Major fire: reviewing expectations for municipal fire departments

In many loss scenarios, fire assumptions still rely heavily on fire department response. Response time, attack capability, control of fire spread, and protection of adjacent buildings are factors that directly influence risk assessment, insurance limits, and sometimes even certain design decisions.

Yet this view does not always match the operational reality of fire departments.

In the field, firefighters’ primary objective remains the protection of human life. Once the building has been evacuated, no lives are in immediate danger, and the risk of spread is limited, the approach changes. If no lives are at risk, fire departments rightly choose not to commit their crews inside a building that is already compromised. The building is then allowed to burn in a controlled manner.

This reality is known to fire responders, but it may be underestimated in many risk analyses and loss scenarios.

An intervention guided by life safety risk

Contrary to the common belief of business owners, and perhaps of some insurance underwriters, fire departments apply conservative approaches when it comes to responder health and safety. The risks associated with structural collapse, toxic smoke, explosions, and rapid thermal phenomena are well documented, and responders are well informed about them.

The intervention logic therefore becomes the following:

• Save lives;
• Avoid fire spread;
• Control fire spread while avoiding environmental damage where possible;
• Limit risks to responders. 

Saving the building itself is no longer necessarily the priority when conditions become too dangerous.

In many cases, particularly in industrial buildings, the fire intensity at the time crews arrive and the limited information available about the building contents make an interior attack unrealistic. If all occupants are safe, firefighters then adopt a defensive posture: they protect the perimeter and allow the building to burn out. If no lives are at risk, fire departments rightly choose not to commit their crews inside a building that is already compromised.

This distinction is important because several loss scenarios used in property insurance still implicitly assume a rapid and effective offensive intervention by municipal firefighters.

The reality in remote regions

This situation becomes even more critical in regional areas.

A large proportion of fire departments outside major urban centres rely on volunteer or part-time firefighters. Unlike full-time urban departments, personnel often has to be mobilized from their homes or workplaces before the vehicles can even depart.

The actual reaction time can therefore be longer than the time sometimes used in certain theoretical analyses.

Several well-known constraints must also be considered:

• Significant distances;
• Access that may be difficult;
• Limited resource availability, for example during vacation periods;
• Water supply from a remote water source;
• Intermunicipal mutual aid required to obtain adequate staffing.
   

For isolated buildings, these delays often allow the fire to develop well before the first crews arrive. Once on site, tactical options then become limited.

In some scenarios, particularly for large-area buildings or industrial facilities, the total loss is practically already underway by the time the response actually begins.

An implicit reliance in many loss scenarios

This reality raises an uncomfortable question: do several loss scenarios indirectly overestimate the actual response capability of fire departments?

In some files, the presence of a municipal fire department is still perceived as an important protective measure in itself. Yet the mere existence of a fire department guarantees neither a rapid response nor the actual ability to control a major fire.

The nuance is important.

A fire department can be competent, well trained, and well-intentioned, while still being unable to save a building when:

• The fire is already developed upon arrival;
• Structural conditions are compromised;
• The water supply is insufficient or delayed;
• Available resources are limited;
• The risks to firefighters become unacceptable.

In many cases, the building’s automatic protection systems therefore represent the only real possibility of controlling the loss before municipal firefighters arrive.

The true level of site resilience

This reality should lead insurers, brokers, and risk managers to revisit certain basic assumptions.

The real question should not be: “Will the firefighters be able to respond?” But rather: “What will be left when the firefighters arrive?”

A building whose protection strategy relies primarily on external fire department response often has much lower resilience than anticipated, particularly in less densely populated regions served by volunteer or part-time firefighters.

This becomes particularly true where the following conditions are present:

• The absence of effective compartmentation (fire walls);
• Inadequate or absent sprinkler systems;
• Significant combustible loading;
• High-energy processes;
• Isolated buildings without private fire protection systems (fire pumps, hydrants, water supplies, automatic sprinklers, etc.);
• Long response delays.

In these contexts, loss prevention, early detection, and internal protection systems become the truly critical elements for controlling the risk.

Rethinking certain assumptions

The objective is obviously not to question the work of fire departments. Firefighters carry out their mission in an increasingly complex operational context, to the best of their ability and with the resources made available to them. However, it is necessary to analyze loss scenarios with greater realism.

Expecting a fire department to systematically save an industrial building in the event of a fire may sometimes be more of an optimistic assumption than a true risk control strategy.

The real resilience of a site depends first on its ability to prevent such a loss and, failing that, to limit its development before firefighters arrive.