I work in a 24 stories high building, floor 13 caught fire, they ordered to evacuate the building.

Was this the right procedure?
People in floors 24, 23 and 22 would be probably safer, I guess,going up to the rooftop than going down 20+ stories and passing by the smoke and problems at #13 besides getting in the middle of fireman and others while using the stairs.

In the worst case scenario you can always use a helicopter to rescue the people at the rooftop.

I went down without thinking about it but in retrospect most injuries were due to the evacuation rather than the actual fire.


What do you think about this?

eOk

How many people work on those floors, most rescue copters can only carry a few people at a time. If you have a shortage of choppers then your moving to slow if you lose control of the fire. If you have plenty of choppers then you may interfere with ground ops with all the trash the choppers will stir up, not to mention the down draft may actuall fan the fire under the proper conditions like a broke window.

I'm getting as close to the ground as possible. I think you did the right thing.

In addition, the updrafts from the fire makes it almost impossible to land on the roof of the building - ALWAYS go DOWN

If you are informed to leave, use the stairwells, The doors on the stairwells close automatley when the alarm is pulled or activated by a guard or the Fire Department. The stairwells are ment to be smoke free, unless the fire breaks thru the wall which are fire rated higher than the rest of the building. Alway use the stairwells if you can get to them.

IMHO going up is bad. Use the stairs and try and use the ones that are the farthest away from the fire.

I was in a similar situation in a 5 story building. A coffee pot or wiring (not sure which) caught fire on floor 2 or 3, and I was on 5. We could smell the smoke very strongly going down, so it might've been more of a problem with a larger, more ominous fire. I think going down is clearly the best.

One off-topic thought I had was that if it had been a chemical or biological attack on the inside of the building (such as explosion or ventilation system), going up might be a better choice depending on the current floor and the most-affected floor.

I'm a lT. in the FD. in the past I have been assigned to our highrise team. The right thing depends....

First a modern highrise is built with fire saftey in mind. If its sprinklerd they will put out or confine the fire to a small area. If its compartmentized the fire will not spread far. Most likely it has an open floor plan though.

You have two stairways most likely named "A" and "B". One will be for fire attack and one for evacuation. You should be told by the FD over the "PA" system or a fire warden if you building has them, which to use. As you found out firemen coming up and folks coming down in the same is not good.....

The Fd will often have you shelter in place depending on the size of the fire, type of building, occupancy , use, number of floors etc.The basic is to evac. 2 floors above and 2 floors below as a start. Again based upon the fire, building ect.

Roof top ? Can you even open the door to it ? In Chicago a few years ago 4 people died at the top of the stairs.

Some stairways have smoke towers in them does yours ?? You should know. Those are made for you to use as they vent the smoke in a seperate passage.

What do you do in fire drills ? What do they tell you about sheltering in place Vs. leaving ?

The biggest error I see is people leaving via in the attack stairway.

Since they told sll to evac. I see that as the right thing, as that is what you were told.

Opening the door to the roof is something we my do to vent smoke, heat,and gasses. But the stairway must be clear of people and we would post guys to make sure. For a worker to do this could kill people trying to go down those stairs and now have smoke,heat gasses in the stairway.


A highrise fire makes the news because it RARE .The "big" highrise fires one sees on the news are almost always a case of the sprinkler system being turned off or otherwise not working correctly . That is THE ONE most important factor in your safety at work.

Depends entirely on building construction. Generally, if you're above the fire floor, you have trouble, but don't count on a Helo rescue. That's stuff from the movies.

In a properly designed building, escape stairs are properly isolated from a fire floor. You do NOT want to be above a fire!

Just to give you a sense of how a well constructed & fireproofed building can withstand a fire (and the WTC was NOT - I repeat NOT well constructed or fireproofed) consider this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7-_fxHJB3U

And now consider that the fire DID NOT jump up to consume all floors, and the smoke doors worked to keep the evacuation routes clear.

