Taxpayer Size-Up Considerations Sheet
Fire Engineering Simulation
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Building Size Up: Some of this information would be common knowledge, based on your familiarity with the buildings in your area so make any changes needed to make this building match the ones in your district. For example, is there a cellar? Is the roof supported by wood joists or has it been renovated and is now supported by light weight steel truss? You decide.
As instructor, you decide how much of the size up the students should be told and what they need to discover for themselves. A good reference on Building Size Up is Chief Michael A. Terpak’s book Fireground Size-Up. Also, take a look at Strip Ventilation Tactics by Chief John W. Mittendorf. It will give you a few ideas for your simulation. For a good article on Backdraft and Flashover check out FLASHOVER AND BACKDRAFT: A Primer by Lt. Christopher Flatley.
Construction:
This is a 100’x 40’ one story taxpayer. A taxpayer is a building that was cheaply built to provide revenue for the building owner. It is typically occupied by several different occupancies and can run the entire length of the block. This building is ordinary construction with cement block stucco covered walls and wood joist supporting a wood roof covered with tarpaper roofing. You can choose to have a cellar or to have no cellar, whichever works best for your scenario and matches the buildings in your response area. There are no fire walls between occupancies and the interior walls are made of sheetrock and wood studs. There is rear access to the building, but the doors are typically tightly sealed and would be difficult to force. The renovation has combined several occupancies into one. Particle board covers the places where the new windows will be installed. The liquor store, real-estate office and pizza parlor still have utilities supplied to them but the vacant store does not. The inside of the vacant store is full of construction debris and stacked new construction elements and parts of the new dropped ceiling are not yet in place. There is a common cockloft connecting all of the occupancies.
Occupancy: There are 3 occupied portions of this taxpayer, a liquor store, a real-estate office and a pizza parlor. The rest of the building is unoccupied and under renovation. The renovation has resulted in one large unoccupied store. The other occupancies are closed as it is early Sunday morning.
Apparatus & Staffing: Base this on what you realistically will respond with. It will affect what you can do as well as how and when you do it.
Life Hazard: There should be no one in the building. You and your firefighters are the only life hazard. The rear door to the unoccupied store is open. Could that mean the local kids have gotten inside? Could this fire be the result of arson?
Terrain: The building is on level ground. The stores front on a two way street and cars are parked at the curb in front of the building. Both exposure B and D front on two way streets. The rear of the building, the C side, is an eight foot alley and behind the vacant store and on the D side there are some bags of construction debris.
Water Supply: Use your own conditions for this factor. If you have hydrants, use them if not, do what you would normally do. You will notice a blue hydrant in front of the building on the A/D side. If you do not have hydrants, tell your students to ignore it.
Auxiliary Appliances: There are no auxiliary appliances in the building.
Street conditions: The streets are dry, flat and there is no traffic due to the early hour. Cars are parked on the street. There is plenty of room for apparatus to set up on the A, B and D sides. There is no apparatus access on the C side.
Weather: It is a cold, clear, dry day in March. There is a no wind.
Exposures: Exposures A, B and D are the street. Exposure C is an eight foot alley between the taxpayer and two wood frame, stucco covered private dwellings.
Area: The building is 100’x 40’.
Location and extent of fire: Initially, the exact location of the fire is not evident. Smoke is coming out of openings in the particle board on the windows and smoke is seen inside the stores. A door is open in the rear of the vacant store and smoke is coming out of it. It looks as if this might be arson by vandals who got inside the building last night and started a fire. That, however, is not the case. The fire started in the pizza parlor. When he closed up, the owner accidentally left the oven on and the heat eventually ignited the wood paneling on the partition wall behind the oven. The fire went up the wall and into the cockloft where it ignited joists and the roof planks.
Time: This fire takes place Sunday morning before the stores open. There is not much traffic this early in the morning and as a result the fire burned for a while before it was noticed.
Height: The building is one story and the roof is easily accessible via portable ladders.
Special Considerations: The stores have been closed up since 10 PM the previous night and the work in the vacant occupancies stopped around 4 in the afternoon. The fire started as wood smoldering on the partition wall, penetrated to the wall studs and grew, spreading up into the cockloft. There the smoke filled the cockloft and now it is pushing down into all of the occupancies. All of the occupancies have smoke in them but the pizza parlor is heavily charged. Be careful, conditions are ripe for a backdraft in the pizza parlor. Venting the wrong windows could initiate one. The scenario is set up so that if you vent the pizza parlor windows or open its door before venting the roof over the pizza parlor you will get a backdraft. You can, however, vent the other store windows without a backdraft, but should you? You can bypass the backdraft by pressing the “2” key at the start of the scenario. This will allow you to vent the Pizza parlor without the ensuing backdraft.
Consider:
· What do you report to your dispatch and what help do you ask for? What do you do first?
· Do a 360 walk around?
o What info do you relay to the IC?
· Ladder the building?
o Where do you place your ladders?
o Do you use an aerial ladder or Platform?
· Vent the roof?
o Is the roof safe to work on?
· Force doors and vent windows?
o Which ones?
o What size line do you stretch and where do you place it?
o Stretch hose lines?
o How many lines will you need?
o Do you set up a large caliber stream?
· Shut the utilities?
· What about a RIT team?
· What doors need to be forced?
o Do you enter the back door of the vacant occupancy?
Necessary actions in no particular order:
· Transmit a preliminary signal to dispatch.
· Transmit progress reports to dispatch.
· Request assistance if necessary.
· Position your apparatus.
· Establish a water supply.
· Find the fire
· Decide on hose line size and nozzle.
· Stretch and position as many hose lines as needed.
o Locate, confine and then extinguish.
o Protect exposure with life hazard
o Protect exposure with most property value.
· Ladder the building as needed.
· Force entry to the building.
· Ventilate as needed
· Search for life. Is someone sleeping in the back room of the store or are kids inside?
· Treat victims if there are any.
· Overhaul the fire area.
· Leave the fire scene safe for occupants and the public when you leave.
· Shut down utilities as needed.
· Relieve firefighters as needed.
Certainly there are other considerations. Go to the forum and discuss them with others.
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Taxpayer Size-Up
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