Conception to Completion:

Implementing Fire Pre-Incident

PlanningMarie Cline-Delgado

Christopher Kelly

Introduction

• Our Fire Department was tasked with implementing a pre-fire

plan (PFP) program

• All commercial occupancies (COs) and emergency features

were documented in a spatial database

• We used data driven pages, digitizing, geometry calculations,

and more to reveal characteristics such as the amount of water

flow needed to extinguish a fire

• Our simple implementation aided in the completion of PFPs for

all COs in one year and improved first responder safety

• The final product improved firefighter safety and efficiency

City of College Station, Texas

• Population – 106,824

• Home to Texas A&M University – 4th largest university in the

United States with an enrollment of 58,577

• Fire Department – 143 personnel working a 24/48 hour shift

schedule out of 6 fire stations. Responded to 8577 calls for

service in 2015

• GIS Department – Consists of one GIS Coordinator and one

GIS analyst

PFP Project Objective

• Improve firefighter safety by developing a user-friendly program

to encourage the use on every response

• Inspect all of the City’s COs within 1 year to meet the

requirements for accreditation through Commission on Fire

Accreditation International (CFAI)

• Continue inspections on an annual basis

• Design the program to be maintainable by fire personnel

• Plan for the future implementation of Tri-Tech CAD/RMS

software adoption

Presentation Objective

• Demonstrate how we utilized ESRI technology to develop a

Pre-Incident Planning program to meet our needs

City of College Station – Occupancy Data

• Total Commercial Occupancies – 1406

• Fire Department – 3 shifts operating out of 6 stations allowed

us to split occupancies 18 ways

• 1406 / 10 months = Each crew averaged 8 per month for 10

months. We have allowed 2 months for expansion of future

construction

• Rotate on an annual basis between each shift to increase

exposure to more occupancies

Development

• NFPA 1620: STANDARD FOR PRE-INCIDENT PLANNING

- This standard provides criteria for developing pre-incident plans to

help responders effectively manage emergencies so as to

maximize protection for occupants, responding personnel, property,

and the environment

• The Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) defines what data will

be collected and utilized in the Pre-Incident Plan

Limitations

• Fire Department does not have any dedicated GIS staff

- GIS editing and maintenance by fire suppression personnel

- Trained 9 users to use ArcGIS Desktop (3 users per shift)

• Collection method

- Electronic versus paper

- Paper utilized

- To limit the number of users editing the datasets

- To reduce the number of users who would require GIS training

• Existing mobile mapping software limited the amount of change

we could implement

- Implementation of TriTech CADRMS will reduce this limitation

Methods

• Considered ESRI Solutions for Pre-Incident Planning

- Too in-depth and complex for our objectives

• Developed similar methodology to meet our limitations and

constraints

- Built a map project utilizing existing feature classes

- Structures

- Planimetrics acquired from LiDAR collection

- Emergency Feature Points

- Field collection by fire personnel

- Other reference data

- Fire hydrants

- Parking lots

- Streets

- Adapted the tables

Attribute Table Development

• Pre-Populated data

- Address and occupancy name

- From county appraisal district data

- Building dimensions

- Geometry calculations via the Minimum Bounding Geometry tool

- Building height

- LiDAR data

- Required field confirmation due to discrepancies between LiDAR return

and actual building height

- Iowa Fire Flow

- Calculated from building dimensions and height

Attribute Table Development

• Data requiring inspection input

- Utilized field domains for terminology consistency

- Occupancy type

- Building construction

- Roof construction

- Number of stories

- Open text boxes to allow for input

- Special hazards

- Hazardous materials

- Inspection personnel and date

- For future shift rotation

Collection and dissemination of data

• After crews hand collected the data

- All PFP forms are sent to each shift coordinator to be entered into

the feature datasets

• Pre-incident plans were then available two ways:

1. On the mobile mapping software pre-incident plan map layer

- This was important because it allowed responding crews to see all

points of every building in the city with the touch of one button

2. Saved as a two page PDF to be accessed by map ID number

- This proved important to access more detailed information as the

incident progressed

Blank PFP Form – Sent out to crews for collection

Blank PFP Aerial Form – Used by crews to help

reference locations

Completed Form

Completed Aerial Form

Additional Thoughts and Future Developments

• Decision to split occupancies within a strip center versus doing

one PFP per building structure

• Variation of occupancy sizes created the need for independent

scale ranges for each occupancy PFP form

• All data is updated wirelessly to the truck Mobile Data Terminal

(MDT) when it is parked in the station and connects to the

network

- This keeps the most current data always available to the crews

• Annual Cost - $600 per year to print copies

• Tablets and Collector for ArcGIS can be utilized with a

production database in place of paper to reduce annual costs

Questions?

Contact Information

• Marie Cline-Delgado

- Email – mdelgado@cstx.gov

- Phone – 979-764-5058

• Christopher Kelly

- Email – ckelly@cstx.gov

- Phone – 979-764-3710