highrise building drills/exercise

[axeman]

i'm not from canada, but from asian country. we conduct highrise building exercise weekly. lately, we had fire crew and duty officer from other boundaries to take part in these exercises, instead of those who are in the jurisdiction of that highrise building boundary.

i feel that this defeat the purpose of highrise exercises or drills. arent these meant for those in the said boundary to be familiar with the types of buildings they will face?

we should not bring in those from other stations or boundaries into taking part in the highrise buildings exercises.

how are these conducted in canada? what's behind the purpose of the highrise drills?

i've read something on houston fire department, where their purpose is for the fire station in that boundary to be familiar with the buildings and experience first-hand on any difficulties they might face in a real incident in that building.

[bfrd22]

Axeman: While I agree with you 100% that the Fire Dept haveing Jurisdiction absolutly needs to be familiar with the buildings in thier area (pre incident planning). I'm also a big believer that when it comes to major structures, inviting along a neighboring dept to participate in the odd exersize is also beneficial.

Training for the other dept or at least familiarizaton exersizes is great for near by stations, Honestly in most cases a mojor incident (esp highrise, or large populated buildings). Your going to need all the help you can get. And if they have an understanding of what is expected and how your teams do things it will only assist in expiditing a smooth incident.

Personally Jursdictions bug the heck out of me, Standard operating areas are great for assignments. but some departments are so hung up on jurisdiction that they are willing to endanger life and property to maintian it.

Share your knowlege and work with your neighbors. Never be reluctant to call for assist, You can always turn it back if you don't need it but valuble time can be lost if you call out after you realize you needed it.

[Jay74]

I agree, just cause one jurisdiction doesnt have high rises doesnt mean they shouldnt be included in the training. Knowledge is wealth....and participating in any kind of training is benefit to everyone. My point is that just cause there is no high rises in their response areas there maybe a point where they have to respond into an area with highrises such as your area. With the knowledge and training of high rises under their belts these guys will be confident in their abilities to lend a hand. I know if i was responding to a high rise and i had no training in such then the self confidence would'n t be as high as if i had prior training in the such subject. Axe you shouldnt be so reluctant to share your training with other depts or stations, part of being professional is sharing ideas and theories with others, im sure the other crews have knowledge and experience in areas where your crew isnt so adapt, its all about sharing all the information you can, thats what being professional is all about.

[axeman]

thanx for replying. but allow me to make things clearer.

station 1 is in the city where there are practically thousands of highrise buildings. every monday morning, at about 0600hrs, station 1's fire crew will conduct highrise exercise together with fire crew from other fire stations.

however, lately (since a year back), station 1 fire crew has been excused from all these exercise and instead other fire stations were the ones who actually became the first turnout crew to these exercises. so what happens to the involvement of station 1? i was told, they now are the highrise consultants. i was thinking...what the hell is going on?

what's bothering me are:

1. the exercises simulate fire incident during a peacetime scenario and NOT wartime. that means, should there be a fire, station 1 will be the MOST likely fire crew to attend first to the incident.

2. the officer commanding of the station 1, holds this appointment on a 2-year rotation basis. which means that, some other senior officer will take this appointment at the end of the 2year tour of duty. so, if the officer commanding is being excused from such exercises, how the hell can he be familiar when a real incident occur?

3. nobody should be regarded as an expert when comes to highrise. simply becos, there are NO two fires that are the same.

4. these exercises were conducted in the early morning to prevent disruption to tenant of the buildings. but i find this, stupid. fire can occur anytime. the worst, will be during lunch hour. because that will be when, the movement of peole is heavy, traffic is heavy, occupancy of building is at peak. so only by doing an exercise during a normal working hours, that the participating fire crew can experience a similar chaos and problems should an actual fire incident occur.

i do support the idea of knowledge sharing. i'm certaily not against it. but taking station 1 out from being involved in highrise exercise when these buildings are obviously in their jurisdiction, i absolutely disagree. how could the fire crew learned by just merely observing.? it's total crap.

comments please.

[Red_Devil]

thousands of high rises? jeez man what country do you live in, how big is your response area? , what i think they are getting at is your station 1 crew knows the area well, so they most likely dont need as much training as our stations who have no high rise training at all

[Michael13]

I think no matter what station you work in, you should be exposed to the training. We are a volly department and I have toured some buildings a far away as 3 towns over. If the fire is big enough we will be there. We dont have anything higher than 3 stories but lots of nursing homes and hospitals that have many imobile people in them. And I dont want to open wounds but I dont think some of the FF's that say came from the Bronx had ever toured the WTC as much as guys whose station were down the street. I'm sure there were alot of Ff's who didnt know the WTC as well as some others. Training always helps.

[axeman]

i live in singapore. our central district area is pretty congested with highrise buildings..condominiums, commercials, offices and hotels. here, any buildings of more than 20m habitable height are regarded as highrise.

response area will be within 8minutes.

a little more about myself. i am a fire safety consultant and used to be commander of a 30-strong fire crew of a fire station. but my stay was only a year long. eversince then, i had been posted to my current job/appointment as a consultant.