When responding to fires in high-rise buildings, firefighting crews of five or six members—instead of three or four—are significantly faster in putting out fires and completing search-and-rescue operations, according to a multiphase study carried out by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in cooperation with five other organizations.

“Unlike most house fires, high-rise fires are high-hazard situations that pose unique operational challenges to fire service response,” says Jason Averill, a NIST fire protection engineer. “How big a fire gets and how much danger it poses to occupants and firefighters is largely determined by crew size and how personnel are deployed at the scene. It’s not simply that larger crews have more people. Larger crews are deployed differently and, as a result, are able to perform required tasks more quickly."

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