Coeur d'Alene firefighters seek changes to battle high-rise fires

Coeur d’Alene may become the first city in North Idaho to adopt a firefighting ordinance focused on high rises. 

“Coeur d’Alene is starting to see growth that is up, not out, because we’ve run out of room,” said Bill Deruyter, deputy fire chief with the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department.

The General Services/Public Works Committee on Monday voted 3-0 to recommend that the City Council repeal the city’s current Firefighter Room ordinance and adopt the Firefighter Air Replenishment System ordinance. 

Deruyter said new mid-rise and high-rise buildings are being constructed throughout the city, and fighting high-rise fires is far different from fighting a single-family residential structure and requires different tactics. 

He said that on average, a firefighter in full gear will carry an extra 90 to 100 pounds including hoses, nozzles and extra air bottles.  

“The higher the fire is in the building, the longer it will take firefighters to get to the fire,” a staff report said. 

Deruyter said the most important equipment firefighters need in every fire is air and water. He said water is provided through a building’s standpipe system, but firefighters take air in bottles to the fire floor.  

Air tanks last about 45 minutes. By the time a firefighter reaches the sixth or seventh floor, they may have used much of that air.

A “bottle brigade” of full air tanks going up and empty ones coming down is the normal operation in high-rise firefighting to shuttle equipment from the ground to the staging floor. The process is labor intensive and requires a lot of manpower. 

Deruyter said if the city had a high-rise fire, they would have to call in as much help as possible. 

“We do it the old-fashioned way now,” Deruyter said.

He said FARS mimics a water delivery system in buildings through pipes. 

“Only it supplies air,” he said. 

The FARS fill port stations are located within the stairwells and allow firefighters to fill their bottles within two minutes without having to remove their self-contained breathing apparatus pack and get back to fighting fires.

The FARS would not be required of current downtown high-rise projects already approved by the city, including the 18-story Thomas George, under construction at First and Front; the 15-story Sherman Towers at First and Sherman, construction expected to start next year, and the six-story Marriott hotel at Sixth and Sherman, also targeted for construction next year. 

High rises already downtown include One Lakeside, Parkside and McEuen Terrace.

According to a video played at the meeting, 19 states are requiring FARS. Deruyter said Boise, Meridian and Nampa have adopted it. 

The city’s current system since at least 2006 is to provide small Firefighter Equipment Rooms every five stories of a high-rise building that includes staged equipment purchased by the building owner and maintained by the fire department.  

But there are concerns with that system.

“We have found that maintenance, service and confidence in the readiness of this equipment is lacking and all of our fire officers have expressed that they would not feel comfortable risking their life on the readiness of this equipment,” a staff report said.  

Deruyter said FARS would not cost the city money but would be paid for by developers. 

The current equipment cost for a firefighter room is about $75,000. The FARS would be roughly 1% of a project’s cost. 

“It’s more than what we are currently requiring in our ordinance, but those costs are going to continue increasing,” Deruyter said. 

Councilor Christie Wood said she supported it.

“I think anything we can do to make sure we’re safe and able to help other people be safe, we should do it," she said.

Wood asked if firefighters had reached out to builders for input. Deruyter said they did and did not receive any objections. 

Councilor Dan English said he looked at the requirement of builders to pay for FARS as a user fee. He said he didn't think taxpayers should have to subsidize it.

“I think it’s fair to everybody," he said.

The proposal will next go to the City Council for consideration.