Develop a smart risk management plan before entering big-box structures

Appropriate risk assessment and management are the keys to safety and survival, whether we're working at the task, tactical or strategic level. This is never truer than when responding to commercial (big-box) structures or vacant property. In commercial firefighting, evaluating internal and external factors and comparing them is paramount to limiting unnecessary risks. Recently we've seen initial attack crews make far better decisions due to a greater understanding of how to evaluate these risks, and more company officers have been willing to make the tough choices. In this month's column, I want to discuss appropriate risk-management plans.

RMP: Your Key to Safety

The 20-minute rule is outdated. Modern, lightweight buildings will only burn for 16–17 minutes before collapsing.

Part of any risk management plan (RMP)-for residential or commercial fires-includes deciding whether to enter the structure. Once command makes the decision to go in, they must also decide whether to stay in. The decision to stay is every bit as important as the one made to enter in the first place. This decision must be made using information gathered from the outside, then balanced and verified against what initial attack crews find on the inside. These two views are critical to correctly identifying conditions and provide the basis for continuing the attack plan or changing it. Any surprise found on the interior-smoke, heat, arrangement or fire volume-should cause initial attackers to re-evaluate the whole operation. The RMP provides the foundation for these decisions and actions at any event. Our ability to safely intervene is directly connected to this plan. The RMP is quite simple:

• We will risk a lot to protect and save a savable life.
• We will risk a little to protect savable property.
• We will not take any risk to protect lives or property that are already lost.

The trick here isn't in the words, but there is a trick (and a good one) to applying the RMP, and our lives depend on getting it right. 

We often view commercial firefighting as far more dangerous than residential fires, and it is. Despite the increased risks, it's no more acceptable for firefighters to die in commercial fires than house fires. In fact, with respect to the RMP, dying in vacant commercial property is in direct conflict with the RMP's simple language. Why do we sometimes risk so much for so little? The answer is not so obvious, but a discussion might shed some light on the causes of firefighter fatalities in commercial firefights and will give us some basis to prevent many of these fatalities in the future.

Consider the reasons and ways we engage in big-box fires. If our fireground activities focus on the tactical priorities of search and rescue, fire control and property conservation, we need to be clear about why we fight offensively in these structures and what we can realistically accomplish. Keeping our tactical priorities in mind, the precision it takes to make good RMP decisions regarding commercial firefighting in part comes from fireground experience, however there are several things an incident commander (IC) can count on regarding these kinds of structures. The following is a discussion of those considerations.

Risk & Commercial Building Fires

Describing the activities that occur inside a structure during the first couple minutes of commercial firefighting helps us determine how much we should risk. If we follow the RMP in commercial firefights, we risk a little to save property. There are exceptions for sure; a mayday is one of them. But in general, we must conduct offensive commercial firefighting within the framework of the second RMP component: Risk only a little to save property.

Mismanaging air supplies, extending work cycles, traveling excessive distances, spending too much time battling access problems, failing to recognize weird looking smoke or fire behavior and failing to recognize the amount of fire involvement are not little risks. It's important to remember that risking a little does not mean conducting firefights timidly. In fact, timid offensive actions can be as dangerous as staying offensive when conditions dictate a change to defensive tactics. Commercial fires require well-thought-out attack plans (within the RMP) and aggressive fire-attack crews. Fight big-box offensive fires with little risk in an aggressive fashion, and change to defensive actions if conditions worsen.

There are good reasons to take this approach. Recent testing by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and others suggests that buildings create deadly conditions (smoke and heat) and fail far more quickly (gravity) than once believed. For example, a test conducted in Phoenix in a commercial building suggests the 20-minute rule is outdated, or worse, may always have been inaccurate. Today's buildings are built faster with less material and more technology. They burn hotter and faster. Even older structures, such as the one used in the Phoenix test, failed after burning for somewhere between 16 and 17 minutes. The roof collapsed in a huge chunk and would have killed anyone inside. The time it takes to recognize, dispatch, respond, deploy and then attack a fire can put us in the wrong place at the right time, particularly if fire conditions were initially misread. Adding ill-advised and time-consuming search patterns turns the good to bad and the bad to ugly in a hurry.

Search & Rescue

Any condition-smoke, heat, fire or arrangement-that drives firefighters to their hands and knees has already killed any unprotected occupants and is fixing to do the same to us. We use hand searches (feel techniques), tag lines and pattern or wall searches in large areas to compensate for visibility problems. These methods might make sense in residential fires, but lose value in big boxes. In fact, the use of blind searches in large commercial spaces is ridiculous. By the time firefighters complete a blind search in a large structure, they'll have been inside the building far too long for any unprotected persons (those not turned out or wearing SCBAs) to survive. Crews should exit the building or change the conditions (put the fire out and do it quickly.) If search conditions are ridiculous, then rescue conditions are even more perilous. We need to avoid using the search of a commercial structure as an excuse or reason for losing one of our own. We should also avoid the "rescue alibi": the excuse that we stayed inside a large, dangerous building too long in order to rescue someone who was likely dead before our search began. It's a pretty simple concept: Any operations that require firefighters to risk a lot in these structures are far too dicey to expect unprotected people to survive, with or without intervention. This leads us back to the RMP and why we enter commercial structures.

