When a builder constructs a high-rise, he`s not just putting up a building, says Chicago Fire Prevention Bureau engineer Edward Prendergast.
”He`s building a vertical community with a population of nearly 10,000 people, a community bigger than most towns you`ll pass on a drive across Kansas,” he said.
That`s what faces firefighters every time they race to a fire in a skyscraper, Prendergast said, in the aftermath of a pre-dawn fire last month at One Illinois Center that took the life of Nancy Clay, 31, a marketing executive.
”A building is designed with a complete life-support system for its occupants,” Prendergast said, listing light, air, temperature, transportation and communication among the components.
”When a fire occurs in a high-rise, it disrupts the entire system,” he said. ”Firefighters don`t just fight a fire, they also make sure the system continues to function” to protect the lives of occupants.
Along with enforcing the city`s 1975 fire code, amended in 1984 to require smoke detectors in residental buildings, fire officials also depend on the cooperation of building managers to ready occupants of their structures for any life-threatening situation.
Following the fire last month at One Illinois Center, where Clay died while working overnight in her 20th-floor office, 1st District Chief Richard J. Fitzpatrick recommended life-safety programs for such buildings be required in the municipal code.
Last Friday, before a City Council committee hearing looking into the fire, Fire Commissioner Louis T. Galante said he was considering proposals for changes in the code.
Management participation in such programs now is voluntary. So while some building managers are eager to work with fire officials on fire safety, Prendergast said, others are reluctant to mention fire safety to building occupants for fear it will frighten them or drive away business.
Prendergast said he wasn`t referring directly to the actions of Chicago firefighters summoned by Clay shortly after 3 a.m. May 13 to a blaze at 111 E. Wacker Dr. where she was trapped. He was speaking, he said, about general high-rise safety and how it is affected by the city`s building and fire codes. Galante said at last Friday`s council hearing One Illinois Center does not have such a life-safety plan.
Among the Chicago companies that cooperate with fire officials in the development of life-safety programs is Amoco Corp., headquartered in a white marble tower on the city`s lakefront, overlooking Grant Park.
Amoco occupies approximately half the space in the 80-story structure, said James Spencer, the building`s operations manager. When the Amoco Building is fully occupied, it houses from 8,000 to 10,000 people, he said. The higher number includes visitors, he said.
”It`s a small city,” said James Atkinson, Amoco`s security supervisor.
The firm`s Emergency Action Plan, established in 1972 when the skyscraper, formerly known as the Standard Oil Building, opened, provides for employee fire brigades on every floor. The plan was last revised in April.
The purpose of the plan is to ”maintain a continuous state of readiness and to ensure the safety of all building occupants, clients and visitors against fire, bomb threats, explosions, medical emergencies and other life-threatening situations.”
To provide proper training and prepartion for an effective plan, the building security department instructs floor brigades in bomb searches, the location and use of fire extinguishers, fire and evacuation procedures, evacuation routes and stairwells.
Each fire brigade team consists of eight people, including a brigade captain, assistants and four alternatives, Atkinson said. Because the building houses two sets of stairwells, one north, the other south, four brigade members are assigned to each set, he said.
Amoco conducts two fire and two bomb drills a year on each floor, both during workdays and after the building officially is ”closed” between 6:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. During each drill, brigade members are instructed to
”simulate” a fire scene, designating a location of a ”fire” and practicing the use of fire extinguishers.
Atkinson noted that, in addition to fire brigades, the building has an extensive alarm and smoke-detector system, including a public-address system that can be used to relay emergency information to building occupants.
And, in accordance with Chicago`s fire code, Amoco`s smoke detectors are located in the building`s corridors and exhaust system, with additional detectors in ”high hazard” areas, such as storage rooms, Atkinson said.
Spencer said the ventilation system is shut down between 6:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. ”Sometimes a ventilation system can do more to advance the fire than retard it,” he said.
Unlike code requirements for residences, Prendergast said, smoke detectors are not required by the city`s fire code in buildings with sprinkler systems. If an office building is not equipped with sprinklers, however, smoke detectors must be installed in return air vents and public corridors, the fire official said.
”Some cities, which consider the non-sprinkler option obsolete, have eliminated a choice in their codes,” Prendergast said. ”But architects in Chicago are given two design options: sprinkler or non-sprinkler.
”Architects are now opting for sprinklers,” he said. ”No building presently under construction in Chicago is without sprinklers. There`s more flexibility in building design with sprinklers.”
Spencer said Amoco officials now are considering a plan to install sprinklers throughout the building at an estimated cost of $6 million.
Though Amoco officials have been considering the sprinkler question for some time, interest in fire safety has been renewed on the part of building tenants since the fatal fire at One Illinois Center.
”People want to go to a safe work environment,” Atkinson said.
”Tenants want to be assured the same thing couldn`t happen here.”
One emergency rule Amoco management tries to impress upon its tenants
–advice with which the Chicago Fire Department disagrees–is to call building security to report a fire, not 911 or the fire department. A security officer, Atkinson said, will contact the fire department and get the building`s life-safety procedures rolling before firefighters arrival.
”We`ll make an announcement on the P.A. system that there`s a hazard and physically send a security officer and a building engineer to the floor to aid in evacuation,” he said.
Meanwhile, other security personal and building engineers will staff the building`s ”incident command post” to bring all the elevators down to the lobby for the arrival of firefighters.
Spencer said that in a serious fire, Amoco`s ventilation system would be used to ”exhaust” the flames, by drawing smoke and gases off the floor, and to ”pressurize” floors above and below the blaze to contain the blaze.
The building`s fire brigades also would start to function. ”A small wastebasket fire can be handled” by a brigade, Spencer said. ”Beyond that, their job is to get people off the floor in a cool, collected way.
”We don`t want any heroes. The brigade is there to take a common sense action. Firefighting is best left to firefighters,” he said.
Spencer said it would be ”rare” to evacuate the entire building: ”Some may move up. Some may move down.”
Under the building`s safety plan, occupants are told to move to stairwells and designated areas three floors above or three floors below the fire. Smoke towers adjacent to the stairwells work like chimneys, keeping stairwells clear of smoke, Spencer said.
Much of Chicago`s fire code has been amended to strengthen the regulations following a tragic fire. For example, sprinkler systems were not required in school buildings until after the Our Lady of Angels school fire in 1958, in which 92 children and three nuns died.
”Before Our Lady of Angels, you couldn`t get a fire extinguisher in schools,” Prendergast said. ”After the fire, the public and city political leadership was more receptive.”
That`s what Nancy Clay`s family is attempting to inspire with its suit against managers of One Illinois Center, a family attorney said Friday: To allow Clay`s death to be a vehicle for a complete analysis of the ability of this city to respond to a high-rise fire.
