Fighting Fire in Schools: Firefighting Operations

Schools have gained much attention in the emergency management world even though lesser attention has been paid to the potential for fire events which has certainly created credible scenario and presented specific challenges to fire fighting.

There are many different types of school construction, although many built from the 1960’s through today are of non-combustible construction, which assists in reducing the possibility of significant fire spread. 
 Recommendations:

1. Water supply - this can be a big issue at schools. Schools are everywhere, in every community, but not every community has public water with “regular” fire hydrants. If you can plan during construction to get a water supply on site, do it.
2. Hazmat - minimal hazardous materials are present in school environments. Cleaning chemicals are common, and one type of incident that has been known to occur is a chlorine-based cleaning agent being mixed with ammonia to create nasty fumes.  
3. Students - schools can have large numbers of students. Fire drills should be practiced in most schools a number of times during the year, in some cases monthly, and the good news is that evacuation of schools would be generally effective with good systems in place. 
4. Protection features - some schools are sprinklered, some aren’t. If protection is provided, it will likely be a wet-pipe system and may be combined with a standpipe system. Operations necessary to support the system include: ensuring water supplies are operating effectively, keeping valves supplying the operating system(s) fully open until the fire is extinguished and ensuring fire pumps are operating properly.   

A Final Note

At all school incidents, unless the building is vacant, dealing with life safety issues will be the overriding concern for fire incident commanders such as teachers and security staff.



Choose to partner with us, Informed Systems Ltd, for the supply, installation and maintenance of fire fighting equipment. We also provide training and conduct fire drills to every parties in a school set up such as students, teaching and non-teaching staff. Contact us with the details given at any time!!