Evacuation Procedures and Fire Department - Essay Example

Cook County Admin Building Report While high rise buildings continue to challenge the limits of architecture, it also poses a greater problem for the fire fighters who need to address any and all flame related occurrences at these buildings. One of the high rise fires that required an in-depth review was the Cooke County fire that took place in Illinois on October 17, 2003. This fire made it very clear that there is a need for more detailed and proper evacuation procedures and fire department to building administration coordination during these emergencies in order to better manage fires and save lives. The review done by Cooke County details the errors that resulted from the mismanagement of the fire and offers insight as to how to avoid these pitfalls in the future. The expanse of the fire and the way that it was handled showed that without proper direction and supervision on the part of the building employees and firefighters resulted in the loss of many lives and millions worth of damage to property. In this situation, it seemed that the building codes and fire codes were ignored by the parties involved. The lack of chain of command meant that fire fighters did not only lack guidance, but also did not have any proper people or leaders to consult with regarding their potential firefighting decisions and actions. The 12th floor of the building was opened by the firefighters, resulting in the smoke filling the hallway beneath the building tenants floor. The firefighters did not have any point person to consult regarding the building layout, possible exit points for the rescue efforts, and airway or ventilation pipes that could have been used to redirect the smoke that was slowly filling the building. The building owners were lax in the sense that nobody was on hand to help the firefighters figure out an evacuation procedure, or inform them of the existence of one if it was available. While there were evacuation procedures existing for the building tenants, the fact that nobody was there to direct the tenants and firefighters meant that the men in red had to create an evacuation procedure on the fly, which directly contradicted the evacuation drills that the occupants were trained to enact in emergency situations. This was the result of the lack of coordination between emergency fire services and the building management / security guards, who may have been familiar with the floor plan and evacuation process. The review pointed out that the firefighters may not have been in the proper position to deal with the fire since the lack of building management coordination and the inability of the dispatchers to relay information to the firefighters from the fire victims resulted in more problems for them. Compounding the problem was the fact that building also lacked the proper simple firefighting system such as sprinklers and emergency fire hoses per floor. The fire defense plans of the building were rendered useless as it required the building employees to actually be inside the building in order to enact the plans. The building management was also found to be at fault since the operators did not engage the occupants in quarterly fire safety drills which would have been a tremendous help during the crazed hours leading up to the building being engulfed in flames. This even as full evacuation techniques were already supposedly being required and taught under the municipal fire codes. Reviewers also learned that the building management did not fill out the proper fire safety and evacuation documentation forms prior to occupying the building. This resulted in the sub par fire training of the building staffers and almost non-existent communication coordination with the security guards. Along with these infractions, the building was also found to be lacking a fire safety director, a requirement of the municipal codes of Chicago. Poor operations, leadership, and training on all levels of building authority, added to the lack of fire safety education on the part of the tenants, plus the building code violations all combined to create one of the worst fire disasters in the history of Illinois. This particular building had minimal adherence to the municipal fire codes when compared to the whole state. Further review of the existing municipal codes proved that the municipal rulings were also partly to blame for what happened in Cookes County. The code did not require high rise buildings to have automatic unlock systems in their doors in the event of a fire. Neither did it specify a need for an organized system of evacuation in the event of a fire that could be reviewed and approved by the municipal reviewers on a regular basis. The building plan should not have been approved in the first place as the poor design meant that the tenants needed to cross directly in the path of the fire in order to evacuate. This while the other parts of the building did not have any fire suppression systems and were obviously violating the building / fire code. Had the building been properly up to code, the stairways would have had some sort of protective lining that would have allowed the tenants to safely pass through a path leading to the exterior of the building. A feature that many of the Cooke County buildings lacked. There was also a lack of adequate ventilation shafts that would have allowed the smoke to exit into the ceilings of the building in order to prevent the asphyxiation of the tenants who were evacuating. The lack of fire sprinklers on every floor, since it was not required by the building code, also prevented the immediate arrest of the small scale conflagrations within the building. These are but a few of the fire safety problems that the building had, but went ignored and uncorrected for some reason. This type of coordination problem and disaster can be better avoided in the future if the building and fire codes are better planned and implemented as a part of the municipal fire codes. Every building must be required to install fire suppression mechanisms which will also be regularly inspected and tested for functionality. Had the building in question been better equipped with sprinklers and automated doors, the loss of lives and property may have been minimized. The rules to make sure that the buildings are safe during fires are in place. What is lacking is proper implementation of the guidelines. In an effort to offer better protection to the citizens of Chicago and Illinois, it will also serve the building and fire code commission to update their governing regulations in order to keep up with the times. This also means updating the communications services and training coordination of the firefighters with property managers. Fire drills and documentation of training procedures should become a regular fixture of preparedness drills. This will require proper documentation of the municipal areas along with regularly scheduled fire drills and exercises for the building tenants and employees tasked with fire prevention and containment in high rise buildings. These procedures should be submitted to the firefighters as soon as required or kept on file at the local government unit governing the fire department. At the end of the review, it became evident that it behooves the state to require all building operators and managers to have a duly licensed or certified fire safety director along with a small team of in-house firefighters who will coordinate with the fire station dispatchers and firefighters. Read More