Close Calls: Automatic Alarm in Sports Stadium

On Feb. 4, 2017, at 2328 hrs, the University of Maryland Security Operations Center (SOC) received the first of multiple fire alarm activations through the university’s Keltron Alarm Monitoring System. Dispatchers immediately contacted the Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Public Safety Communications (PSC), and E812 of the College Park Volunteer Fire Department (CPVFD) Co. 812 of the Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department (PGFD) was alerted to respond for the automatic fire alarm at the Xfinity Center.

Structure and surroundings

The University of Maryland Xfinity Center (formally Comcast Center) is best known as the official home of the university’s Division 1 basketball programs. It is currently one of the largest Division 1 basketball arenas in the country with a capacity of 17,950. Game day occupancies of more than 20,000 are common when taking into account the support staff members who work game days.

Completed in 2002, the facility is a combination of Type I and Type II construction with irregularly shaped dimensions of 550 x 600 feet. Officially, the building has five “floors” of space, but its tallest point is 98 feet in height, roughly the equivalent of a 10-story structure. The facility is currently valued at $194,755,000.

The Xfinity Center also has a large administrative wing that houses most Intercollegiate Athletics (ICA) operations for the University. Coaching and facilities support staff for nearly all sports are based out of the center. There are also several smaller venues within this wing of the building where volleyball, wrestling and gymnastics competitions occur.

The facility is protected by an automatic fire alarm system consisting of notification and detection devices. This alarm is monitored 24/7 by the University of Maryland SOC staff who have a direct line to the County PSC. A majority of the building (with the exception of the highest areas directly over the arena floor where activation is highly unlikely) is protected by an automatic sprinkler system. The building is equipped with a Class I standpipe system with risers located in all stairwells as well as intermediate riser locations to meet the travel distance requirements. There is a smoke evacuation system split into three zones that uses HVAC equipment to exhaust smoke. Further, the building is equipped with a fire control center where all functions of the building—fire alarm, sprinkler, smoke evacuation, emergency generator, elevator, security and HVAC—report to a central location to facilitate response.

Firefighters have drilled and trained on this complex structure numerous times and are all very familiar with it.

Fire response

The call initially came in as an automatic fire alarm, which, by policy, sends a single engine company as a “local” alarm. Engine 812—responding from Station 812, located on campus—responded with five personnel.

E812 arrived within 3 minutes of dispatch of the local alarm for the automatic fire alarm. They took the usual position at the loading dock service entrance in a position to secure their own hydrant and connections. The Fire Control Room is located at this entrance.

The crew entered the building and noted the information from the Fire Alarm Control Panel. There is an exterior entrance directly into this room, so they had not entered the main structure yet. Upon entering the service corridor leading into the main building, a strong odor of smoke was present. 

The E812 officer in command (OIC) contacted PSC and requested to upgrade to a street alarm based on these conditions. This called in E811B (Branchville), TK814 (Berwyn Heights), TK834 (Chillum Adelphi) and Battalion Chief (BO) 886. (Note: The B in E811B refers to a second-due piece of apparatus out of that particular firehouse.)

The incident was switched to channel TG8A11. E812 advised on TG8A11 that they had their own hydrant and connections at the loading dock and established tactical command. Tactical command ensures that there is clearly a fire officer in command but allows that officer to be mobile at the same time, prior to the arrival of a chief officer. There is always a chief officer assigned and responding. 

Chief 812—Chief Bill Corrigan of the College Park Volunteer Fire Department—arrived next, as the E812 officer (Tactical Command) was attempting to provide his first update from the interior.

Due to known issues with repeated radio talk groups, Chief 812 advised E812 to switch to TG8A15 and advised PSC that he would establish the “Xfinity Center Command” at the loading dock. Command advised PSC that units operating on the interior would need to utilize TG8A15 and that the command would be monitoring both talk groups.

