Stairwell A, Third Floor
You are the lobby officer in a 6-story office building with about 300 occupants. At 14:20 the fire alarm sounds for the third floor and you smell smoke. The annunciator shows a pull station on floor 3 near the elevator lobby. Floor 3 is your assigned sweep. On the stairwell A landing between floors 3 and 4 you find a woman in a manual wheelchair who says she cannot walk and that her aide left to get help ten minutes ago and never came back. Smoke is drifting into the stairwell from the floor 3 door, which is propped open with a trash can. You are alone, with a radio and a flashlight. The fire department has been called and is roughly four minutes out.
1. Sequence your next four minutes. What do you do first, second, and what do you deliberately not do?
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First - close the door that is feeding smoke into your exit. Kick the trash can out and let the floor 3 door shut. A closed door is the single highest-value action available to you: it converts an open smoke path into a barrier and buys the stairwell time.
Second - talk to the fire department, not just the building. Key the radio, confirm the alarm, and give dispatch a specific message: smoke in stairwell A on the landing between 3 and 4, one occupant who cannot walk in a wheelchair, floor 3 door was propped and is now closed, officer is with the occupant. A location that specific is what lets firefighters come straight to you.
Third - move her out of the smoke path if stairwell A is still taking smoke, using stairwell B or an area of refuge with a fire door, whichever is closer and smoke-free.
Deliberately do not: use the elevator, leave her alone without telling anyone exactly where she is, prop a door open "for ventilation," or delay the radio call until you have solved the problem.
2. Should you carry her down the stairs yourself?
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Generally no, not alone.
- A manual wheelchair and an adult body on a narrow stair with smoke in the air is a two-person minimum task even when done correctly, and an untrained solo carry risks dropping her, injuring your back, and blocking the stairwell for evacuating occupants and for firefighters coming up.
- The standard approach is protect in place at an area of refuge - a landing or room with a fire-rated door and a two-way communication or radio contact - and notify responders of the exact location. In a building this size, a stairwell landing behind a closed door is usually survivable; a fall down six flights is not.
- The exception is immediate life threat: visible fire or heavy smoke on the landing itself, with no safer place to move her and help not yet arrived. Then you move her to the next safe landing or through the nearest fire door - a short move, not a six-floor descent.
- Either way, stay with her until relieved or until you hand her location to a firefighter, and say on the radio that you are committed with an occupant so no one is looking for you.
3. After the fire department arrives and the incident is over, what do you document, and what do you do about the propped door?
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Document, while it is fresh:
- Times: alarm at 14:20, your message to dispatch, fire department arrival, when you were relieved.
- The exact location where you found her and what condition she was in - what she said, that she could not walk, that she reported an aide missing ten minutes earlier.
- The propped door: what was holding it, which door, and what you did with it. This is the fact most likely to matter in an investigation.
- What you observed of the smoke: color, density, direction, odor, and where it was coming from.
- Who you handed her to and at what time, by name or unit.
- Any occupants you found who had not evacuated, and floors you did not complete.
On the propped door: write it up as a life-safety finding and route it to building management, not just to your supervisor. A trash can in a fire door is a recurring practice, not an accident, and the report should name the floor, the time, and whether the door had a functioning self-closer. Then follow up in writing to confirm it was corrected, because "noted" with no follow-up is how it happens again next month.