UFOA: Have High-Rises Go Low on Apt. Nos.; Put Them Near Doors' Bottom

A bill in the City Council would alter the Fire Code to require high-rise residential buildings to have photo-luminescent designations of the apartment numbers at the bottom of each door, a move that its backer argued would protect firefighters and residents alike.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow EDWARD BOLES: 'Helps us find fire victims.'

Uniformed Fire Officers Association Treasurer Edward Boles, the union's City Council committee chairman, said that firefighters have experienced more wind-driven fires in high-rise buildings, which often forces them to crawl on the floor.

'Would Help Orient Us'

"With wind-driven fires in high-rise residential buildings, the problem is if the fire gets into the common hall-way, it makes the conditions very adverse; it's very hot, it's very smoky," he said last week. "It would aid in our operations if we were able to see the apartment designation on the bottom of the door so we were better oriented to find the apartment where people need help."

Mr. Boles began discussing new fire safety options after the line-of-duty death of one of the UFOA's members in January, Lieut. John Martinson. He died after fighting a wind-driven fire in a high-rise residence in Brooklyn, and the UFOA began pushing for this change in the Fire Code.

Mr. Boles added that there was precedent for the change — which was being discussed at a hearing of the Council's Fire and Criminal Justice Services Committee Oct. 20 as this newspaper went to press — with some buildings in Harlem voluntarily placing the designation on apartment unit doors.

"It's not that I've reinvented the wheel, I've seen it in other buildings in other municipalities," Mr. Boles said. "In Yonkers they have it, and in Albany. It's more a cooperative thing where it's not enforced but they kind of ask the people [to do it]."

Cites HA Example

Mr. Boles also pointed to the Housing Authority, where he said some buildings had unit designation numbers on the outside, which aided firefighters in finding the source of fires or where people were trapped.

The law would require the fire-resistant door decals to be four inches wide and five inches high.

"It's an additional cue," he said. "The more cues that we have, the better equipped we are."