Everything related to fires got better: more and better smoke and CO detectors, interior sprinklers, regulations around flammable clothes, bedding and mattresses, reduced smoking rates, increased awareness, faster response times, closure of firetrap rooming houses (fwiw: closing rooming houses contributes to the homelessness problem), better apartment inspections ...
We don't really need multiple exits in case of fire because fires are occurring less often and people are getting plenty of warning.
We're facing the issue in Ontario where firefighters are bored out of their minds and are being used as first responders for anything and everything. They show up to random fender benders.
> We're facing the issue in Ontario where firefighters are bored out of their minds and are being used as first responders for anything and everything.
With climate change we can repurpose them as waterfighters when sea level rise, floods and berm breaches become an acute problem.
Is that because the firefighters are bored or because they want to show the public that they're doing something valuable before the public realizes that we don't need so many of them?
Firefighters do a lot more than you probably realize. For instance, who is carrying grandma with her broken hip down the rickety stairs from her top floor bathroom? It's probably not the two-person ambulance crew. You going to get grandpa to help?
These are the kinds of routine jobs that fire crews handle everyday that are invaluable to society.
In my town every firefighter is also an EMT and every fire truck has an AED and ventilation bag. And the local firehouse is invariably closer to basically everything than the ALS ambulance is.
So over the last several decades, "firefighter" has really just become emergency responder, where "emergency" can be a lot of things that happen in society pretty often.
> Or perhaps we should dial back on how many firefighters we keep employed at all times.
When there is a fire you still need enough at location in time.
The fact that there are enough in short distance with good equipment is one of the things which causes the low number of big fires: once the mandatory detector goes of for a little fire they are on site before it becomes big.
In the UK, we have quite a few 'on call' firefighters (about a third of the total) who are fully trained and are paid but are not full time. They typically work another job but are available during certain hours if required. I'm not sure if similar systems exist elsewhere.
I went to a Victorian era school in London and it had one of those cast iron fire escapes going from the ground up to the 2nd floor (3rd floor to the Americans) and it was a good deal of fun to play on!
In my last year of school, it was cut off completely and not replaced. Hmm, weird. Apparently it was unsafe and someone decided it wasn't needed because there were two other stairwells.
Fast-forwards to after my graduation and returning to work at the school as a teacher. The top floor is out of bounds to everyone. Why? The fire escape is missing :-)
What would burn in those manhattan buildings? Are the internal walls wood?
I don't know what would burn in the building I live in now. It's all cement construction. The internal walls are brick with gypsum over. The window coverings and furniture is flame resistant. I suppose I'd be screwed if my downstairs neighbor had a bunch of flammable stuff though. Also we have an underground parking lot full of cars... maybe I should invest in a ladder.
In my 4th floor apartment in Tokyo there was a box containing what seemed to be basically an abseiling harness. Instructions in Japanese but seemed like if shit hits the fan you smash the window, clip it to the building and get yourself down to street level asap.
My parents had something very similar to this in their apartment in the midwestern US in the 80s. I recall it as being an aluminum mount with a chain ladder.
Your flame resistant furniture will pyrolize just fine once the apartment gets hot enough. Just takes one idiot keeping their budget lithium bike inside to ignite the whole mess--ask me how I know.
The construction is there to isolate suites and delay the spread, but don't kid yourself that a given suite doesn't contain enough fuel to have a major fire, given the right ignition source and tinder.
We don't really need multiple exits in case of fire because fires are occurring less often and people are getting plenty of warning.
We're facing the issue in Ontario where firefighters are bored out of their minds and are being used as first responders for anything and everything. They show up to random fender benders.
With climate change we can repurpose them as waterfighters when sea level rise, floods and berm breaches become an acute problem.
These are the kinds of routine jobs that fire crews handle everyday that are invaluable to society.
Based on the video, external fire exits were a bad idea from the start and were recommended against 150 years ago, but inertia is hard to overcome.
(unless I Completely misunderstood)
EVs can cause pretty bad fires from benign looking accidents. Perhaps this is for the best? Better safe than sorry as they say.
Or perhaps we should dial back on how many firefighters we keep employed at all times.
So over the last several decades, "firefighter" has really just become emergency responder, where "emergency" can be a lot of things that happen in society pretty often.
When there is a fire you still need enough at location in time.
The fact that there are enough in short distance with good equipment is one of the things which causes the low number of big fires: once the mandatory detector goes of for a little fire they are on site before it becomes big.
The problem is you need a good number when there is a serious fire, even if it doesn't happen very often.
I went to a Victorian era school in London and it had one of those cast iron fire escapes going from the ground up to the 2nd floor (3rd floor to the Americans) and it was a good deal of fun to play on!
In my last year of school, it was cut off completely and not replaced. Hmm, weird. Apparently it was unsafe and someone decided it wasn't needed because there were two other stairwells.
Fast-forwards to after my graduation and returning to work at the school as a teacher. The top floor is out of bounds to everyone. Why? The fire escape is missing :-)
I don't know what would burn in the building I live in now. It's all cement construction. The internal walls are brick with gypsum over. The window coverings and furniture is flame resistant. I suppose I'd be screwed if my downstairs neighbor had a bunch of flammable stuff though. Also we have an underground parking lot full of cars... maybe I should invest in a ladder.
No one told me in either of my apartments.
The construction is there to isolate suites and delay the spread, but don't kid yourself that a given suite doesn't contain enough fuel to have a major fire, given the right ignition source and tinder.