Soaring downtown skyline forces Edmonton firefighters to adapt response methods
CBC News | Posted: September 25, 2018 9:03 PM | Last Updated: September 25, 2018
66-storey Stantec Tower will be tallest in Canada west of Toronto
The new highrises rejuvenating Edmonton's skyline are not only changing the way downtown looks, but it's changing the way fire crews respond to emergencies.
The Stantec Tower, which is celebrating its grand opening Wednesday, will eventually top out at 66 storeys, making it the tallest building west of Toronto, according to its main tenant Stantec Engineering.
The tower, still a year away from completion, recently reached 54 storeys, already making it the tallest in Edmonton.
But towers of that height introduce unique challenges for firefighters, said the city's deputy fire chief of training and logistics.
- Do you stay or do you go? What to do when there's a fire in your high-rise building
- Fire breaks out in Edmonton highrise
Getting water to the top floors of buildings like the 66-floor Stantec Tower and its neighbour, the 55-storey JW Marriott Edmonton Ice District, requires a serious boost, said Brad Hoekstra.
"The concern is, especially as you get to those higher levels whether you're going to have adequate fire protection or water supply, that being pressure and volume."
That's where the fire department's new two-stage pumper trucks, in use for the last year and a half, come in.
A pumper truck takes water from a hydrant and propels it up a standpipe, essentially a pipe going from the parkade to the top floor, allowing firefighters to tie in on each floor rather than dragging hoses up and down stairwells.
The new trucks use an impeller which pumps the water from a hydrant into a building's standpipe system at a rate of up to 500 pounds of pressure per square inch, much higher than the older trucks.
"This allows the water to be pumped to whatever floor firefighters are fighting at," Hoekstra said.
Edmonton Fire Rescue Services currently has nine of the trucks in service, but will have 13 by the end of the year.
"Buildings are getting higher and higher and higher," said firefighter Dan Demers. "We need to pressurize that standpipe system more and more so we needed new trucks with this ability to achieve those higher pressures."
The two-stage pumper trucks will be stationed throughout the downtown core as well as the university area.
- 17 dead in London highrise fire, PM orders 'full' public inquiry
- London highrise fire: Police say 79 people are dead or missing
The fire department also has its own engineers who work with designers and architects every step of the way through construction to ensure Alberta building and fire codes are in place.
Modern highrises often have separate elevators for firefighters.
New approaches to fighting fires in these buildings could be coming soon.
In 2016, the city hosted a highrise symposium bringing in experts from large municipalities from across North America to analyze current response protocols in Edmonton. Out of that a "highrise committee" was formed.
That committee is now working on recommendations, which once complete will be passed on to officials with Edmonton Fire Rescue.