A Fire Chief's View Of Smart Growth

"In fighting fires, the actual battle is against time. Considering that fire grows exponentially with time, the longer it takes for firefighters to be dispatched, arrive at the scene, set up, and finally put water on the fire, the bigger the fire we have to face.

Before putting the wet stuff on the red stuff though, we need to vent the building. Considering narrow street frontage, laddering the front of these cluster homes in itself is challenging even on flat grade. Raising a 28-foot ground ladder to the second-story window on the side of these cluster dwellings might be impossible. And the 35-foot ground ladder would not be adequate to safely get to the roof of a 3-story dwellings.

Of course, that is even more challenging when the exterior wall is only three feet from the property line. Even trying to raise the 35-foot ground ladder from the neighbor's house (which is also only three feet away, on the other side of the property line) to reach the roof would result in a very steep and unsafe climbing angle of around 80 degrees."