PREFIRE PLANNING

Almost every book, article, and training session on size-up that I have read or attended taught that effective size-up begins with preplanning (before receipt of the alarm). Although many fire departments respond mainly to fires in single-family residential occupancies, we also respond to fires in commercial occupancies. Most departments do not have the resources to preplan every residential occupancy in their jurisdiction. Preplanning residential fires is a must (if that is where you fight fires). You must make generalizations concerning these residential occupancies. As an example, in Toledo, most houses are around 1,000 square feet per floor (which should provide an initial ideal rate of flow). Most were built before 1960, and the vast majority are of wood-frame platform construction. In the older parts of town, there are still many balloon-frame houses. Crews that work in these areas are aware of this and should know the telltale signs of balloon framing.

The Toledo Fire Department had prefire plans since I came on the job. All were for commercial buildings. Up until 10 or so years ago, all preplans were multipaged and dealt with construction, occupancy, built-in fire protection, floor plans, a multitude of other details, and first- and second-alarm initial assignments.

预案被分配到队长,divides them up by shift. Every Thursday (weather permitting), crews work on preplans. New buildings are assigned, and existing plans are reviewed. This is a continuous process. Over the past 10 years, we have developed short preplans as well as more voluminous full preplans. Short preplans contain essential initial information on the building including size, construction features, built-in fire protection, and the initial ideal rate of fire flow required. All companies and chief officers carry these plans. We hope to include the short preplans on our mobile data terminals (MDTs), eliminating the hard copies.