After three years of investigations conducted under the National Construction Safety Team Act, the National Institute of Standards and Technology released its final report of the World Trade Center collapse investigation at a Congressional Hearing on Oct. 26.

As first responders to all types of emergencies, it's of utmost importance to recognize that the NIST recommendations have direct relevance to all of us. NIST is not a regulatory agency and doesn't have any enforcement authority, thus its recommendations won't be implemented until they're incorporated into building codes. It's only logical then that all fire service organizations put their support and influence into implementing these recommendations and incorporating them into the body of the building codes developed by both of the national model code developers, the National Fire Protection Association and the International Code Council.

A quick glance at the NIST report reveals that even though these recommendations came in the aftermath of a horrific terrorist event, none are based solely on such threats and in fact have multihazard response applications. These enhancements have a direct impact on protecting both the building occupants and emergency responders from all types of incidents that require full building evacuation and interior emergency operations. This is precisely the reason why all fire service organizations should support implementation of these recommendations. NIST's recommendations aren't futuristic and were developed based on the available technologies and the standard operating procedures and capabilities of the fire service in responding to high-rise emergencies.

NIST's recommendations are focused on increasing the structural integrity of buildings to avoid progressive collapse and total structural failure; enhancing the fire resistance of the structures, protecting the structural members to prolong burnout and structural soundness; requiring active fire protection systems, enhancing tenability and providing fire safety for the building occupants; improving the means of egress, providing for full building evacuation and rapid occupant egress; and improving communication technologies and procedures for emergency responders.

Briefly, the report details modifications for strengthening the structure, installing better and additional layers of fire resistance and spray-on fire-resistance materials, installing fire alarm and fire sprinkler systems, increasing stairwell capacity and stair discharge door width to accommodate counter-flow due to access by emergency responders, improving elevator and hoist-way design to allow usage of elevators both in evacuation and also in emergency-responder staging operations, installing radio amplification systems, and more. All of these have direct relevance to us and apply to our operations in mitigating any type of high-rise hazard, whether it be fire, explosion, terrorist acts or even a hoax threat of terrorist attack.

The recommendations have something in common: time. Structural improvements and passive fire-resistive enhancements provide for additional time prior to structural failure. Active fire protection systems provide additional time for the occupants before tenability is compromised. Means-of-egress enhancements decrease the time to evacuate the building, and by reducing counter-flow problems they also decrease the time needed to stage interior operations. Similarly, elevator modifications also would save time in moving firefighters and equipment to the staging floor. Finally, enhancements to fire communication systems provide real-time information for fire command and control purposes.

The gist of fire suppression and other emergency responses is simply time. From the very moment of dispatch, our performance is measured in time, and our fight is against time. In the fire service we have long known that a delayed response time could directly effect an incident's outcome. Time is definitely not a luxury when responding to high-rise emergencies. Unlike grade-level buildings with multiple points of access, high rises are similar to mines: They have a single point where occupants can discharge and emergency responders can ascend. As a result, full building evacuation takes a long time, and so does getting firefighters and equipment to the staging floor.

In all other grade-level occupancies we have more time to assemble an adequate level of equipment and personnel to mitigate the hazard than we do with a high rise. We also have a better real-time damage assessment in those occupancies. When responding to a high rise, the exact extent of damage isn't fully known until we ascend to the floor of origin. In our attempt to save lives in a high rise, we feel obligated to start our ascension with a very limited knowledge about the extent of damage or the building's structural integrity. And as history has proved, we might not even have enough time for an “all clear” call.

We risk a lot to save a lot, and risk a little to save a little, but in a high-rise emergency, even though the occupants might have all been evacuated, we still perform the interior firefighting operations.The possibility of structural burnout and collapse is very real, and such a failure could pose a hazard to several city blocks in the collapse zone. In a high rise, we don't have much of an option but to go interior, and we can't assume the defensive strategy of hazard containment by staying out and staging at the parameters.

Our ladder trucks can reach only a limited number of floors, and our fire engines can pump water to only a limited number of floors. The reality in a high rise is that not only the building occupants, but also the emergency responders, rely solely on the appropriate performance of the building's built-in passive and active fire protection systems. Let's face it: As emergency responders we're at the mercy of the architects and engineers who design these high-rise buildings, and we rely on the strength of the building codes under which these structures were constructed.

Not surprisingly, the design criteria for architects and engineers aren't identical to the fire service's needs. Cost plays a major role in both their designs and the levels of built-in life-safety and fire protection they provide. In addition to the building officials and the fire service representatives in the national code development processes, developers, building owners, manufacturers, engineers, architects and others all play a major role. A quick glance at both of the building codes clearly shows the construction industry's heavy influence in the adoption process, which at times might oppose the fire service's interests.

