Ninety-Second Building Card Drill on Linden Boulevard
At 08:00 your lieutenant hands out a building card for 210-14 Linden Boulevard and gives the company 90 seconds to study it before the cards are collected. The card reads:
- Four-story, 60-foot-by-40-foot ordinary-construction multiple dwelling, built 1928, 16 apartments, no sprinkler, no standpipe.
- Fire escape on the rear (Charlie) side; open shaft between this building and the similar building at 210-16.
- Interior stair: open, center-rear; scuttle ladder to the roof in the bulkhead.
- Siamese connection: 15 feet north of the main entrance on Linden Boulevard.
- Nearest hydrant: corner of Linden Boulevard and 173rd Street, 120 feet east of the main entrance. Second hydrant: in front of 210-20, 90 feet west.
- Gas shutoff: basement, front wall, left of the stair as you face the building.
- Occupancy notes: three elderly residents on the third floor; one wheelchair user in Apt 2-B.
- Alarm box 4271, corner of Linden Boulevard and 173rd Street.
The lieutenant collects the cards, waits two minutes, then begins questioning the company.
1. Without looking back, state the sprinkler and standpipe status, the siamese location, both hydrant distances and directions, the gas shutoff location, and the alarm box number.
Read the worked answer
Recall: No sprinkler, no standpipe. Siamese is 15 feet north of the main entrance on Linden Boulevard. Nearest hydrant is at Linden and 173rd Street, 120 feet east of the entrance; the second hydrant is in front of 210-20, 90 feet west. Gas shutoff is in the basement on the front wall, left of the stair as you face the building. Alarm box 4271.
What the grader is actually testing: Not whether you can recite a list, but whether the numbers are attached to the right directions. The failure mode that costs time on the fireground is reversing east and west, or attaching the 120 feet to the west hydrant. Note that the hydrant distance is measured from the main entrance, not from where the apparatus will stop - the chauffeur still has to add the stop position. Also note the hydrant and the alarm box share the same corner, which is the memory handle that keeps 173rd Street and 120 feet east bound together.
2. Which two items on this card would most change first-alarm tactics on a working fire on the third floor, and why?
Read the worked answer
Item 1: No standpipe, no sprinkler, single open stair. With no standpipe, every foot of hose to the third floor must be stretched by hand up an open stair - which also means the stair is the vertical extension path. The first line has to reach the fire floor and be charged before the stair is used for evacuation or access, and a second line should protect the stair itself. The absence of sprinklers removes any expectation that the fire will be held in the room of origin.
Item 2: The occupancy notes. Three elderly residents on the third floor - the fire floor - and a wheelchair user in Apt 2-B below it. The wheelchair user is not on the fire floor but is in the path of any evacuation order and cannot use the fire escape. These two facts convert a room-and-contents fire into a rescue-priority fire and dictate that laddering the Charlie-side fire escape starts early, not after the fire is knocked down.
Ordinary construction with an open shaft to 210-16 is a close third, but it changes exposure protection, not the initial search-and-line decision.
3. How would you hold this card in memory through the tour rather than for the next two minutes?
Read the worked answer
Anchor numbers to fixed physical features. A number alone decays; a number attached to a corner or a doorway survives. 120 feet east, 173rd Street, and box 4271 are one unit because they share the corner. The siamese is '15 north of the door' - picture standing at the door facing the street and turning right.
Turn sequences into stories. Gas shutoff: enter, front wall, left of the stair - that is a three-step physical path to walk in your head, not a sentence to recite.
Link the two hardest facts. The wheelchair user is in 2-B, which is one floor, one apartment, and one letter - and 'B' pairs with 'below the third-floor elderly,' which keeps both occupancy notes in one package.
Rehearse aloud at the curb. Reciting on arrival, looking at the actual building while you do it, attaches the card to the street view. That is the version you will recall at 02:00, not the version read once in the kitchen.