On TG8A15, E812 OIC advised that he had heavy smoke conditions in the 0100 section of the building (nearly 500 feet from their point of initial entry) with a sprinkler water flow. E812 had not yet located the seat of the fire. Command relayed this information to PSC, and at 2339 hrs, Chief 812 requested to fill out the remainder of the box alarm. This sent E807B (Riverdale), E801, SQ801 (Hyattsville), BO884 and A812B.

Less than one minute later, E812 advised command that they had gained entry into Room 0105—a large mechanical room 150 x 75 feet with a 32-foot-tall ceiling—and advised they had near zero visibility with heavy smoke conditions in that room. Being familiar with the size of that space and with that updated information, command requested at 2342 hrs that the working fire dispatch be filled out as it was becoming obvious there was a significant fire somewhere in that section of the building. The working fire dispatch provides additional precautionary fire and EMS support. This brought in Paramedic Engine 844 (Chillum) Truck 831 (Beltsville), Safety Officer 800, the Northern EMS Duty Officer, Medic 812, a volunteer safety officer and Rehab 800.

E812 reported that they were stretching their attack line (150 feet of 2-inch hoseline, with a 1 1/8-inch tip) from a corridor standpipe outlet. They had heavy smoke conditions with a water flow, and were still attempting to locate the fire.

E811B arrived next and positioned to reverse lay an additional supply line out from E812’s location. Their crew was assigned to assist in the 0100 section with advancing the initial attack line and stretching a backup line of their own.

TK814 arrived and was directed to position on side Charlie as opposed to side Alpha to allow for better access to the fire area. Their crew was directed to report to the 0100 section to support the engine company operations. Their exterior crew placed the aerial ladder to the highest portion they could reach and then began coordinating initial ventilation operations.

BO886 was the next arriving command officer and was assigned to be the Division 1 supervisor. He was assigned E812, E811B, TK814 and TK834 to work under him in the fire area.

TK834 arrived and was also directed to position on side Charlie. They placed their aerial ladder to the upper concourse balcony area and the crew was directed to report to the 0100 section as well to assist. The exterior crew assisted TK814 with initial ventilation efforts.

E807B was directed to secure an additional water supply and connections in Parking Lot PP at the typical main patron entrance to the building on side Alpha. The crew was sent to the upper levels of the building to begin assessing smoke conditions. PE844 on the working fire dispatch was assigned to assist them with this task with their apparatus in a position to assist E807B.

E801 was directed to position out of the way at the loading dock and to establish the initial rapid-intervention crew (RIC) at the large roll-up door entrance.

SQ801 positioned in the upper parking lot and their crew was assigned to begin a primary search in the areas around the fire room. All searches of the building were negative.

BO884 was the next arriving command officer and was assigned the “ventilation group” to begin coordinating the enormous task of ventilation. After his initial survey noted a significant smoke condition within the large arena area itself, command requested that PSC contact several area resources to determine the availability of an air boat to assist.

TK831 was directed to position at the loading dock entrance and marry up with E801 to complete the RIC group at the roll-up door entrance. Once RIC was disbanded their crew assisted with ventilation operations.

The Prince George’s County Volunteer Services Deputy Fire Chief assisted at the command post upon his arrival. 

A request had been made to contact the air boat resources in the region to see who was available to assist with ventilation. It was quickly confirmed that Air Boat 856 was en route and available to assist the ventilation group. It would take them about an hour to arrive and get set up, as they were coming from Baden, MD. During that downtime, the companies operating were working on ventilating where they could with the fans on site and the building’s smoke evacuation system, doing what they could to minimize the water damage and mopping up the fire area. When Air Boat 856 arrived, it was positioned at the large roll-up door and was used to assist with ventilation for approximately 45 minutes.

Overview of fire and fire area

The fire was ultimately located in a secured storage unit measuring 25 x 40 feet within the building’s main mechanical room. This storage area was isolated from the remainder of the room by a 10-foot chain-link style partition with a rolling gate/door assembly that was padlocked in the locked position during the fire. There was no ceiling in this space, and it was open to the concrete deck 32 feet above. The room had a U-shaped arrangement of steel shelving units around the perimeter that were 12 feet in height. There was an additional row of shelving units running down the center of the room and one more row on the outside of the fenced-in enclosure. 