It's said that time is money, and the fire service's need for adequate time to have a fighting chance in high-rise buildings translates to increased construction costs for the developers and building owners. Everyone likes a good barbeque, but no one wants to have their ox gored for this joyous festivity. The costs associated with implementing the NIST recommendations into the building codes and requiring a higher degree of fire and life safety in high-rise buildings has put the interests of the owners and the design professionals in opposition to ours.

In general, the construction industry and the design professionals representing them oppose incorporating the NIST recommendations into the body of the building codes. This stance was quite evident in a recent model code development committee meeting, where their board showed the least amount of interest in adopting the recommendations, saying that the cost of implementation was too prohibitive. In support, the board cited the historical safety records of high-rise buildings and the fact that the majority of fire losses and firefighter fatalities occurred in other types of occupancies and structures. The board also believed that high-rise buildings could not be designed to take the impact of an airplane. To make changes in the building codes, the board said that scientific data and probabilistic analysis must prove the need for implementation of the NIST recommendations.

These views of the opposition are indeed different from the fire service perspective. While there is some merit to their logic, the statistics are based solely on fire reports while failing to acknowledge that fire isn't the only hazard that we respond to in a high-rise building. Similarly, acts of terrorism aren't limited to a plane flying into a building. In reality, whether there's a bio-chemical release or a suicide explosion by a terrorist, full building evacuation is in order. Even the building occupants themselves would disregard the shelter-in-place concept. In such instances, our response would still be delayed by counter-flow problems.

While the opposition argues about cost, we seek adequate time to evacuate the building and perform interior operations to mitigate the hazard. The fire service isn't inconsiderate to the cost issues imposed by implementing NIST recommendations. We could reach cost-effective solutions to provide for a desired level of fire and life safety, but disregarding firefighter safety is wrong. We just don't want our own brothers and sisters, in addition to the occupants of these high-rise buildings, to pay the ultimate price as they did on Sept. 11, 2001.

We're also astute at evaluating risks, and we're not naïve about the concept of probabilistic analysis — after all, we use this risk-based approach in our daily operation. However, analysis should be viewed from a multihazard perspective and not limited to fires. To support our perspective, consider the paradigm shift following the events of 9/11. Applying the probabilistic-analysis approach in a reality vacuum would show that hundreds of thousands of flights take place and millions of people travel by air around the world every year, making air transportation the safest mode of travel. But 19 terrorists and four airplanes changed the history of our country and the entire world.

Based on the views of probabilistic-analysis proponents, there was absolutely no reason to spend hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading airport security because the probability of aircraft-related terrorism was astronomically low. Despite the miniscule odds, however, our government correctly decided to enhance airport security to reduce the possibility of such attacks in future. Does the building-code opposition believe that these actions were too cost-prohibitive and a waste of resources? While they're quite aware of the more stringent security checks at airports, they fail to apply that logic to the high-rise buildings and acknowledge that even miniscule probabilities could prompt tremendous societal concerns and costly preventive measures.

The opposition's strategy apparently is to delay the implementation process, effectively killing NIST's recommendations. Pronounced cause of death: analysis-paralysis. Code-change proposals for the 2009 edition of one of the major building codes are due in March. As a non-regulatory agency, it's likely that NIST's recommendations won't automatically translate into building code language. This could hurt their likelihood of implementation unless we put all our efforts into getting them implemented. The federal government has done all it can; it's now up to us to take a stand.

We are in a two-minute drill and must snap the ball without a huddle. We can't afford to run the clock and let time run out until the next code adoption in 2012. We should direct all our representatives in all of the code development and technical committees in the two model code developers' processes to take a strong stance in support of adopting the NIST recommendations into the model building codes. The leadership of fire service organizations must all stand unified in their support for the NIST recommendations. After all, as emergency responders we're all affected and in it together.

It's about time that all fire service organizations take a more proactive role in the building code development process. It's about time that we pay the much deserved respect to our 343 comrades who perished in the 9/11 terrorist attacks by ensuring that the fire- and life-safety features of the high-rise buildings of the future are enhanced and that their structural integrity are improved to prevent burnout and progressive collapse. It's about time to look in the eyes of the hundreds of thousands of young boys and girls who dream of becoming firefighters and promise that this future generation of firefighters won't face the same problems our brothers and sisters faced on Sept. 11, 2001. We owe it to them to make these changes to make high-rise buildings safer. It's about time.

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Azarang (Ozzie) Mirkhah is a fire protection engineer with Las Vegas Fire & Rescue. A graduate of the Executive Fire Officer program at the National Fire Academy, Mirkhah has a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering and a master's degree in public administration.