Apartment Complex Fire, 66 Units Destroyed (Seattle, WA - September 1991) » Lessons Learned

1. Local legislators and power utility official need to have pointed out to them the potential fire safetv impact of cutting Dower to low income households.

   Many fires such as this one have been started by low income families resorting to open flames for light or using stoves, ovens and open flames for heat when their power is cut off.5 Gutting power also can disable hard-wired detectors and alarm systems. These results of cutting power often are not considered by utilities. Local welfare agencies should give assistance for electric power as high a priority as shelter. In some communities, the local power company will provide a lower current, minimal service to power heat and light but not use washers, dryers, TVs, etc. if payments are stopped. (See Appendix G for description of Delaware program utilizing load limiter devices and model notice to delinquent account customers.)

2. Public fire education programs need to make special efforts to reach low income families. including the hard-to-reach.

   It is often difficult to get safety messages to people who have low education, no stable job, drug problems, etc. But the effort needs to be made on getting across the basics. If power is cut off, the power company should either deliver safety messages to the household involved or alert other agencies who may then do so. Misuse of candles, portable heaters, and stoves are common problems.

   Another path for reaching low income families is through their children in school. Kids can be taught the basics of fire safety and the importance of getting out quickly and calling 911 immediately -- even in preschool or kindergarten.

3. Many people - perhaps most -- still need to be taught how fast fire and smoke can move.

   Many people in the apartment complex did not think they were in danger even after they knew there was a fire because they had no idea how fast flames could travel.

4. People need to be encouraged to report a fire to the fire department unless they are sure someone else is doing it.

   Part of the reporting delay in this fire came from people not calling the fire department because they assumed others had done so.

5. People in apartment complexes need to be advised to tell their children about the seriousness of false alarms. Schools should also preach that kids who cause false alarms are doing harm.

   People in this fire disregarded the alarms at first because of frequent previous false alarms.

6. Codes requiring sprinklering of multi-familv low income dwellings need to be coordinated with housing subsidy rules.

   If built under current Seattle code, the Villa Plaza apartments would have sprinklers in every unit. The Fire Department would have been called upon initiation of sprinkler water-flow monitored by a central station service. This fire in all likelihood would have been confined to the unit of origin. There were no flammable liquids and no unusual fire loading here, yet the fire spread very rapidly. Local fire departments should continue to press for requirements to have all multi-family dwellings sprinklered retroactively.

   There is a major problem in low income buildings, however; if the apartment complex had been required to be upgraded, it may have charged higher rents and might no longer have been considered housing suitable for subsidized families! One does not want to have a policy that eliminates housing stocks for low income people or only protects the rich.

7. In addition to sprinklers. and certainlv where sprinklers do not exist, passive measures should be taken to slow flame spread.

   Ironically, the apartment complex did take what they thought was such a measure: the installation of fire doors in the open walkways. But they proved largely ineffective since the fire could and did breach them around the open side of the grill, and by burning through the wood ceiling of the walkway and the wood siding of the building.

8. Having four-Demon engine companies instead of three-person engine companies in outlying residential areas can be critically important when they have to operate on their own for a time.

   It is difficult to say for sure how the first-in engine company would have acted if they would have had a four-person crew instead of the three they had, but they would have had at least a chance to make a major difference in the outcome. The training chief of Seattle, who was one of the ICS branch commanders at the scene, felt that a 2 l/2-inch line applied right after arrival could have checked or slowed the spread of flames along the exterior in at least one direction and made a material difference.

   The first-in three-person engine company started to lay a line, stopped to effect a rescue, then continued laying a line. If they had four people they could have done both operations simultaneously. Or, if it had been necessary, they could have made a second rescue.

   As a second point of evidence, the second-in engine company was the first to arrive on the west side of the complex. They did have a fourth crew member and were able to do both a rescue and set up a 2 l/2-inch line for an interior attack simultaneously. This is thought to have helped slow the fire enough to ultimately save Building A.

   Also, if the first arriving ladder company (L-12) had its full crew of live instead of being one short, they might have been able to leave one person with the engine lieutenant to start fighting the fire. Consideration should be given to providing companies in remote areas with higher staffing levels than companies that can get backup quickly.

9. Firefighters need to be massed quickly for a large residential fire: current development and staffing need to be rethought.

   This fire illustrated the difficulty in getting an adequate number of units to a high-life-hazard occupancy in a comer of a city. A deployment with more companies located further from the Central Business District (CBD), in a way that still allows them to converge quickly toward the center but also to be more available to the residential areas, should be considered. An alternative is to send fewer units to fires in the CBD on first response to allow higher staffing levels on remote units, in light of the need to send an army in most cases should the first three units not suffice.

   The number of crew per company, the deployment of companies, the number of units sent on first alarms, and the timing and size of second alarms needs to be reconsidered. This has already taken place in some cities abroad such as London and is being now debated by the National Fire Protection Association’s Urban Forum.