The shelving units contained a wide array of materials used to support building operations, including HVAC filters, paints and stains, and seatbacks and cushions. The total height of storage in this space was approximately 20 feet prior to the fire.

The fire originated near floor level in the corner underneath of one of the storage racks. The point of origin was on top of a wooden pallet believed to have contained paint and solvent materials. The fire extended vertically onto the upper shelves that contained an unknown number of padded seat assemblies for the arena. Once the plastic seat assemblies became involved, the fire began extending to the adjoining racks before the building’s automatic sprinkler system began to catch up with the fire spread and was ultimately successful in extinguishing the fire.

The burn pattern was the full floor to ceiling height of 32 feet and measured 16 feet across at its widest point. There was spalling of concrete along several points of the vertical pattern, and there were two distinct areas of concrete spalling along the ceiling level suggesting that fire rollover was beginning to occur prior to the sprinklers beginning to catch up.

Eleven sprinkler heads—200-degree, intermediate temperature, standard response—activated during the fire. An analysis of the sprinkler design calculations for this section of the building showed that the system was calculated for a worst-case scenario fire of a 12-sprinkler head activation. This fire was right at the brink of overrunning the fire suppression capabilities of the sprinkler system.

The smoke evacuation system worked well for the areas covered by it (main arena, administration side atrium, concourses), but there was a significant smoke condition in the service and mechanical areas of the building, which was where the seat of the fire was located. A lot of this area has ceiling heights in excess of 30 feet with large open areas. These areas aren't serviced by the smoke evacuation system, so they needed some help beyond what the normal fans could do.

Incident observations

The following observations were compiled after speaking with Chief Bill Corrigan.

First-due officer

The OIC from E812 did a very good job of setting up the first few minutes of this incident. The request for additional resources based on the initial odor of smoke found was made immediately. One recommendation would be to consider skipping over the street alarm request and go directly to upgrading to a box alarm when presented with a very strong odor of something burning, particularly when dealing with a structure of this size and complexity.

Consider: Does your department have box alarms and/or alarm assignments? Can your personnel “strike” a second alarm, a third alarm, etc., with preplanned apparatus and station assignments based upon the predicted need? Are your mutual-aid/multi-alarm assignments set up based upon the fire, those having the fire and those fighting the fire?

Know your buildings

There is no substitution for institutional knowledge of large, complex facilities. Knowing where to go and how to get there quickly and efficiently were critical to the overall successful outcome of this incident. The OIC from E812 was able to steer this incident from a local alarm to the point of the working fire dispatch. Within six minutes of arrival, the engine crew was able to perform initial investigation, upgrade the call and narrow down a specific area of the building where the fire was, an area well removed from their initial point of entry through the Fire Control Room. 

Consider: What are the qualifications and experience of those riding the front seat of your apparatus? Do they and the crew really know their first-due areas? Have they done preplans and walk-throughs so that when the fire happens, they exclaim, “Hey, we know this place!” instead of “Whoa, I didn't know THAT existed here!” This is a great reminder to get out of the firehouse and into the streets. 

Incident command structure 

Unit officers and personnel did a very good job of relaying information through Division and Group supervisors once they were established. There was very little communication directly between command and individual companies. 

Consider: Determine WHAT the incident command system is used for your area and make sure all departments know it. That includes classroom training but also hands-on, scenario-based training well before the skills are required.  

Crew integrity

Crew Integrity was excellent during this operation. While many of the special services (rescue and truck companies) did split crews into their different functions, they maintained excellent accountability as they split. While this is important on all incidents, it is critical when dealing with such a large area and when radio communications were more limited than we are accustomed to. 

