Public Safety Reports

OPERATIONAL RESPONSE APPROACHES

Many agencies develop prefire plans to provide a response and tactical strategy for those more

critical or complex occupancies in the community. The community risk and vulnerability

assessment evaluates the community as a whole, and with regard to property, measures all

property and the risks associated with that property and then segregates the property as either

a high-, medium-, or low-hazard. These hazards are further broken down into varying degrees of

risk. According to the NFPA Fire Protection Handbook, these hazards are defined as:

High-hazard occupancies:

Schools, hospitals, nursing homes, explosives plants, refineries, high-

rise buildings, and other high life-hazard or large fire-potential occupancies.

Medium-hazard occupancies:

Apartments, offices, and mercantile and industrial

occupancies not normally requiring extensive rescue by firefighting forces.

Low-hazard occupancies:

One-, two-, or three-family dwellings and scattered small business

and industrial occupancies.

Figures 4-1 and 4-2 illustrate the critical tasks and resource deployment required on low-risk

incidents and moderate-risk incidents such as structure fires. Understanding the community’s risk

greatly assists fire department management planning for and justification of staffing and

apparatus resources.

FIGURE 4-1: Low-Risk Response, Exterior Fire Attack

Figure 4-2 represents critical task elements for a moderate-risk structure fire. Some jurisdictions

add additional response resources to meet and in some cases exceed the specifics of national

benchmarking, such as National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1710, Standard for the

Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations, Emergency Medical Operations,

and Special Operations to the Public by Career Departments, 2014 Edition. NFPA 1710 calls for

the initial assignment of 14 personnel on a single-family residential structure when an aerial

ladder is not utilized. CAL FIRE utilizes the combined resources of both Morgan Hill and SSCCFD to

assemble the necessary staffing to manage larger incidents. In addition, CAL FIRE incorporates

Cote, Grant, Hall & Solomon, eds.,

Fire Protection Handbook

(Quincy, MA: National Fire Protection

Association, 2008), 12.