Fighting Bad Habits

Standard condition: A big fire that was well-advanced upon arrival. Standard action: defensive strategy. Standard outcome: Fire consumes what was burning.

If you think about it, most fires end using the strategy we employed at the beginning. Offensive fires generally end with offensive conclusions. (This is true primarily because the majority of fires we fight are residential.) But consistently staying with initial actions will eventually result in staying with a losing position too long on the fireground. At times, this bad habit will cause an offensive conclusion to a firefight that should have been fought defensively at some point. This is also true of large structures. Firefighters are not suffering traumatic injuries or death on defensive fires while maintaining defensive positions. They are lost holding offensive positions under defensive conditions, even if those conditions were offensive to begin with.

Don't underestimate the time it takes and discipline required to abandon offensive positions once established. IC's must be proficient at making this call as a final safety net for workers in the hazard zone. It's rare to see a company officer or worker who doesn't believe they are capable of doing more with less risk than the boss believes is safe to do. This is because the IC's position and function are different than those of interior working crews; this different perspective contributes to the power of the IMS. Although the IC's external, stationary position presents low personal risk, they have a great deal of responsibility for the overall safety of hazard-zone workers. It should be no surprise to anyone that command tends to be more pessimistic about how long we should hold positions than those getting their noses bloodied. In every boxing match, there should be someone near the ring to thrown in the towel if conditions require it. This should be someone with a firm grip on logic and much concern for the fighter-preferably someone with experience and not directly getting punched himself. Every boxer needs this corner man if for no other reason than to save him from getting his noodle knocked off. This is particularly true if he cannot do so without help. This is the only way the ring fighter will have an opportunity to fight again. (Boxers who have fought too many close fights tend to suffer multiple disabilities down the road.)

In a firefight, the IC has the final responsibility for making sure this gets done. Better to pull out too early from a bad position than to pull out too late. A good general command rule is, "When the building disappears in defensive conditions (i.e., lots of fire and the products of combustion), the building is destined to burn." When these conditions exist, there is no acceptable reason to stay with a bad plan (an offensive one). These decisions tend to cause officers-particularly the newer ones-the most difficulty. In the absence of absolute certainty, change to a defensive position if you're considering it at all. In these cases, the safety and welfare of all scene participants falls on the shoulders of officers who have enough confidence to avoid the hysteria that can result from the decision to switch from an offensive fight to a defensive one. 

Sucker Punches & Red Flags

There is nothing particularly special about a sucker punch. It's not necessarily one that is thrown well or even harder. What defines a sucker punch is the element of surprise. In firefighting, especially commercial fires that result in firefighting fatalities, we commonly hear the event described as a sucker punch. There is a connection between our ability to avoid getting sucker punched and being able to read and react to red flags. In commercial buildings, there are many potential red flags (things that just don't look right or things that are not standard), e.g., multiple knockdowns and multiple offensive attacks during the same fire, in the same building. This is just one red flag, which if unnoticed or not addressed, can result in extended work cycles, poor air management or worse: building collapse. What starts as a red flag, might end up as a sucker punch. Example: "We had knocked the fire down several times in the attic (red flag), then the roof collapsed suddenly (sucker punch)." This is not to say that all building collapses fire early warning shots, but sometimes they do, and when they do we should react appropriately. Many times a sucker punch comes when a "critical unknown" suddenly becomes the most important factor on the fireground. One example that comes to mind is a strange building layout (footprint) that makes it difficult for crews to identify the travel and extent of the fire. This happened at the supermarket fire that claimed the life of one of our firefighters. The structure's difficult arrangement and crews' inability to locate the fire in the dangerous building was a missed red flag that resulted in a sucker punch. In general, when things don't go right or as expected, look for the red flag and save yourself the pain of being sucker punched. All sucker punches hurt.

Summary

When we are risking a lot to save lives, we understand that this is an offensive firefight. It doesn't get anymore offensive than that. When we have made a decision to risk nothing, we understand that we are operating defensively. In commercial firefighting, it's less clear (but shouldn't be) that when offensive conditions exist, we are almost always operating within the framework of the second RMP element, risking a little. (I talked about the exception, and if we do this right, it's very rare.) If we are not saving a life, we need to be honest about why we are inside, and adjust our risk to match our goals. Putting fires out from interior positions-even in big boxes-is a good thing. We should do it when it makes sense. When we take on big-box structures, however, we should do it on our terms.

John H. Hinton has been with the Phoenix Fire Department for more than 26 years and is currently a deputy chief and shift commander. His duties include training recruits and active firefighters.