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Questions from a Firefighter

I have a question for any engineers/architects out there. I'm new here and cannot start my own thread, but since this is the thread involving the tallest condo in Toronto it makes sense.

More and more we are encountering highrise fires where sprinkler water is flooding the elevators. Does anyone have suggestions on sprinkler water management based on the design of these highrises?

Recently, we went to a 60 storey highrise where someone maliciously activated the sprinkler in the hallway on the 20th floor. The sprinkler ran for approx. 6-8 minutes before we arrived at the building, attained elevator control, and finally arrived on the floor in alarm. Then another approx. 5 minutes as we opened units to ensure nothing was on fire and it was only the hallway sprinkler activated, located the isolation sprinkler isolation valve in the stairwell, and shut off the water. Crews in the lobby then radioed up that the elevators were no longer working due to water damage. When we cleared the scene an hour later we left the 60 storey building with no elevator access. The elevator tech arrived, assessed the damage said they would be ordering parts for all four elevators that morning.

Now, fortunately, two crews of firefighters 'only' had to climb 20 storeys multiple times to mange overhaul and water removal. With these Super HighRises, should we be expecting this will be the norm? Stairs only after 10-15 minutes after sprinkler activation? Had it been a real fire ... on a higher floor ...

Any insight on how these hallways are designed to manage this water without affecting the elevators? Anything we can do as first in firefighters to ensure we can get backup crews up to us?

Thank you,
Rob
 
RobertTaylor said:
Questions from a Firefighter

I have a question for any engineers/architects out there. I'm new here and cannot start my own thread, but since this is the thread involving the tallest condo in Toronto it makes sense.

More and more we are encountering highrise fires where sprinkler water is flooding the elevators. Does anyone have suggestions on sprinkler water management based on the design of these highrises?

Recently, we went to a 60 storey highrise where someone maliciously activated the sprinkler in the hallway on the 20th floor. The sprinkler ran for approx. 6-8 minutes before we arrived at the building, attained elevator control, and finally arrived on the floor in alarm. Then another approx. 5 minutes as we opened units to ensure nothing was on fire and it was only the hallway sprinkler activated, located the isolation sprinkler isolation valve in the stairwell, and shut off the water. Crews in the lobby then radioed up that the elevators were no longer working due to water damage. When we cleared the scene an hour later we left the 60 storey building with no elevator access. The elevator tech arrived, assessed the damage said they would be ordering parts for all four elevators that morning.

Now, fortunately, two crews of firefighters 'only' had to climb 20 storeys multiple times to mange overhaul and water removal. With these Super HighRises, should we be expecting this will be the norm? Stairs only after 10-15 minutes after sprinkler activation? Had it been a real fire ... on a higher floor ...

Any insight on how these hallways are designed to manage this water without affecting the elevators? Anything we can do as first in firefighters to ensure we can get backup crews up to us?

Thank you,
Rob
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I don't have that answer but on an aside:

I feel like these buildings treated this sort of thing as an afterthought, IMO. Yes, the water access is there (usually in the stairwell) for the fire fighters to get at but the fallout is spectacular. I had a fire in my building but I was lucky enough to be out of the fallout area.

By fallout, I mean an apartment caught fire, the firefighters showed up amazingly fast but it took a good long while to get that fire out. ALL the apartments surrounding this unit and across the hall, were all flooded. Even the walls between the apartments and in the hallways, all flooded. The worst part, around 7 or 8 apartments, on both side of the hallway, on the floor below that unit were also totally flooded. Even the garbage chute rooms were flooded. It was chaos.

The building had to tear off all the wallpaper, cut holes in all the hallway drywall everywhere, and ran fans for over a week to dry everything out. Fans in all the units that were flooded as well. In less than 6 months, every single tenant on the floor downstairs that got flooded, moved out. I had one tenant two floors below the fire saying that some flooding occurred there as well. I could not believe it.

So, elevator shafts getting flooded, just doesn't surprise me.

All I kept thinking was . o O ( Did they not hire an engineer, prior to construction, to analyze this sorta of situation and figure out what the fallout would be from a fire in a unit?" Like some way to channel this water constructively in the event of flooding.
 
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...I'm getting nervous flashbacks of Towering Inferno with this line of inquiry. >.<
 
Collingwoodbuildinglover said:
Someone should take their drone up and shoot a picture looking directly down at it from its finished height would look cool to see how far away it actually is from said height
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Not to sound TOO much like the six year old on the car trip but 'how much longer until we arrive"?? What floor are they on now?
 
RobertTaylor said:
Questions from a Firefighter

I have a question for any engineers/architects out there. I'm new here and cannot start my own thread, but since this is the thread involving the tallest condo in Toronto it makes sense.

More and more we are encountering highrise fires where sprinkler water is flooding the elevators. Does anyone have suggestions on sprinkler water management based on the design of these highrises?

Recently, we went to a 60 storey highrise where someone maliciously activated the sprinkler in the hallway on the 20th floor. The sprinkler ran for approx. 6-8 minutes before we arrived at the building, attained elevator control, and finally arrived on the floor in alarm. Then another approx. 5 minutes as we opened units to ensure nothing was on fire and it was only the hallway sprinkler activated, located the isolation sprinkler isolation valve in the stairwell, and shut off the water. Crews in the lobby then radioed up that the elevators were no longer working due to water damage. When we cleared the scene an hour later we left the 60 storey building with no elevator access. The elevator tech arrived, assessed the damage said they would be ordering parts for all four elevators that morning.

Now, fortunately, two crews of firefighters 'only' had to climb 20 storeys multiple times to mange overhaul and water removal. With these Super HighRises, should we be expecting this will be the norm? Stairs only after 10-15 minutes after sprinkler activation? Had it been a real fire ... on a higher floor ...

Any insight on how these hallways are designed to manage this water without affecting the elevators? Anything we can do as first in firefighters to ensure we can get backup crews up to us?

Thank you,
Rob
Click to expand...
You ask VERY good questions and I hope someone at the TFS is also asking them of the City Planners. Elevators are complicated pieces of equipment and these days a lot of it is electronic and VERY sensitive to water. Having no elevators in 100 floor building would clearly be an impossible situation but for many people having no elevator in a 6 floor one would make life equally impossible. Elevator components seem to be things that are not terribly standard and not always available 'off the shelf' - we have two - fairly new - elevators in our building and both are basically working OK but need replacement parts for some of the 'extras' like the 'up/down arrow' signage and the external floor indicators. These have now been on 'back-order' for well over a month!
 
DSCToronto said:
You ask VERY good questions and I hope someone at the TFS is also asking them of the City Planners. Elevators are complicated pieces of equipment and these days a lot of it is electronic and VERY sensitive to water. Having no elevators in 100 floor building would clearly be an impossible situation but for many people having no elevator in a 6 floor one would make life equally impossible. Elevator components seem to be things that are not terribly standard and not always available 'off the shelf' - we have two - fairly new - elevators in our building and both are basically working OK but need replacement parts for some of the 'extras' like the 'up/down arrow' signage and the external floor indicators. These have now been on 'back-order' for well over a month!
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A large problem is that every single elevator company has their own parts and patents to said parts so if something happens that the company that designed and installed the elevator is replaced by a competing company it can sometimes make parts very hard to come by we are currently dealing with this at the resort I work at as the elevators were designed and installed by thysenn krep and we as a resort switched over to using third party elevator maintenance this results in parts having to be directly ordered from the company that manufactured them as well as not being able to keep stock we have had an elevator waiting on parts at one of our hotels for the last year
 
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