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Ensorceled 2 hours ago [-]
Everything related to fires got better: more and better smoke and CO detectors, interior sprinklers, regulations around flammable clothes, bedding and mattresses, reduced smoking rates, increased awareness, faster response times, closure of firetrap rooming houses (fwiw: closing rooming houses contributes to the homelessness problem), better apartment inspections ...
We don't really need multiple exits in case of fire because fires are occurring less often and people are getting plenty of warning.
We're facing the issue in Ontario where firefighters are bored out of their minds and are being used as first responders for anything and everything. They show up to random fender benders.
CGMthrowaway 1 minutes ago [-]
>We don't really need multiple exits in case of fire because fires are occurring less often and people are getting plenty of warning.
I'm not a fire expert but I dont think that logic holds. The point is redundancy. If one exit gets blocked, you have another one you can use. Hospitals don't stop using backup power supply for life-saving equipment just because "the power grid downtime has improved."
SCdF 8 minutes ago [-]
We had this in NZ *years* ago at this point. Mate was a fire fighter for a few years (until his knees gave up, it's a brutal job) and he went to almost no actual fires. It was everything else.
ketzu 2 hours ago [-]
> We don't really need multiple exits in case of fire because fires are occurring less often and people are getting plenty of warning.
Based on the video, external fire exits were a bad idea from the start and were recommended against 150 years ago, but inertia is hard to overcome.
(unless I Completely misunderstood)
anamexis 33 minutes ago [-]
And the problem with interior fire escape stairs was solved by encasing them in concrete and adding self-closing doors to prevent updrafts.
mhb 1 hours ago [-]
Is that because the firefighters are bored or because they want to show the public that they're doing something valuable before the public realizes that we don't need so many of them?
petcat 1 hours ago [-]
Firefighters do a lot more than you probably realize. For instance, who is carrying grandma with her broken hip down the rickety stairs from her top floor bathroom? It's probably not just the two-person ambulance crew. You going to get grandpa to help?
These are the kinds of routine jobs that fire crews handle everyday that are invaluable to society.
mhb 28 minutes ago [-]
I realize it which is why their strategy is a good one. Does it make sense for the people who are able to do that job also all be able to put out fires?
petcat 22 minutes ago [-]
I think someone that can carry grandma down the stairs and also occasionally put out a catastrophic fire is a pretty reasonable and efficient use of taxpayer money. The alternative would be what, having two different people to do those things?
hylaride 6 minutes ago [-]
It depends. In Ontario (or at least Toronto where I live), the fire department and ambulance services are separate. The paramedics are chronically underfunded and the result is that the fire department is constantly running up milage on multiple expensive and massive fire trucks for routine calls that should just have been a paramedic. This also compounds traffic issues when they park at their destination.
It makes sense for them to automatically show up for some situations (eg car accidents), but there should be a properly funded triage system.
Same goes for the police, which are often called for situations where there should be some other social workers available (again, there are exceptions where police should also be present in those situations).
red-iron-pine 20 minutes ago [-]
yes. they are edge cases but the training that comes with it translates fairly well to other tasks.
carrying grandma out of a burning building and carrying her downstairs after a fall are the same skill sets
hovering_nox 1 hours ago [-]
Yup, had this exact scenario across the street last week.
SCdF 10 minutes ago [-]
The problem is that the need is spiky. You don't need many of them until an old apartment building or factory catches fire because of cladding made in the 70s.
They are like seat belts, or audit logs. You don't need so many of them, right up until you do.
tranceylc 47 minutes ago [-]
Bold to say that in a forum of software developers, haha
y-curious 43 minutes ago [-]
Ouch :’(
I better go show up to metaphorical fender benders more
dbvn 14 minutes ago [-]
yeah sure, they're so bored they spend half their week cutting people out of their wrecked cars. Just to make you think their salary is justified
mschuster91 27 minutes ago [-]
You might not need (say) 100 firefighters for the day to day work in a medium city any more... but you absolutely need 100 firefighters when the large chemical plant goes up in a blaze.
