom is far removed in time and circumstances from the heat of the battle, and there are many experts with 20/20 hindsight.
Even if the city has a good case, the cost of defending such a suit can be prohibitive and the city’s attorneys may recommend a settlement. The suit is usually brought in the name of the policyholder, and is therefore unjustly picking from the pockets of the taxpayers, whether the case goes to court or not.
Vincent has suggested that cities band together in “legal mutual aid” to assist one another in such suits, rather than sit idle congratulating themselves that the cancer is attacking someone else.
The state legislatures should be lobbied to pass legislation making it clear that the city is not a guarantor of successful firefighting operations.
Adequate Fire Walls Will Contain The Fire…
Major insurance companies and some federal agencies attempt to limit the maximum dollar loss they will accept from a single fire. The ideal way to do this would be to limit the value of the building and its contents to the maximum permissible loss. This is impractical, so buildings are divided with fire walls. These walls are specified to be “four-hour fire-resistive.”
This is all well and good; the difficulty is that few managers will accept a wall without openings in it for the passage of goods, vehicles, and personnel. These openings should be protected with adequate doors, but often the protection will not work in a fire.
The October issue of The Voice, published by the International Society of Fire Service Instructors, carried an article entitled “Fire Door Reliability.” Over 40% of 800 doors examined had problems that would prevent the door from performing properly in a fire.
Personnel should be familiar with:
- the proper way to test fire doors;
- the principal defects found;
- the fact that it is a ladder company’s responsibility to check fire doors and close them as necessary.
MORE DANGEROUS MYTHS
In a fire or search fora fire, never go through a fire door without blocking it, so that escape will not be cut off.
Additional information is available in the NFPA Handbook, 16th Edition, pages 7 – 117.
It’s Only Temporary….
The basic problem in getting compliance with fire-safetv regulations is the law of probability. At any given time, the probability of a serious fire is so low as to be negligible. The negligent citizen and the negligent fire-code enforcer take this low probability as justification for endangering lives and property.
The Ringling Brothers Circus was performing in Hartford, Connecticut on July 6. 1944. The Clyde Beatty wild animal act was in the center ring. The steel cage chutes through which the tigers and lions moved blocked the main exit TEMPORARILY FOR ONLY TEN MINUTES. 168 people died when the tent ignited.
When I was in the trenches, my reply to “It’s only temporary” was “You’re damn right—the building may not be here in the morning.” Some stores and restaurant managers think nothing of blocking exits with displays and tables. They need an attitude adjustment.
THE EXITS DO NOT BELONG TO THE MANAGEMENT. THEY BELONG TO THE PEOPLE THEY INVITED INTO THE BUSINESS AND TO THEIR EMPLOYEES.
People who persist in this practice of blocking exits despite warnings and education are criminals and should be treated as such. My legal constant recommends that, when the educationand persuasion-oriented inspector has not succeeded, the problem be turned over to the harder-nosed arson investigators.
Automatic sprinkler systems are often placed out of service, temporarily, to make repairs. If the sprinklers were provided as necessary under the life safety code, the building should be closed. The exits permitted in a sprinklered building are not adequate for an unsprinklered building.
When this policy is made known to department stores and shopping malls, it will not be necessary to close any stores. The work will be done in offhours.
Determining The Cause Of The Fire Is AllImportant….
The fireground commander is running his brain on several tracks, trying to cope with all the potentials for disaster, when a TV reporter sticks a mike in his face and demands to be told the cause of the fire.
I hope I live long enough to hear some forthright officer say, “If the fire wasn’t caused by one thing, it was caused by another. The real question is why a simple, small ignition caused a disaster.”
Why did a kid putting paper in a toaster cause JO families to lose their homes?
Continued on page 71.
Why was the interior of a funhouse so flammable that a kicl flicking his lighter could cause six horrible deaths? At the trial, a well-known fire expert testified that sprinklers would not have made any difference. How many other public places are there which are so flammable that sprinklers wouldn’t make a difference?
The answer lies in the LAW OF PROBABILITY.
The slot machines at the gambling houses operate under the law of probability. Three independent wheels revolve. When they all line up, jackpot, the player wins a lot of money, as much as a million dollars. While it is impossible to predict an individual winner, over a period of time the payout averages out so the casino can predict its net income with certainty.
The “fire slot machine” also acts in accordance with the law of probability. The three wheels are cause of the fire; extension of the fire; management of the fire.
In most cases at least one of the wheels does not come up jackpot and die fire is not a disaster. Every now and then, all three wheels line up and the fire jackpot hits. This jackpot is disaster.
If we are ever to make progress in reducing our national fire loss, we must shift attention from the cause of the fire to the cause of the disaster.
This was done successfully in 1903 in the New York City Tenement House Act. For forty years there was no loss of life due to building conflagration in socalled “new law” tenements. Though the buildings were combustible, each condition that had been identified in the “old law” tenements as being significant in the loss of life was eliminated.
Fires extended up wooden stairways— Stairways were required to be noncombustible, in masonry towers, with self-closing metal refuge. We do not have this today in the typical, combustible multiple dwelling. The lumber yard attic extends over the stairway, and often doors are not self-closing.
Fires started in the basement and extended upward—The basement ceiling was “fireproofed,” and interior stairways did not extend to the basement.
Vertical ladder fire escapes could be negotiated only by acrobats—A stairway-type outside fire escape is required from each apartment. Many tenements were as high as ten stories. Rescues were made beyond the tip of the aerial with scaling ladders. (All New York City apparatus, including the Fire Patrol, carried scaling ladders until World War II.) The height of combustible tenements was limited to six stories. (The terrain allowed some builders to beat the code. There are buildings that are six stories at the legal address and ten stories high at the rear.)
Fires roared up deadly interior air shafts—The air shaft was eliminated. All windows must open on an open courtyard.
Individual heating units caused many fires—Central heating is required.
These reforms were not sparked by fire experts but by social reformers. The fire chief insisted that there would be no problem if the police would stop “cooping up” at night and patrol their beats as per instructions.