To improve on your troop's core competency in performing a coordinated aggressive interior fire attack, you decide to plan a much needed live-fire training session using an acquired structure. But in doing so you realize that you have a lot on the line. First and foremost is the health and safety of firefighting personnel during the proposed exercise. This is followed by your own professional reputation as a training officer to work within a budget and time frame to make the session a reality and provide high-quality instruction.

To start, you get the word out regarding the need to acquire a suitable structure. After two weeks, two people respond. One is a homeowner and the other a builder, both with single-family dwellings they would like you to raze. Initial questions prior to meeting the owners include: Will these donated structures be in top-shape and need only minimal cleanup and construction upgrades to make them both safe and appropriate for interior fire attack evolutions? Or will they look good during initial review but later become a curse from hell, riddled with latent problems before, during and even after the live-fire training exercise?

An old adage says, “Never look a gift horse in the mouth.” The opposite is true with a donated acquired structure — you will need to go well beyond that. A dental check-up is just the start. A full health exam is what's in order. This includes skin-cancer screening (asbestos identification), a bone density scan (load-bearing integrity assessment) and tumor identification (hazmat detection).

You may find that the gift horse needs surgery. For example, an appendectomy (fuel tank removal) or even a limb amputation (a cement-block chimney demolition) may be required. The bottom line is how much work will be required to ride this horse safely? Can the work be done with the allocated resources in the available time? Is it even possible to do at all?

Acquired structures were never designed or intended to be fire service training burn buildings. It's up to you to assess each structure's usefulness and suitability for your training objectives and to identify what modifications may be required.

NFPA 1403, Live Fire Training Evolutions (2002), outlines live-fire training best practices and devotes Chapter 4 to using acquired structures. Consider this a supplement as we look at real-world examples of evaluating and preparing acquired structures for interior live-fire training.

Why the acquired structure?

A lot of work is required to survey and prepare an acquired structure to make it appropriate for an interior live-fire training session. So why use an acquired structure at all?

Fundamentally, using appropriate acquired structures for live-fire training can arm firefighters with valuable information and experience regarding real-world fire behavior that they can use to improve safety during responses. The objective is live-fire learning.

Learning about real-world fire behavior is more important than ever. Consider, for example, that there was a 31% decrease in the incidence of structure fires throughout the United States between 1987 and 2001. As a result of the decline in fires, firefighters on the whole have less fire experience than their predecessors had a generation ago. As many of the more experienced firefighters and officers retire, they're replaced by young officers with comparably less experience. There's great concern that these young officers' inability to recognize flashover and building collapse, as well as to react quickly enough to avoid being caught by these two potentially fatal conditions, will continue to result in injuries and fatalities to firefighters.

Why can't concrete or other types of reusable burn buildings, ones that are inherently easier to use, be “good enough” to provide live-fire training? While these buildings have a key place in rudimentary skill and knowledge training for firefighters, they have limited usefulness in replicating real-world fire conditions.

From a practical standpoint, it is difficult for some officers to justify that rookie firefighters have received adequate training after successfully operating in only a concrete burn building with wood pallets as a fuel load. Consider that wood pallets release 8,000BTU per pound, and that during real-world structure fire responses the troops will be exposed to fire conditions fueled by synthetic furnishings at 18,000BTU per pound. The differences in fire development, horizontal and vertical travel, and structural degradation found in an acquired structure versus the repetitive use burn building are like comparing apples and oranges. Appropriate live-fire training using acquired structures can better prepare the rookie and provide refresher training for the veteran firefighter to meet the challenges encountered during responses to real-world accidental and incendiary fires.

It's important to put the use of acquired structures into perspective. While a fire department's response to an accidental or incendiary fire is an inherently hazardous activity, a live-fire training session in an acquired structure need not be inherently hazardous. With appropriate planning and execution, a live-fire training session that's compliant with NFPA 1403 minimizes the unknowns and creates a calculated risk to maximize student safety. High levels of safety using an acquired structure are the result of a good management system, which turns the hazardous activity of firefighting into a calculated risk.

