The Fire Service And Illegal Housing

[bigfitz2004 19]

Does anyone know of any place to get information about Illegal Housing and the fire service dealing with the rise of illegal housing? Fire services training on the understanding of illegal housing and Status of illegal housing in this county. Illegal housing has always been a problem with the fire services. I'm having a hard time finding information because this problem is in every town, village, and city in this county. I do not see enough information to prepare firefighters.

thanks

Edited August 3, 2007 by DOC22
improper spelling and grammer

[ny10570 745]

In your town if you are not authorized to issue violations then contact the building dept. Who ever is in charge of construction permits, CofO's, etc would be able to set up some kind of standard reporting procedure.

[Guest alsfirefighter]

Fitz...prepared for what in particular? I often discuss some of the indicators of over crowding in residences and the fact that some illegals and immigrants are often struggling and discuss some considerations when performing searches. Like checking dressers when drawers are left open and being used as a cradle and so on. Other than that the risks involve delayed stretching of lines if its an OMD and tons of people are coming out the interior stairs. You might have to deviate from that, the potential for numerous victims, and worse case scenario all on upper floors presenting at windows and such.

If there is anything else you are thinking brother, give some more detail and hopefully some other brothers/sisters can also add on.

If you notice this on other calls, you should have a procedure in place to make notification to your building/enforcement department for your city/town/village.

[antiquefirelt 994]

Our dept. has the responsibility of enforcing the Life Safety Code. In this it basically requires all residential units to meet many safety requirements. If we find a building through responses, code officer's, sales, complaint or routine inspection, that has violations we force the owner to correct the issues. We also pass the information about specific hazards and numbers of occupants on to each shift.

The Code Office has a "property maintenance code" that also assists in this so the owner loses his/her C of O. This code has numbers of people in relation to numbers of bedroom and bathrooms. The hardest part comes with getting court orders or taking the property when the owner walks away. Also to add to the problem is the number of "occupants" rights that cause evicitons to take ridiuclously long.

Adopt NFPA 1 and 101. that will give you the tools to inspect and enforce the minimum safety requirements. I doubt seriously though that we have the problem on nearly the proportion you do. For a small community there is a ton of time involved, it would seem like a huge undertaking in a City as large as yours.