First of all thanks for the nice responses, I'm learning a lot
Now a little background:

This takes place in South America in a building with European style construction that in my opinion has as many security flaws as you can ever see.

24 floors about 4 to 6 apartments per floor
There is no fire alarm
There is no fire system at all
We are in the last floor with access to the roof top (we have a swimming pool and grill up here)
We have 4 elevators with automatic doors
Only 1, repeat only 1 stairs

We could smell the smoke here and then one of the building janitors started to call everybody by the internal phone to evacuate the building.

EoK

Well thats a little differant. I was thinking an office building in the U.S.

One stairs and no system !

I'd be living on the first floor.

You would be living in the first floor but I have to work in the 24th :-) maybe I have to buy myself a parachute just in case...

One of my questions is: In a building made of concrete is it logical to evacuate for a fire that is more than 10 floors below your level ? Would you always go down ASAP or stay put? How far do you need to be from the fire to be safe staying at your location?

To evacuate we had to go through a lot of smoke, cross firemen rushing, there was glass on the stairs because firemen were breaking the ventilation shafts to help the smoke clear. etc etc. And 24 floors down rushing is also a risk.

All in all I had the feeling that evacuating was far more dangerous than staying up as safe as possible. Of course once you get to street level you feel you did the right thing because you are safe.

EoK

FYI: Helicopters take a bit to get underway. Pilots have to do a safety check, crew must be assembled, gear packed, etc. As helicopter rescue is a rarity, they would most likely NOT be ready at the drop of a hat to get into the air. With a major airport, in a major city, with a helo capable of heavy lift, you're porbably looking of at LEAST an hour's time. Even the biggest civvie choppers cannot hold more than probably 12 people. if there's 300 people on the roof, say, thats at LEAST 25 trips of one chopper. Figure in flight time, load/unload time, and any other variables, its about a 20 minute round trip. So, with 300 folks (mind you, I simply picked a number, not based on anything), you make 25 trips, as 20 minutes apiece, you're looking at a timetable of several hours, just for a roof evacuation. All in all, the numbers simply dont add up. Just head down the damned staircase!!!

I just started reading this thread, and I also assumed that you were talking about a highrise in the US, in which case, I was going to say that I am surprised that they ordered the entire 24-story building to be evacuated at once. However, now that you mention that it is in South America and the lack of escape routes and fire systems, that completely changes the situation.

In that case, I probably would not trust staying inside the building and would try and get to the ground floor as soon as possible. As others have pointed out, helicopter rescues are generally reserved for the movies, so don't think that you'll be rescued from the roof.

Although people may have been injured during the evacuation, I believe that in your case, the consequences of a large number of people staying inside the building could be far, far worse, so evacuating is still probably the better thing to do. Your situation reminds me of the terrible MGM Grand Hotel fire in Las Vegas in 1980 where a number of building codes and safety systems were not in place, and something like 85 people died and, I think, almost a thousand people were injured. That hotel was about 25-stories high, too. Therefore, I think the order to evacuate was the correct thing to do in your case.

I don't know how accurate this is, but I think I have something in my memory that said that many rooftops can't handle the weight of a helicopter. Even a little Bell Jet Ranger weighs about 1800 lbs with just a pilot, and with a max passenger load of five (say another 1000 lbs), you're talking over 1.5 tons of weight resting on a small area. A Blackhawk weighs six times that... empty.

And, as mentioned, can you even get to the roof? In the infamous MGM Grand hotel fire, not only was there no plan for aerial rescue, but the access to the roof was locked.

[Just some interesting info on the MGM fire: the fire was electrical in origin, and started in/near the kitchens. The kitchens and hallway areas were tiled (floors and walls both, I believe) with ceramic tiles affixed with a flammable adhesive. Once the flames were going, the fireball that surged through the kitchens and down the access areas were moving about 17 to 21 feet per second.]

Sue

Well, then, I'd say make sure your will is up to date.

Marty