Site survey

A thorough initial site survey to evaluate whether an acquired structure is suitable is a critical item for the training officer. An assortment of issues needs to be discussed, reviewed and addressed. For example, details such as the owner's required timeline to demolition, asbestos identification and abatement, and permits to be filed with authorities having jurisdiction need to be taken care of. NFPA 1403 contains a variety of forms and checklists that cover many of these items.

In addition, a methodical site walk-through and a lawyer-like line of questioning of the owner or owner's representative are in order. Start by identifying obvious physical problems relating to the building. Question the owner to see if there are any issues with adjacent property owners. Ask about the structure's prior use and occupancy history. You could uncover important issues that change your consideration of the structure's suitability for a fire exercise. Most structures have a collection of minor, apparent problems you will need to deal with. Others, however, have big important stories to tell that may not be so obvious.

Look for the obvious first. A walk-through of a charming old farmhouse in rural Canada found an empty, “broom-clean” home with the exception of a gallon can of DDT left inside a kitchen cabinet. While this hazardous material was identified easily and could be removed, the repair of other structural deficiencies, needed for safe interior live-fire training, couldn't be held within the budget.

A live-fire training exercise in Maryland used a sound acquired structure next to a correctional facility. However, special attention was needed concerning wind direction because smoke drifting toward HVAC intakes could fill the facility, and it's neither easy nor prudent for correction officers to quickly move all the residents out of the big house at once. The wind cooperated and the live-fire exercise proceeded without incident.

A survey of a home in Pennsylvania uncovered numerous problems. Inside, excessive debris needed removal. Outside, exposure protection issues included power lines and occupied dwellings too close for comfort. A look through one of the debris piles uncovered cans of black gunpowder. This building presented way too many problems and was turned down for training.

The not-so-obvious

You also need to look for the not-so-obvious. A training officer must assume the role of devil's advocate during a survey and structure evaluation. The objective is to identify real or potential problems involved with obtaining, preparing and using the building for live-fire training. A successful job here will limit personnel exposure to risky unknowns later on.

In the northeastern United States, a single-family home in first-class shape was offered to the local fire department. It was too good to be true. The structure was rumored to be the site of an investigative debacle, a homicide where the owner buried his spouse in the basement.

A waste management corporation was expanding a landfill in the southeastern United States and offered a home to the fire department. The site survey found peculiar holes in several rooms' wallboard. After speaking to a number of people regarding the damage, an interesting fact surfaced. The structure, which was near an auto-racing stadium, had been used several months earlier as a prop for a pyrotechnic display that went awry. The plan: Just prior to the start of a major racing event, a mock civil war cannon loaded with gunpowder would be “fired” from the track's infield. A few seconds after the cannon bang, the home on the landfill — fully wired with dynamite — would be detonated. The home could be seen from the top level of the track's seating stands. What a show! All took place, with the exception of one technical difficulty — the dynamite never went off.

When we questioned if there was verification and sign-off that all of the dynamite had been removed from the home, we were met with a lot of blank stares. Needless to say, we turned the use of this building down.

Beyond the initial survey, a good practice is to use the services of a live-fire training expert for an in-depth secondary survey just prior to structure preparation. Additionally, consider using a structural engineer to provide input. Don't forget to use personnel from within your department's ranks and draft qualified people from mutual aid departments to provide assistance. Using many qualified minds to survey and evaluate the structure will generally provide for a better outcome.

Structure preparation

Let's take a look at specific problem issues commonly found in acquired structures that need to be made safe during preparation.

Hazardous storage conditions

This includes a myriad of household chemicals. You know what they are; look at the containers under the kitchen sink or out in the garage. These will need to be removed and disposed of. Identify and remove closed pressure vessels: LPG tanks of all sizes, above-ground or basement-located heating oil fuel tanks, air-conditioning units, water heaters, and heating boilers. Refrigerators and hydraulic storm-door closers both contain closed containers of oil and need to be removed.

