The Arizona Republic Phoenix Community edition features a monthly column written by Fire Chief Bob Khan
City
of Phoenix Public Information Office - News Clippings - azcentral.com
- May 3, 2008
It takes everyone's help to prevent fires
As the temperatures increase here in the Valley, we see the Mountain Preserves go from an Irish green to a Sonoran brown. It’s all good, but in the fire business that means the potential for brush fires increases exponentially.
We’re fortunate in the Valley to have an Automatic Aid response system where city fire departments respond with fire engines, brush trucks and helicopters to our urban interface fires, giving us over 250 units to respond in the Phoenix metropolitan area. It would be an understatement to say that is a “wow,” in the national fire service. Drawing that type of a resource from a satellite-driven computerized dispatch system is one of the best!
Like most fires, brush fires start small and get big. They can consume businesses, homes, vehicles, and even people. We at the fire department take this time of year very seriously. We will respond with all of the horsepower that we need to in order to put our firefighters between these dangerous fires and the people that we’re sworn to protect.
However, you as a citizen have the ability to help us out. Smokey the Bear had it right – only you can prevent forest fires. Here’s what you can do to keep your homes and your businesses safe from brush fires this summer. Make sure you create your own firebreaks -- we recommend a 30-foot clearing. You can also cut back the alleys and clear off those vacant lots in your neighborhoods. In Phoenix we work with the Neighborhood Services Department and we’re told that basically anything over 12-inches high is considered to be a fire hazard.
Speaking about fire hazards, the Phoenix Fire Department last October put together a task force to examine those high-profile summer fires that included pallet factories, wrecking yards and warehouses. Those fires often will come with ambient temperatures in excess of 100 degrees. They are what we call ordinary combustibles, high volume. Businesses of this type are extremely vulnerable in the summer months.
What this elite Valley-wide taskforce discovered was that with stronger code enforcement (that would include more restrictive storage, better housekeeping and a commitment to increasing fire’s access to the property) a fire that in the past has burned for 20 hours should take us only 20 minutes to extinguish. In Phoenix we have to be realistic and say that when you store large stacks of wood in the 115-degree desert, and somebody drops a cigarette, it’s probably going to catch fire.
Ideally we in the fire service would like to be able to drive up to these businesses with our fire trucks, put the fire out, and go on to the next call. But when these businesses are out of compliance and have four stories of combustible product stacked up with no place for our fire trucks to get in, predictably, we’re going to spend the next couple of days at that business putting the fire out. That’s not fair to the neighborhood, to the other businesses, or to our firefighters.
This taskforce has identified more than 400 occupancies that we will have code enforcement officers visit over the next few months to try to reduce the number of large-scale fires. This is a labor-intensive process. It may take years to rein this in; but the Phoenix Fire Department is committed to making the entire metropolitan area safe for our families, friends and visitors.
In the end, we ask that you do your part to fight fire in the summer months, whether it is at your home or at your business. What we advise is to follow the fire code, pay attention to those fire bans that are forthcoming in the parks and have a wonderful and warm summer this year. Be safe!
Send comments to Bob Khan at firechief.pfd@phoenix.gov or call (602) 26-CHIEF.