It's hard enough in Germany to balance that, but we at least can draw on the advantage of Germany being decently settled which means we can have support crews come in from neighboring cities. But in the US where it might be the case that the nearest city with enough staff is hours of driving away? By the time you get enough staff on site, the entire plant is gone.
paulryanrogers 2 hours ago [-]
> They show up to random fender benders.
EVs can cause pretty bad fires from benign looking accidents. Perhaps this is for the best? Better safe than sorry as they say.
Or perhaps we should dial back on how many firefighters we keep employed at all times.
petcat 2 hours ago [-]
In my town every firefighter is also an EMT and every fire truck has an AED and ventilation bag. And the local firehouse is invariably closer to basically everything than the ALS ambulance is.
So over the last several decades, "firefighter" has really just become emergency responder, where "emergency" can be a lot of things that happen in society pretty often.
johannes1234321 2 hours ago [-]
> Or perhaps we should dial back on how many firefighters we keep employed at all times.
When there is a fire you still need enough at location in time.
The fact that there are enough in short distance with good equipment is one of the things which causes the low number of big fires: once the mandatory detector goes of for a little fire they are on site before it becomes big.
RobotToaster 2 hours ago [-]
> Or perhaps we should dial back on how many firefighters we keep employed at all times.
The problem is you need a good number when there is a serious fire, even if it doesn't happen very often.
dankent 1 hours ago [-]
In the UK, we have quite a few 'on call' firefighters (about a third of the total) who are fully trained and are paid but are not full time. They typically work another job but are available during certain hours if required. I'm not sure if similar systems exist elsewhere.
anttisalmela 25 minutes ago [-]
Looks like 80% of firefighters (or rescue personnel according to modern naming) in Finland are members of volunteer fire brigades or so-called contract fire brigades and they respond to nearly half of the total emergencies but over 90% of emergencies outside densely populated areas.
cogogo 44 minutes ago [-]
A huge portion of the US is covered by purely volunteer fire departments. Communities pay for equipment and training and that is it. Response times are slow but it is really the only viable option in rural areas.
petcat 38 minutes ago [-]
At the federal level, FEMA and USDA offer extensive grants and low interest loans to fund fire districts in rural communities with a small tax base. I think basically every state offers similar funding assistance on top of that.
1 hours ago [-]
57 minutes ago [-]
Qem 2 hours ago [-]
> We're facing the issue in Ontario where firefighters are bored out of their minds and are being used as first responders for anything and everything.
With climate change we can repurpose them as waterfighters when sea level rise, floods and berm breaches become an acute problem.
Larrikin 37 minutes ago [-]
Firefighting in a large city versus a small town I assume are different, but the firefighters I know would never describe themselves as bored. They get paid to spend the majority of their time hanging out with friends, barbecuing, working on their cars, enjoying life, etc for the occasional hugely important and often terrifying life saving firefighting work.
They deploy more often than when I was a kid for EMT type work in place of or as first responder for ambulances. But, none of them would ever describe their day to day as boring.
57 minutes ago [-]
stefantalpalaru 5 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
lbriner 3 hours ago [-]
Interesting article.
I went to a Victorian era school in London and it had one of those cast iron fire escapes going from the ground up to the 2nd floor (3rd floor to the Americans) and it was a good deal of fun to play on!
In my last year of school, it was cut off completely and not replaced. Hmm, weird. Apparently it was unsafe and someone decided it wasn't needed because there were two other stairwells.
Fast-forwards to after my graduation and returning to work at the school as a teacher. The top floor is out of bounds to everyone. Why? The fire escape is missing :-)
Symbiote 27 minutes ago [-]
During a real fire at my school, also in the UK, a cast iron fire escape partially collapsed. I don't remember any mention of injuries, and it was replaced with a new, steel staircase within a few weeks.
pinum 1 hours ago [-]
Making the main staircase more fire-resistant is great but I'm not fully convinced by the arguments for removing external ones instead of having both.