A heating oil tank that can be removed should be removed to eliminate the opportunity of catastrophic tank failure. One fire chief found this out during a live-fire training exercise several decades ago. He got quite a pucker factor when an outside above-ground 275-gallon home heating oil tank BLEVE occurred.

During the initial survey of this structure, an inspection of the fuel oil tank revealed an automatic tank vent. The vent was designed to allow the discharge of vapor during tank fill to prevent pressure buildup. It was thought that this same vent would be adequate to prevent tank pressurization during the fire exercise.

Inspection of the vent after the BLEVE found that insects had hived in the vent cap. Byproducts of their nest left such a tight blockage in the cap that the vent was rendered inoperative. With several people narrowly escaping injury, the lesson reinforced here is never take for granted that safety devices will be operational. Beyond verifying that they're in place, guarantee they will work. Implementing safety measure redundancies is a best practice. In this case, another vent hole in the tank is called for. Nevertheless, the preferred and best solution would have been to remove the tank from the premises.

All hazardous structural conditions shall be removed or repaired

Holes in floors will need to be covered, and weakened floor supports must be shored, repaired and made safe. Missing stair treads and handrails must be replaced. Dangerous portions of chimneys that could present a collapse hazard need to be removed. Wall and ceiling finishes that have violent combustion characteristics — rapid flame spread — need to be removed. Extraordinary weight over the training area, such as HVAC units, storage safes or the owner's old barbell set, needs removal.

Wallboard holes in walls and ceilings must be patched and sealed. This sounds like a trivial detail, but it isn't. Maintaining integrity of interior surfaces is the best chance of controlling unwanted fire spread, potentially preventing a needless fire condition wherein a crew has to chase after the fire.

During the structure preparation phase, if hidden hazardous structural conditions are revealed that can't be made safe within the time frame or budget, the building should not be considered for live-fire training. For example, an initial survey of a ranch house found a 6-inch gap where the primary structural support had separated from the floor joist. It doesn't take a structural engineer to identify this red flag. Other hazardous structural conditions could be well-covered or purposely hidden and not as readily apparent. If these conditions are found as late as the structure preparation phase, it's never too late to call off the use of the structure if it can't be made safe.

Hazardous environmental conditions need to be neutralized or removed

This includes removing debris and other remains of waste inside the structure. Make the floors of the structure free of trash and broom-clean. Clear the building of anything that crawls, walks, runs or trots on two or four legs. Some of the creatures we've battled with (and some we've rescued) include cats, bats and rats. The local humane society and an exterminator can provide help. Sadly, we've also had to call in law enforcement to remove transients.

Carefully plan building ingress and egress routes

A poor existing interior living space layout is no excuse for not providing adequate egress for interior crews and speedy ingress routes for rapid intervention and back-up crews during training. Think outside the box and install your own doorways.

NFPA 1403 provides fire industry best practices and a framework to help the training officer identify, select, repair and make safe acquired structures for interior live-fire training. While the standard provides guidelines to avoid major pitfalls, experience and judgment remain key ingredients in successfully performing an acquired structure survey and site preparation so as to provide an acceptable level of calculated risk for a live fire training exercise.

There's little doubt about it. A lot of effort is involved to properly use acquired structures for interior live-fire attack instruction. However, when the work is balanced against the learning opportunities, it's well worth it. Firefighters who have a better grasp of real-world fire behavior and structural degradation will reduce fireground injuries and death.

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Dominic Colletti is the author of Class A Foam — Best Practice For Structure Firefighters and co-author of Foam Firefighting Operations 1 and the Rural Firefighting Handbook with Larry Davis. Colletti is global foam systems product manager for Hale Products Inc. and a fire service instructor. He offers a “Winning Strategies for the Successful Use of CAFS” seminar and can be reached at dcolletti@idexcorp.com.