Consider: We recently read a NIOSH report about a firefighter who was found in the basement of a house, drowning in water from the fire. No one knew he was even missing. It's 2017! There have been enough horror stories leading to dead firefighters that we should have solved issues of crew integrity and freelancing. How is it solved? Policy and training that’s based on the policy. That policy should be regional so that everyone operating at everyone else’s fires should know what to do and how to do it by being fully trained on the policy.   

Radio system

According to Corrigan, while the radio system has proven to provide excellent signal strength and coverage, there are known areas, especially well below grade and within large structures, where signal coverage drops. The Xfinity Center, and the exact area of the building where this fire was located, was known to be one of these places since before the roll out of the new radios when first-due companies went out and performed signal strength analyses. It is important to ensure that these areas with signal strength issues are more widely known and shared.

Personnel with portable radios are often unfamiliar with operating with the TGx15 “talk-around” features. There is no audible tone when the radio is keyed up, but one must still wait 1-2 seconds before beginning to speak. Often the first few words of a radio transmission were cut off as personnel did not wait to speak. 

Consider: Know HOW to use your radios and know where the system weaknesses are. How? Get out, get out, get out! Drill, practice and train. Find the deepest, largest area buildings and test the radios. Just as members must be SCBA-qualified, members must be radio-qualified as well. 

Smoke control/smoke survival

Personnel operating within large structures like this should be mindful of controlling smoke spread to minimize the impacts and efforts required for ventilation. The two wings of the Xfinity Center are designed to segregate themselves during a fire situation to minimize smoke travel, but several doors were propped open early that did not need to be, allowing for smoke spread between the wings. 

Consider: This is a great reminder to conduct personal and company drill-type research on managing the smoke, door control as well as "cold smoke" and the risk it poses for firefighters.

Additionally, when operating in large areas, big boxes and other lengthy stretch/search/operation areas, it is life-critical that command and those operating be ever mindful of SCBA use, time and distance. While your SCBA may last you 10-15 minutes, if it takes you 15 minutes to go deep into the structure, you are immediately in serious trouble and can die. The first-arriving company officer(s)—in coordination with command and preplans—must ensure that members operating know the plan so that they are able to get out, with sufficient air to survive.

Use your communication center personnel as well for this critical task. Set the CAD-based timer for 10 minutes when command is established and advise command EVERY 10 minutes how far they are into the incident. If in the first 10 minutes, crews are inside but have not yet reached, attacked and knocked down the fire, you may consider altering your approach and deploying an alternative strategy.

Fire salvage

Salvage is becoming a lost art in the fire service. This fire placed a huge burden on the automatic sprinkler system, as it has been determined that more than 9,100 gallons of water were discharged. The fire area was near the tunnel entrance to the main arena floor, and units were not concerned with controlling water damage until directed to do so. There were no special service units on the scene and none of the on scene units had squeegees available to assist with diverting water away from the floor area. Ultimately, through some creative efforts, crews were successful in stopping the water about 10 feet short of the main arena hardwood floor and preventing a much greater loss to the facility. 

Consider: Fire salvage has a great history. Actual staffed fire salvage corps started in the early 19^th century with personnel specifically assigned to perform salvage duties. As North American cities grew, fire insurance companies in many cities established these firefighting supplemental services to reduce the losses, saving the fire insurance companies larger payouts. As time went on, insurance companies stopped funding these corps, having the local fire department perform salvage. And yes, to this day, we have to do it! While all our usual tasks are critical, protecting personal and business property is an important function of fireground operations. 

Time of day

Personnel must look at how this incident unfolded and compare to how it could have unfolded during a different time frame. Fortunately, the building was unoccupied at the time of the fire, but only a few hours prior to the fire, there were more than 20,000 people in the building. Evacuation would have become a top priority and, realistically, the entire first-alarm assignment or greater would have been sacrificed to ensuring the full evacuation of the arena. Building evacuation would undoubtedly have started prior to crews’ arrival, and personnel would have to contend with thousands of spectators exiting while simultaneously trying to get in through the same points of egress. EMS demands would have been high, as there would almost certainly be medical issues arising from evacuating a crowd of this size through a smoke condition. This incident occurring when the building was at full occupancy would have placed a huge burden on even the most robust of response systems. 

