ST. LOUIS — St. Louis Fire Department officials would like to arm their first-responders with information when they are pulling up to the scene of a fire in a vacant building. Chief Dennis Jenkerson said this project has been in the works for a while.
There are thousands of vacant buildings in the city, and one of them claimed the life of a firefighter last month. The death of firefighter Benjamin Polson, expedited the project. Polson was killed when the roof of a vacant building collapsed while he and other firefighters were inside.
“So, we’re going to try to pre-rate or pre-plan these buildings, so it provides a much higher safety standard,” said Jenkerson.
Jenkerson said the city has as many as 6,000 vacant buildings. If his firefighters are responding to a fire in one of them, he wants them to know what they’re getting into.
“We’ll do a review on what type of conditions are around the building,” he said. “Are all the walls standing? Is there a missing wall? Is the roof in place? Are the floors missing in a multi-story building? Do we have lintels that are not in place? Are the walls bulging out? Are the chimneys leaning? There are all kinds of indicators that are going to cause us pause, if you will.”
That’s why the department is building a database containing that information for dispatchers and firefighters.
“When you’re going to a fire, your computer is sitting right in front of the captain, and this program will highlight – here’s a special circumstance, you need to pay attention to this,” said Jenkerson.
It’s a development born in pain and loss. The department continues to mourn the loss of Polson.
“It’s still going to take a whole lot of molding to get exactly the product we want,” said Jenkerson. “But the most important part is getting an initial notification to the companies coming to the scene that this is a very hazardous building.”
Jenkerson said there is no model for this program, that he knows of. He is, however, hearing from other metropolitan fire departments wanting to know how St. Louis is going about it. Fire officials have finished the first draft of their guidelines and hope to go live with the program next month.