In downtown Chicago, it’s 6 o’clock

on a crisp fall Tuesday evening and

a fire has broken out at a multistory

department store. Immediately,

two fire stations located north

and south of the city’s core, where the

store stands, dispatch engines to the

scene. Meanwhile, there’s a frantic

rush at each station to locate the

department store’s pre-fire plan diagram.

The north station has located it

in a binder bulging with hundreds of

paper diagrams. But the south station

cannot find its copy, and radios the

north station to relay the pre-plan’s

details to it enroute to the fire.

As the north station engine races

to the burning structure, it shares the

information with the south station’s

incident commander. As details are rattled

off, he must quickly visualize the

building’s layout, alarm panel location,

entry and exit doors, location of sprinklers,

among many other details, then

share this with his crew during the 15-

minute trip. Ultimately, the engines

arrive on the scene and, thanks to

information sharing, they contain the

fire which only affected the first two

floors, with no loss of lives.

While quick strategizing and

teamwork were key factors in preserving

most of the department

store’s structure, the reliance on

paper diagrams of pre-fire plans

proved risky. Most fire chiefs view

pre-fire plan paper diagrams as a necessary

evil when fire calls come in.

Yet isn’t there a better and quicker

way to capture this information?

Software Aids Pre-Plan Inspections

Fortunately, yes. During the past

six to eight years, software programs

have emerged that can produce

building diagrams,

and even include National

Fire Protection Association

(NFPA) symbols libraries

so that diagramming can

be tailored to fire pre-planning

needs.

This diagramming software

offers several advantages.

Once entered into

the software program, prefire

plans can be kept in a

centralized database,

which enables fast and

easy retrieval during a fire

or an emergency. Also, on

the way to a fire call, the incident commander

can have a copy of the pre-fire

plan diagram generated with the software.

This enables the chief to study

the floor plan and determine the best

strategy for responding crews.

Diagramming software also just

offers a more clear and accurate preplan

diagram, after which updates are

simple and quick versus creating an

entirely new diagram each time

changes with a pre-plan occur. The

South Elgin, IL, Fire Department, for

example, uses The Fire Zone Version

6.0 diagram software from The CAD

Zone Inc. for detailed pre-plans of

buildings in its community. The software

is optimal for creating accurate

and clear pre-fire, post-incident or fireinvestigation

drawings – right from a

laptop or desktop computer. A key

advantage of the software is the ability

to quickly draw building floor plans

and other site details to actual measurements.

Fire Zone also allows the

user to show emergency exits, alarm

control panels, location of hazardous

materials, and other building characteristics

to prepare fire personnel to

deal with any incident.

According to Jason Peters, a paramedic

and firefighter with the South

Elgin Fire Department, the diagramming

software is helpful when annual

inspections of local businesses are

conducted. "Any time we do fire

inspections," Peters explained, "we’re

starting to do pre-plans of buildings so

we know the layouts of the buildings,

permanent walls, means of egress,

and location of hazards. We’ve used

Fire Zone a lot for making very

detailed pre-plans just for our safety

and the community’s safety."

The department has the software

program loaded into laptop computers.

"If we have a fire, we can download

the pre-plans on our laptops in

the fire engine and figure out where

the hazards are going to be on the

way to a fire," Peters noted.

Diagramming software is easy to

learn, which means no complicated

instruction courses, thick operator’s

manuals or the need to have a computer-

aided-design background. "I got

a pretty good grasp of the program

within the first three days of using it,"

Peters said. But then he didn’t have

much time to learn it since an arson

fire occurred one day in South Elgin

and his captain asked Peters to make

a drawing using the software.

Since the structure was a house

and not a building, the department

had no pre-plan to work with. "We

took the details from a paper diagram

we made on the scene and put it on

The Fire Zone," Peters explained.

"The diagram was more realistic looking

and a lot more clear as to what

happened and the origin of the fire."

The South Elgin Fire Department

has 55 full-time and part-time firefighters,

of whom three are currently

using the diagramming software.

According to Peters, there are 2,000

businesses that require pre-plans. So

far, close to 400 pre-fire plan diagrams

of buildings have been completed

with the software.

Like the South Elgin Fire

Department, the Kitsap Fire & Rescue

Department in Silverdale, WA, saw the

need for a better way to create and

maintain fire pre-plans, and now also

uses The Fire Zone software. Chief

Ken Burdette said, "We were doing

drawings on paper, but they really

were not useful. We were looking for a

way to create consistent appearing documents

that everybody could utilize."

