COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — Coeur d’Alene may become the first city in North Idaho to adopt a firefighting ordinance focused on high rises.
“Coeur d’Alene is starting to see growth that is up, not out, because we’ve run out of room,” said Bill Deruyter, deputy fire chief with the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department.
The General Services/Public Works Committee on Monday voted 3-0 to recommend that the City Council repeal the city’s current Firefighter Room ordinance and adopt the Firefighter Air Replenishment System ordinance.
Deruyter said new mid-rise and high-rise buildings are being constructed throughout the city, and fighting high-rise fires is far different from fighting a single-family residential structure and requires different tactics.
He said that on average, a firefighter in full gear will carry an extra 90 to 100 pounds including hoses, nozzles and extra air bottles.
“The higher the fire is in the building, the longer it will take firefighters to get to the fire,” a staff report said.
Deruyter said the most important equipment firefighters need in every fire is air and water. He said water is provided through a building’s standpipe system, but firefighters take air in bottles to the fire floor.
Air tanks last about 45 minutes. By the time a firefighter reaches the sixth or seventh floor, they may have used much of that air.
A “bottle brigade” of full air tanks going up and empty ones coming down is the normal operation in high-rise firefighting to shuttle equipment from the ground to the staging floor.
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