Mapping a life saving strategy

Mapping a life-saving strategy
By Dan Hilborn, Burnaby Now assistant editor
Published Sept. 10, 2003


Burnaby firefighters are breathing new life into a decade-old plan that should help save lives in the city.

Veteran fire investigator Doug Hahn has recently been reassigned to work on a Pre-Incident Planning strategy - a program that is intended to alert fighters to potential dangers inside a building before they arrive on scene of a fire or emergency.

Once implemented - and that could take a full year - the program will require local business and building owners to provide the fire department with a a diagram of their property, showing the types and locations of all the different hazards on the site.

For instance, the site maps will show firefighters where the gas shutoff valves are located, what kinds of chemicals are used in a plant and where they are stored, plus what can happen when two of those chemicals are mixed together.

"Basically, it recognizes that the world is full of hazards, and not all of those hazards can be seen," Hahn told the Burnaby NOW recently. "In the old world, the biggest danger we had to worry about was a wood building collapsing. But in the new world, we have to worry about chemicals and explosions and buildings that hold thousands of people.

"We have to let the emergency responders know what they're up against. Until we know what's in a building, not only are the occupants in danger, but so are the firefighters.

For the next year, Hahn will be contacting industry, business and other sites around the city to have the property owners submit their pre-incident plans.

The fire department is also working with city hall to redraft the fire services bylaw to eventually make the submission of a pre- incident plan mandatory.

Initially, Hahn will devote his time talking to the operators of buildings deemed to have higher risks than others - such as businesses that use flammable or toxic chemicals, buildings with unusual designs or apartment buildings that have particular dangers such as difficult access to fire hydrants.

Hahn said the need for pre-incident planning is rising because Burnaby is getting bigger and many more potentially dangerous businesses are moving into the city. "There are all kinds of biochem labs in the city now, and we've never had to deal with those things before," he said. (See story below.)

And while Hahn said Burnaby's firefighting equipment is as modern and up-to-date as any other city in the province, the city is behind several of its largest neighbours in developing a pre incident plan strategy. "Right now we're in the infancy of our program in Burnaby, even though Coquitlam, Surrey and Vancouver have working (pre incident plan) programs."

However, lagging behind may give Burnaby the advantage of avoiding some of the startup problems experienced in other areas, Hahn said. "We're making contact with other cities to find out what worked and what didn't. If we skip over their pitfalls and adopt it to Burnaby, we'll have a better system."

For instance, the various cities in the Lower Mainland are currently using different codes or markings to describe the hazards and other items on their building diagrams. Hahn is hoping that one day a single standard of codes will be used by every fire department in the province.

Once the plan is in place, property owners will also be required to update their plans every time there is a change in either the design or flammable or toxic substances used on the premises. "They'll have to do that at least once a year," Hahn said.

Once complete, the pre-incident plans will be stored on computer, and eventually will be able to be transmitted directly to fire crews when they respond to an incident in the city.

Developing the pre-incident plans is an enormous task, but Hahn hopes to have at least some pieces of the puzzle in place by early next year.

"It's a huge project for the fire department," he said. "We have to contact a lot of people. But we'd also like to have at least part of this up and running within six months."