About This Residential Over Commercial Fire Training Simulator
Mixed-use residential over commercial buildings present some of the most complex incident command challenges. A working or overnight commercial fire on the ground floor with occupied residential units above requires simultaneous search, attack, and evacuation decisions. Fire can extend rapidly through utility chases, stairwells, and floor assemblies into upper floors. This simulator is ideal for officer development and multi-company incident command drills. Drag and drop fire and smoke onto the photo to build scenarios. It is free, runs in the browser on desktop and mobile, and needs no software installation.
How to Use It
- Study the photo for a minute as if you were the first-arriving officer on scene.
- Drag fire, smoke, wind-driven smoke, and personnel onto the scene to create a scenario.
- Give your size-up report and initial action plan, then change the scenario and repeat.
Size-Up Considerations for Residential Over Commercial
- Life safety above the fire: Residents above a ground-floor fire may be asleep or trapped. Search, attack, and evacuation have to happen at the same time.
- Extension routes: Fire can reach the upper floors through utility chases, stairwells, and floor assemblies, often with little visible fire in between.
- Commercial fire load: Each ground-floor shop has its own contents and hazards. Ask what the occupancies are and what they store.
- Access and egress: The apartments may have their own entrance, a separate stairway, or a fire escape. Find out how occupants would get out and how crews would get in.
- Construction: An older masonry exterior may hide wood floors, wood roof framing, and voids that spread fire. See the masonry construction page for more.
- Corner location: A corner building has two exposed sides, traffic, and street signals that can affect apparatus placement.
- In the photo: a three-story corner building has storefronts at street level, including a laundry and a mini mart, with apartments above. Balconies or fire escape landings are visible on the front, the corner is rounded, and traffic signals and street signs stand at the intersection. Think about how fire from a shop could reach the apartments and where ladders could be placed.
Practice Scenarios
- An overnight fire in a ground-floor shop with residents asleep above.
- Smoke in the stairwell serving the upper apartments.
- A shop fire venting out the front and reaching the second floor.
- Fire in an upper apartment while the shops below are closed.
Discussion Questions
- What are your first three observations on arrival, and what do they tell you?
- How would you divide companies between attack, search, and evacuation?
- What is the greatest life hazard, and what is your first priority?
- Which hoseline goes where, and what resources would you request?
- What would make you change from an offensive to a defensive strategy?
This tool is for training discussion only. Always follow your own department's standard operating procedures and local protocols.
