As you look at the cavalcade of events that have affected the fire service over the last century, there have been certain events that have catapulted us forward technologically or even philosophically, seemingly overnight. On the other hand, there have been many events that have repeated themselves time and time again from which the human race has learned very few lessons.

There have been many catastrophic fires in the history of the fire service. Some we have learned a great deal from, and others have repeated themselves over and over to remind us that we haven't learned the lesson. Sometimes major fires have been referred to as acts of God, but in many cases they're nothing more than the consequences of people not clearly understanding that fire, in its most devastating form, can sometimes overwhelm the best intentions of society and destroy willingly and without regret the lives and property of rich and poor alike.

The first indication in written history that this phenomenon had visited upon a highly civilized people was the Great Fire of Rome in 66 A.D. While folklore has it that Nero fiddled while Rome burned, by most accounts nobody was fiddling around. Everybody was trying to get out of the way of the fire. There was a Roman fire brigade that tried to stop the fire, and they were not successful.

When you look at Roman ruins, it's easy to forget that Rome itself was not a city built from stone, but rather one built out of wood. Stone was preserved for use in major buildings. Like ancient Rome, many early cities were breeding grounds for potential conflagrations. If you look at the construction techniques and building concentration that existed in the early urban communities of Paris and London, it wasn't a case of whether they would have a conflagration, it was only a matter of when.

Consider the Great Fire of London in 1066, which destroyed almost the entire downtown. This may well be one of the first examples of “the catastrophic theory of reform,” because almost before the ashes were cool, Royal Architect Sir Christopher Wren started making suggestions. He said that if the citizens of London were to rebuild, they ought to take a different approach. After witnessing the fire jumping from building to building with no adequate avenues or thoroughfares to prevent such transmission, Wren proposed an entirely new layout. This could well have been the first serious consideration of a “code enforcement” change based on a specific event.

If Mother Nature was trying to teach us a lesson with that conflagration, the lesson didn't stick. Almost all of the major European capitals have been devastated at one time or another by a conflagration. One of the lessons that wasn't learned was that the concentration of valued buildings and contents, coupled with a lack of adequate fire protection, could result in irreplaceable losses.

The history books are replete with tales of major fires that have resulted in some form of reformation shortly thereafter. Four fires that had a significant effect on fire and building codes were:

• Iroquois Theater Fire, Chicago, 1903.
• Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, New York, 1911.
• Coconut Grove Fire, Boston, 1942.
• Hartford, Conn., Circus Fire, 1944.

There have been many books written about these fires, and it's interesting to note that they have a common factor. In each case a set of conditions was allowed to exist — non-compliance, so to speak — well before a single spark accelerated attention to the consequence of allowing those conditions to exist. That's the hallmark of the catastrophic theory of reform. The fires were created by environments that were considered to be perfectly legitimate.

One of my old friends, the late Chief Charlie Rule, often said that in his experience, every building “had been burned down according to code.” He was alluding to the fact that whatever code is in effect at the time of construction may not be an appropriate means of evaluating the unintended consequences as the occupancy ages and deteriorates.

Advocating changes to codes is one of the greatest challenges of the fire service because it often takes the theory of catastrophic reform to do so. This means that you must have large numbers of casualties to bring a particular issue to the forefront and galvanize public reaction to the point that they demand something be done. This particular mechanism for accelerating the development of codes and ordinances to protect people against fire is based on a body count.

For example, we in the fire service already know that most people die in fires in residences. But because those deaths occur only in ones and twos and sometimes up to an entire family, they're not found to be appalling by society in general.

However, when you have an event that results in hundreds of casualties, the topic is elevated to one of national significance. There is a human cry to “do something about it!”

If firefighters think that this concept is just a bunch of rhetoric that is now part of our past they have to look no further than fires that have occurred in the last year. Consider the February fire at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I., where at least 99 died and nearly 200 were injured. What about the deaths of six people in a Chicago fire, where the high-rise involved had no sprinklers? Lurking in many towns, cities and perhaps even in your own neighborhoods are conditions that could lead to the next catastrophic event.

A breeding ground for conditions of this nature is very simply one of apathy and ignorance on the part of occupants, accompanied by a poorly managed code enforcement program. The reduction in the frequency of inspections to determine whether a building is up to snuff with an older applicable code has slowly become a victim of the argument that firefighters don't have the time to do inspection work anymore. We all know that fire prevention budgets are among the first to go during financial crises.

The conditions that breed a catastrophe don't occur overnight; they're cumulative. A blocked exit remains blocked until someone from the fire service comes along to tell the owner or manager to open it. Bad housekeeping in a facility can accumulate for months before creating a problem that overwhelms the system on any one incident.

With respect to this phenomenon, it's easy to see how at least one or two catastrophic events occur in almost every decade. But fire losses occur daily. I have a collection of articles and books on these events, and they're divided into two files. One contains the major events that have resulted in public alarm, if not outright anxiety, and commanded the front page. The second is a clipping file of people who have suffered death and injury in small groups, which dominate the back pages.

These losses are occurring in spite of the technological improvements that the fire service is adopting within the fire and building codes. The deaths fly in the face of contemporary wisdom that modern codes are eliminating problems faster and faster. Among the attributes of catastrophic fires that breeds these conditions is what's commonly referred to as the “non-conforming” structure, which is basically a building that was built a long time ago and has not been brought up to modern codes.

Unfortunately, society simply will not stand for buildings that require constant improvements every time the code itself changes. Instead, communities settle for their non-conforming buildings to be “grandfathered.” In other words, the conditions in a non-conforming building are left alone for the time being. Whenever a community changes its fire and building code, the changes apply only to new construction. They do not affect older buildings retroactively. This practical process probably has been taking place since the dawn of codes.

Of course, grandfathering doesn't eliminate the unintended consequence of a non-conforming building breeding disastrous conditions. Modern fire professionals would be well-advised to take a look at the stories of past catastrophic events to see if there are conditions that are being bred continuously in areas under their responsibility.

While a specific course of action may not be able to remedy all problems, merely being aware of the potential deficiencies of non-conforming buildings and ensuring that these buildings receive adequate attention in public education as well as code enforcement may be more of a life-saving operation than pulling bodies out of the building after a fire. The most important way to prevent a catastrophe from occurring from neglect is to have an adequate and effective fire prevention inspection program.

Another factor that should make the catastrophic theory of reform an ongoing area of concern for a fire chief is the simple fact that, although they occur so infrequently, when they do occur someone has to be blamed. Most of the time there's a comprehensive investigation, causation is parceled out, and incremental improvements are suggested. Very seldom does a catastrophic event significantly change what will be done in other buildings of a similar nature. In other words, the change that emerges from an event of this nature frequently will be applied to future buildings but not made retroactive on other occupancies of a similar nature. Usually the only person to suffer an immediate consequence is the person whom the system finds to be at fault for the event.

If the trends and patterns of the fire service continue along the lines they have for the last 250 years, a catastrophic event will strike in everyone's career. Maybe not to you, but to someone just like you — if it does happen to you, I will bet that you'll wish you could have done something to have prevented it. Why not start today to ensure you won't have to make that wish? Improve fire prevention where it counts the most.

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A 40-year veteran of the fire service, Ronny J. Coleman has served as fire chief in Fullerton and San Clemente, Calif., and was the state fire marshal of California from 1992 to 1999. He is a certified fire chief and a master instructor in the California Fire Service Training and Education System. A Fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers, he has an associate's degree in fire science, a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in vocational education.