A structure fire is a fire involving the structural components of various residential buildings ranging from single-family detached homes and townhouses to apartments and tower blocks, or various commercial buildings ranging from offices to shopping malls. This is in contrast to "room and contents" fires, chimney fires, vehicle fires, wildfires or other outdoor fires.
Structure fires typically have a similar response from the fire department that include engines, ladder trucks, rescue squads, chief officers, and an EMS unit, each of which will have specific initial assignments. The actual response and assignments will vary between fire departments.
It is not unusual for some fire departments to have a pre-determined mobilisation plan for when a fire incident is reported in certain structures in their area. This plan may include mobilising the nearest aerial firefighting vehicle to a tower block, or a foam-carrying vehicle to structures known to contain certain hazardous chemicals.
Read more about Structure Fire: Types, Causes of House Fires
Famous quotes containing the words structure and/or fire:
“I’m a Sunday School teacher, and I’ve always known that the structure of law is founded on the Christian ethic that you shall love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself—a very high and perfect standard. We all know the fallibility of man, and the contentions in society, as described by Reinhold Niebuhr and many others, don’t permit us to achieve perfection.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“My paternal grandmother would not light a fire on the Sabbath and piled all Sunday’s washing-up in a bucket, to be dealt with on Monday morning, because the Sabbath was a day of rest—a practice that made my paternal grandfather, the village atheist, as mad as fire. Nevertheless, he willed five quid to the minister, just to be on the safe side.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)