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 – [email protected]
- Phone – 979-764-5058
• Christopher Kelly
- Email – [email protected]
- Phone – 979-764-3710
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