Fighting Fires "Smarter"

Kitsap Fire & Rescue surveyed

several diagramming software products,

but the products either were

simple to use yet lacked the specific

needs for pre-plan drawings, or they

were complicated and required huge

learning curves, Burdette said. The

department needed software that

addresses the needs of firefighters

preparing pre-plans.

"We were also looking forward to

the future when we would be able to

bring these up on mobile computers

in the fire engines," he added. "Many

departments have computers in their

fire engines where they’re able to

gather information from their dispatch

systems. So, now, a lot of fire

agencies are asking how to get building

drawings with their computers."

Kitsap Fire & Rescue is getting

close to having computers mounted

inside its apparatus. When this

occurs, not only can the department

use The Fire Zone program to bring

up pre-plan diagrams, but it can also

use another program from The CAD

Zone that it’s using, called First Look

Pro. The First Look Pro software

allows fire personnel to organize and

locate pre-fire plan diagrams and

information from The Fire Zone, and

display the information in a database

broken down into specific categories.

Examples of categories include

roof construction and hazardous

materials. By clicking and pointing on

these categories, fire personnel can

immediately learn what construction

the roof is, thereby determining if it

will collapse during a fire, and what

types of hazardous materials are in a

building and their location.

"First Look Pro gives you the text

information and allows you to look at

a building and help you decide how

best to fight a fire in it," Burdette said.

"This software gives you the tools you

need to make quick decisions when

you first arrive on the scene. This is

extremely important, because if we

don’t set up correctly at the scene to

start with, things just get worse."

Valuable In Court

Diagramming software wins over

fire departments because of its

tremendous ease of use, superb detail,

and overall clear and professional presentation

of pre-plan diagram details.

"I like the way the software (Fire

Zone) is laid out," Peters said, "and how

everything transfers from text to symbols

to wherever you want to insert it.

The clarity and accuracy of the drawing

is a lot better, and it’s easy to enter information

and symbols." In addition, he

said, "Once you start using the software,

you realize what kind of information you

can add into it."

One of the biggest benefits of having

the diagram complete with details

and NFPA symbols is that it allows

everyone in the department to understand

what’s going on with a building

in case anyone ever has to enter it.

"You may not remember all the details

at a building because there’s so much

you’re trying to accomplish at the

scene, but the diagramming program’s

symbols remind you of them,"

Peters said.

Pre-plan drawings created with the

diagramming software also can be

valuable should a fire incident case go

to court. Kitsap Fire & Rescue’s

Burdette noted that his department’s

fire investigators periodically appear in

court on fire incidents. "The diagrams

we create with diagramming software

allow us to present a clear and understandable

post-incident analysis on the

fire, and show where that fire was and

our apparatus," he said.

The South Elgin Fire Department

also has found the diagramming software

valuable for possible court

cases. Referring to the home arson

case for which he was asked to prepare

a diagram, Peters said, "There

wasn’t a whole lot of fire upon our

arrival at the scene, but where the fire

started raised a lot of questions and

suspicion. I walked through the

house, took measurements, and put

everything accordingly on paper and

then in the electronic diagram that we

would need to support our case if this

investigation went to court."

Still another valuable feature of

the diagramming software is the ability

to import drawings from other programs.

Burdette often will import an

AutoCAD drawing that he’s obtained

for a building inspection.

"You can download this drawing

to Fire Zone and edit out what you

don’t need on the drawing," Burdette

said. "You still have to go out to the

building and gather information.

That doesn’t change. But if you’ve

already got a drawing in another program

and are able to import that, it’s

a whole lot faster than going out and

pacing off a building."

Toward Shared Diagrams

Burdette probably speaks for all

fire departments when he says he

looks forward to the day when all

departments and their stations can

have programs like Fire Zone and First

Look Pro so that electronic diagrams

can be shared. He feels it would take

firefighting to a whole new level.

"If you have hand drawings for

one station," Burdette said, "but

need drawings for another station,

by having the software programs

loaded on computers installed in fire

trucks will enable each engine to

have drawings for all buildings in a

city. Even if another department is

way outside of the area, but is first

in on a burning structure, they can

have the information. That’s not the

case if they’re carrying the

drawings in a notebook."