Consider: Think about some buildings in your response area having a fire—and then having that same fire at a different time of day (e.g., the movie theater at 0500 hrs and that same theater at 2000 hrs on a Saturday night). What’s your plan? What is your KNOWN staffing? What are your policies? Think now about your alarm assignments and how do they apply based upon time of day, known occupancy changes and your known staffing and available resources.

In sum

This incident is a classic “Close Call” in that everything went right—but it was just at the tipping point, where everything could have changed in an instant. Eleven sprinkler heads activated on a fire that was calculated for a worst-case scenario of 12 heads activating. The fire nearly overran the suppression capabilities, meaning firefighters would have been in for a potentially significant fire fight in a unique structure with known radio issues. Fortunately, the crews handled the situation with the utmost professionalism to protect the facility and, ultimately, their safety.

My thanks to College Park Volunteer Fire Chief Bill Corrigan, Prince George’s County Fire Chief Ben Barksdale, Fire Chief (ret.) Mark Bashoor, Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Chief Spokesperson Mark Brady, all personnel operating on this scene and in the PSC Center for their assistance in this article. Also, thanks to the quick work by all companies involved, University of Maryland Athletics was able to host a televised Big 10 gymnastics competition 12 hours later!

Sidebar: About College Park VFD and PGFD

Prince George’s County is a diverse community bordering the eastern edges of Washington, DC. It has a population of just under 900,000 people in 499 square miles.

The Prince George’s County Fire and EMS Department (PGFD) responded to more than 140,000 calls for service last year. PGFD consists of some all-volunteer staffed fire/EMS companies, some all-career staffed fire/EMS companies and some fire/EMS companies that have a mix of career and volunteer staffing.

While volunteer personnel may belong to a particular volunteer company, they are all members of PGFD with a single integrated, combination command structure. Volunteer fire officers who meet the required qualifications may also serve as county battalion chiefs, volunteer safety officers, volunteer division chiefs and many other roles as well. All of this falls under the command of the county fire chief. 

The College Park Volunteer Fire Department (CPVFD), Station 812 of the PGFD, has career county fire/EMS staffing Monday–Friday from 0700–1500 hrs, and then the volunteer firefighters and EMTs of Co. 812 staff at all other times.

Company 812 has two engines, a foam unit, a hazmat support unit, a ladder truck and three BLS ambulances. A county paramedic ambulance is staffed 24/7 by two county career firefighter/paramedics in station 812 as well. Staffing is in quarters, and there is no home or off-site response, as is the case throughout the county.

The CPVFD responds to approximately 4,000 calls annually with an average of 60 of those being working fires. The CPVFD is under the command of Volunteer Fire/EMS Chief Bill Corrigan who also serves as a county volunteer division chief.

Station 812 is located on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park. Located directly above the apparatus bays, their well-known "sackroom" is designed like a campus dormitory.

Following national recruitment, each semester, 24 full-time student volunteer firefighter/EMTs live in the sackroom. In exchange for their housing, they are assigned to duty shifts. While they can ride as many calls as they like, their duty shift is the only required riding time. As the core of their operations, each student volunteer makes several hundred responses per semester. They serve in all capacities, including firefighter, EMT, ambulance driver, engine driver, truck driver, line officer and staff officer. 

The sackroom has 12 two-person, fully furnished dormitory-style rooms. Each pair of rooms is joined by a common bathroom. The rooms are carpeted, furnished, have free cable TV, free high-speed Internet and an advanced alerting system so the members never miss a call. At either end of the sackroom are brass fire poles to ensure a quick response to the apparatus fleet below.

The station is located across the street from the University of Maryland’s engineering quad, home of the world-famous fire protection engineering program. The entire campus is within easy walking distance from the firehouse.

For more information go to CPVFD.org as well as princegeorgescountymd.gov.