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