   The strategic deployment of most fire departments is largely dictated by a save-the-CBD philosophy driven by business and insurance pressures. That should be rethought in an era of increasing built-in fire protection in the CBD while the majority of fire deaths occur in residential areas.

   A full discussion of deployment is beyond the scope of this report, but this fire points up the dangers of conventional (traditional) deployment strategies.

10. More chiefs need to be sent in early for the Incident Command System at a significant fire.

    The ICS was used almost from the start and kept the Fire Department command and control effective.

    Additional battalion chiefs and higher chiefs could have been used earlier in this fire. The operation had to accelerate quickly into a fullblown ICS with branches and divisions, and there weren’t enough chiefs who came in on the early alarms. Rapid response of chiefs is almost as important as line companies when the ICS is used for a large incident.

11. An agency should be designated to coordinate relief efforts at the scene and at a shelter following a major incident.

    A relief-oriented version of the Incident Command System - an Incident Relief Command - might be worth considering, as an ICS branch headed by an appropriate, local, welfare-oriented department.

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency and/or state agencies play a coordinating role in large incidents involving thousands of victims, but coordination for major local incidents involving hundreds should also be considered. In the aftermath of this incident the local Red Cross representative in Seattle suggested that the City Human Services be the relief coordinator at such incidents, with the Red Cross serving as the ‘branch” relief coordinator for shelter.

    The relief efforts at this incident involved at least six agencies: two city relief agencies, one state agency, and three private organizations, in addition to the fire, police, and medical emergency services.

    The first night was consumed with providing shelter and food, and accounting for Villa Plaza residents. The second day saw the start of coordinating other services for victims. These might have started earlier if there was immediate coordination.

12. Having multiple ways out of an apartment unit can mean life or death. Many modem apartment buildings have only one practical way out for people to escape from their unit: the front door. If that path is blocked by fire or smoke, they are trapped. In the Villa Plaza, occupants had three ways out of their units.

    Because every apartment unit had three ways out, and because once people were out of their unit they could flee in either direction to a staircase down, or at least get out on a balcony or out of a window, all were rescued. Nevertheless, local officials believe that if the fire had starred a few hours later on that Saturday night, when some people would have been asleep or under the influence of alcohol or drugs, there could easily have been many fatalities.

13. A new, side benefit of smoke detectors was noted: verifying the existence of a real fire.

    At least some people did not believe the bells ringing from the pull alarm system, but got moving when they heard smoke detectors going off.

14. If the buildings had had a truss roof with vents, all five buildings might have been lost.

    The fire was slowed by the solid “old fashioned” roof, which was effectively divided into 16” compartments on its underside. That slowed the fire spread.

15. Consideration should be given to having a second alarm response that is larger than the first alarm in residential areas.

    Many departments essentially double the first alarm response on a second alarm. Sometimes the second alarm is smaller than the first, as in Seattle.

    Because of the slow response of second alarm units to many remote residential locations, consideration should be given to having a larger second alarm response to ensure that some get there quickly.

    Also, rapid moveups in the direction of the incident should be considered for large working fires in remote areas as soon as they are confirmed by the first-in unit, to provide faster response on higher alarms.

16. Interpreters need to be able to be located quickly for many languages

    There is often an emergency need to speak to victims to determine if anyone is left inside. On a somewhat slower timescale, their needs for assistance must be determined. Communities should be able to locate translators from within or outside the fire and police departments to cope with the languages of new immigrants as well as established ethnic groups.

17. Fire departments need to remind crews of the importance of reporting in when they arrive on the scene.

    Whether reporting arrival on the scene is by radio or by electronic button pushing (Automatic Vehicle Locators), crews need to be reminded of the need to report in. This information is needed by dispatchers, senior officers monitoring the incident, and for post-mortems. Often the crews are thinking about what action they will take and may not remember to do this simple act.

18. A security guard would have cut the time of reporting the fire and aided in the evacuation.

    Ironically, the residents of the complex had planned to start using a security guard the week after the fire occurred. The guard would have been able to report the fire more quickly, serve as an authority figure in telling people there was a lit-e, and assist in the evacuation.

19. Some tactical lessons/questions: One of the most critical decisions in the fire was taking water off the building of origin and using the available water to stop the spread in the wing buildings and the spread to the northern two buildings.

    Pre-connected deluge monitors might have made a difference. It took considerable time to wrestle the monitors down from the top of the engines to the ground and connect them. Low staffing on engine companies ma& this harder and slower.

    The spray from modem nozzles had difficulty penetrating this fire. Solid-bore old-fashioned nozzles or solid stream add-ons to modem spray nozzles were thought to be better to reach the base of the fire compared to spray nozzles stopped down to their most solid stream. This is an old issue.