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It is important to identify how much water may be needed in worst case scenario (e.g. fully involved structure fire ) as well as how much water is available.
Knowledge of fire flow is required for effective decisions on number of handlines and personnel required to extinguish a fire.
Requirements of AHJ - e.g. Uniform Fire Code
On occasion - an incident will occur where pre-incident water supply information is not available. Under these circumstances the IC may use the National Fire Acadmey (NFA) Fire Flow Formula.
This formula can be used as a tactical tool to determine fire flow requirements at the scene of an incident. It will estimate the amount of water required, thus the IC can determine the number of companies needed. Theoretical only.
L X W / 3 = fire flow in gpm for one floor at 100% involvement.
For more than one floor of involve simply multiply the fire flow by the number of floors involved.
Fire Prevention OrganizationFPT 102 - Fire Prevention and Inspection // Instructor: Kevin M. Kolb Slide #7