Recognizing and comprehending buildings of any vintage can be an intimidating and challenging task, which far too often gets relegated to a basic sound bite with questionable information in the context of rapidly evolving fireground incidents.
A greater understanding of occupancies with both knowledge and skill set development, structured around formal training, is essential for today’s fire officers, commanders and firefighters alike. On-the-job training often takes place whereby firefighters learn about, construction, systems and materials as a natural extension of firefighting operations.
Classroom training and seminars provide a solid foundation for education, but nothing takes the place of being in the streets learning about construction, engineering and dynamic risk assessment while in the elements of the built environment. Having been a strong advocate of getting companies into the field to understand the built environment of their response area, it was only a matter of time to find the right venue and location to take the classroom to the streets for a truly immersed educational offering.
At Firehouse World 2013 and with the unequivocal support of the late Chief Harvey Eisner, we provided the platform from which "Taking it to the Streets: San Diego and Buildings on Fire" was launched. Since that time, we have presented this program exclusively at Firehouse World and Firehouse Expo in Baltimore.
Accompanied by co-presenter John Fisher, a San Diego battalion chief, we presented a four-hour opportunity that began in the classroom and transitioned to the streets of San Diego and a surrounding 20-block area. San Diego’s historic Gaslamp Quarter provided the stage for an incredible opportunity to tour an amazing collection of occupancies dating from the mid-18th century to current times.
Incorporating the use of each student’s tablet or smart phone, we integrated the use of the Google Earth Application, satellite mapping and GPS locator mapping to enhance the educational experience, allowing the group to zoom onto a building’s roof, peer at different divisions and to get a Birdseye view while in the street. This integrated feature allowed for robust and insightful discussions and group interactions.
The traditional classroom presentation consisted of an overview of fundamental building anatomy, dynamic risk assessment benchmarks and indicators and reading the building criteria. This was followed by a short presentation of key building insights on the lecture route. The dynamic walking lecture and tour of prominent examples of Heritage Construction, Legacy, Conventional to Engineered and Hybrid structures representing a cross section of residential, commercial, and mixed occupancies provided an exceptional opportunity to observe first-hand key building conditions, precursors and adverse, questionable or deteriorated conditions that would be vital and significant observations during fireground operations.
The tour was not limited to just exterior observations, but included select pre-arranged interior tours of construction details, floor, support and perimeter wall details, URM and EQ resistant retrofitting and a wide variety construction condition in renovated, adapted and converted occupancies. The continued growth and construction evident in the metro area also provided extensive examples of podium construction, mixed use residential and commercial buildings, low and mid-rise construction and examples of buildings features and conditions around every corner that could fill a hard drive.
The exceptional and inimitable features that downtown San Diego provided are unmatched from many urban settings proving discussion points, dialog and mini-lecture presentations in the street directly in the shadows of the buildings and applicable features.
The primary goal of Taking it to the Streets was to provide an interactive learning environment in a field application to teach about building construction and building sciences within a defined curricula that could also be fluid and adaptive to the area buildings, features and conditions encountered on the tour route and to the questions, needs and experience levels of the participating students.
A key objective was to provide the participants with directed insights and enhanced skill sets to improve their assessment and comprehension process and correlating what they see on the fireground to address the seriousness, urgency and growth potential. Each participant, regardless of rank or department size, from West Coast to East Coast, left the program with new insights and perspectives on reading the building and understandings and gained knowledge that may be indispensable on a future fireground.
Your understanding of the building on the fireground is fundamental and mission critical. Consider joining us in San Diego at Firehouse World for an exceptional learning experience and skills development session unlike any building construction program you’ve attended.
CHRISTOPHER J. NAUM, SFPE, is a 39-year fire service veteran and a highly regarded national instructor, author, lecturer and fire officer. He focuses on building construction issues affecting the fire and emergency services. Naum is a technical consultant to the NIOSH Firefighter Fatality LODD Investigation and Prevention Program, a NFFF Firefighter Safety Advocate and formally served on the Board of Directors of the ISFSI and the IAFC Safety, Health & Survival section and faculty at the National Fire Academy. He is the executive producer of Buildingsonfire.com a site dedicated to building construction, adaptive fire command and firefighter safety. He can be contacted at [email protected].