If the main stairs do turn out to be impassable for some reason despite the new measures, I'd much rather have the option to risk taking an external fire escape even if it might be rusty or blocked by clutter.
wffurr 57 minutes ago [-]
A lot of buildings now require at least two stairwells for buildings over three stories. There's talk in Massachusetts of easing that requirement the requirement to four or six stories, which is more common worldwide and could help build more affordable housing.
Note: This requirement is a contributor to US apartments being ugly. Depressing line corridors, and only one side of windows unless you're in the corner. Other countries don't have the double stairway requirement, and are prettier as a result.
comrade1234 2 hours ago [-]
What would burn in those manhattan buildings? Are the internal walls wood?
I don't know what would burn in the building I live in now. It's all cement construction. The internal walls are brick with gypsum over. The window coverings and furniture is flame resistant. I suppose I'd be screwed if my downstairs neighbor had a bunch of flammable stuff though. Also we have an underground parking lot full of cars... maybe I should invest in a ladder.
Shitty-kitty 2 hours ago [-]
A old brick-wall building is basically a pretty shell protecting a wood frame.
pvab3 1 hours ago [-]
Not usually for anything over a few stories. Most of those taller buildings are a combination of masonry and steel. Steel started being used in the 1880s/1890s.
washadjeffmad 2 hours ago [-]
The most essential unspoken purchase for anyone living higher than the ground floor in an older building is an emergency escape ladder.
mhb 29 minutes ago [-]
Is that because a fire extinguisher is spoken or that it's not essential?
paulryanrogers 2 hours ago [-]
Is this really a phenomenon? Where and since when?
No one told me in either of my apartments.
walthamstow 2 hours ago [-]
In my 4th floor apartment in Tokyo there was a box containing what seemed to be basically an abseiling harness. Instructions in Japanese but seemed like if shit hits the fan you smash the window, clip it to the building and get yourself down to street level asap.
vidarh 51 minutes ago [-]
Our AirBnB in Tokyo last year had a box mounted on the balcony which (according to the instructions on the outside) held some crane-like thing with a harness to let you swing out over the balcony and rappel down in the case of emergency.
slfnflctd 2 hours ago [-]
My parents had something very similar to this in their apartment in the midwestern US in the 80s. I recall it as being an aluminum mount with a chain ladder.
bluGill 2 hours ago [-]
Wood is a great construction material. It has better insulation value than brick, and the CO2 costs are vastly better.
cwillu 2 hours ago [-]
Your flame resistant furniture will pyrolize just fine once the apartment gets hot enough. Just takes one idiot keeping their budget lithium bike inside to ignite the whole mess--ask me how I know.
The construction is there to isolate suites and delay the spread, but don't kid yourself that a given suite doesn't contain enough fuel to have a major fire, given the right ignition source and tinder.
ezconnect 53 minutes ago [-]
In Japan, the main stairs of the building is designed like fire escapes. It is unenclosed and mostly on the side of the building. When I first saw them I thought it was silly to have the stairs open to the environment during rain and snow. I finally realized they have double purpose.
In S. Korea almost all apartment buildings have their own escape lapel rope attached to the window and all have a fire proof blanket in the cabinet near the exit door.
2 hours ago [-]
mschuster91 48 minutes ago [-]
> The story of their decline is a fascinating case study in how building codes actually work. I’m Grady and this is Practical Engineering.
... who else immediately heard the signature melody of his intro after reading these words?! I certainly did.
> When New York City updated their building codes in 1968, exterior exits were officially prohibited for new construction.
Fascinatingly in Germany it is just the other way around. If you have an old building that was built before fire codes mandated two independent exits for every residential room, and the window cannot be reached by a fire ladder, you are mandated to retrofit an escape ladder if you do a renovation of the building.
