KFD ready for high rise fires, chief insists
A debate erupted this week on whether the Kelowna Fire Department has enough manpower and the right equipment to extinguish high-rise fires.
Jason Picklyk, president of the Kelowna Professional Firefighters Association, set off the firestorm with a social media post stating that according to the National Fire Protection Association, an international non-profit organization, 43 firefighters are the minimum amount needed to fight a fire in a 23-metre or taller building.
The Kelowna Fire Department has 23 firefighters on each shift for the entire city.
“Another two staffed 24/7 engine companies in the city is needed,” he said, noting numerous calls last Saturday afternoon for a Quail Ridge garden apartment fire, one engine company at a medical call, a boat explosion at a downtown marina and a barbecue fire on the deck of an Ellis Street garden apartment.
Not to worry, says fire chief Travis Whiting. Although he did not respond to a request for an interview he provided an update to
Kelowna city council on Tuesday evening during the discussion on the UBCO downtown campus.
A UBCO spokesman also described the different strategies used in fighting fires in skyscrapers.
Engineers design modern high-rises with so-called standpipes usually in the corner of stairwells, plus pumps, to send water vertically to firefighters on the upper floors.
The tallest ladder trucks can’t reach higher floors of skyscrapers, he said.
“That’s not how fires are fought in these types of buildings. That is the case with lower buildings, with wood frame, with four- and six-storey buildings, that tries to be a matching of the reach of ladder trucks and booms with the heights of these buildings.”
The size of standpipes increases with taller buildings and pumps have more capacity, he said. UBCO’s 46-storey Downtown Campus, for example, would be constructed with reinforced concrete which limits fire spread compared to wood construction.
The department initially reviews building plans to ensure they meet fire and building code compliance, said Whiting, noting modern high-rises are constructed with different standards than previously and have a lot more safety features such as residential sprinklers, egress and smoke control.
He acknowledged concerns about the NFPA staffing levels, “however, those standards are not automatic, nor are they commonly applied anywhere in Western Canada. It is a standard that puts forth an operation target on both response times and staffing levels. We use other metrics.”
“Certainly, how we fight fires now is completely different than how we did it 25 years ago. A lot of that has to do with building construction itself and the additional safety measures that are in place, the ability of fires to be contained in unit of origin and give us the opportunity to manage those incidents.”
As towers are constructed, the department pre-plans how to fight fires in each, he said.
“As we continue to grow as a city, we continue to need to manage things differently and continue to innovate. The difference between a 30-storey building and a 40-storey building, we have those techniques in place and we have equipment for them so we can manage those fires.”