We don't really need multiple exits in case of fire because fires are occurring less often and people are getting plenty of warning.
We're facing the issue in Ontario where firefighters are bored out of their minds and are being used as first responders for anything and everything. They show up to random fender benders.
I'm not a fire expert but I dont think that logic holds. The point is redundancy. If one exit gets blocked, you have another one you can use. Hospitals don't stop using backup power supply for life-saving equipment just because "the power grid downtime has improved."
Based on the video, external fire exits were a bad idea from the start and were recommended against 150 years ago, but inertia is hard to overcome.
(unless I Completely misunderstood)
These are the kinds of routine jobs that fire crews handle everyday that are invaluable to society.
It makes sense for them to automatically show up for some situations (eg car accidents), but there should be a properly funded triage system.
Same goes for the police, which are often called for situations where there should be some other social workers available (again, there are exceptions where police should also be present in those situations).
carrying grandma out of a burning building and carrying her downstairs after a fall are the same skill sets
They are like seat belts, or audit logs. You don't need so many of them, right up until you do.
I better go show up to metaphorical fender benders more
It's hard enough in Germany to balance that, but we at least can draw on the advantage of Germany being decently settled which means we can have support crews come in from neighboring cities. But in the US where it might be the case that the nearest city with enough staff is hours of driving away? By the time you get enough staff on site, the entire plant is gone.
EVs can cause pretty bad fires from benign looking accidents. Perhaps this is for the best? Better safe than sorry as they say.
Or perhaps we should dial back on how many firefighters we keep employed at all times.
So over the last several decades, "firefighter" has really just become emergency responder, where "emergency" can be a lot of things that happen in society pretty often.
When there is a fire you still need enough at location in time.
The fact that there are enough in short distance with good equipment is one of the things which causes the low number of big fires: once the mandatory detector goes of for a little fire they are on site before it becomes big.
The problem is you need a good number when there is a serious fire, even if it doesn't happen very often.
With climate change we can repurpose them as waterfighters when sea level rise, floods and berm breaches become an acute problem.
They deploy more often than when I was a kid for EMT type work in place of or as first responder for ambulances. But, none of them would ever describe their day to day as boring.
I went to a Victorian era school in London and it had one of those cast iron fire escapes going from the ground up to the 2nd floor (3rd floor to the Americans) and it was a good deal of fun to play on!
In my last year of school, it was cut off completely and not replaced. Hmm, weird. Apparently it was unsafe and someone decided it wasn't needed because there were two other stairwells.
Fast-forwards to after my graduation and returning to work at the school as a teacher. The top floor is out of bounds to everyone. Why? The fire escape is missing :-)
If the main stairs do turn out to be impassable for some reason despite the new measures, I'd much rather have the option to risk taking an external fire escape even if it might be rusty or blocked by clutter.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/28/opinion/stairwells-bu...
I don't know what would burn in the building I live in now. It's all cement construction. The internal walls are brick with gypsum over. The window coverings and furniture is flame resistant. I suppose I'd be screwed if my downstairs neighbor had a bunch of flammable stuff though. Also we have an underground parking lot full of cars... maybe I should invest in a ladder.
No one told me in either of my apartments.
The construction is there to isolate suites and delay the spread, but don't kid yourself that a given suite doesn't contain enough fuel to have a major fire, given the right ignition source and tinder.
In S. Korea almost all apartment buildings have their own escape lapel rope attached to the window and all have a fire proof blanket in the cabinet near the exit door.
... who else immediately heard the signature melody of his intro after reading these words?! I certainly did.
> When New York City updated their building codes in 1968, exterior exits were officially prohibited for new construction.
Fascinatingly in Germany it is just the other way around. If you have an old building that was built before fire codes mandated two independent exits for every residential room, and the window cannot be reached by a fire ladder, you are mandated to retrofit an escape ladder if you do a renovation of the building.