How They Did It – Game Night in Chapel Hill

On Monday night, April 4, 2016, on the eve of a certain championship basketball game, the Chapel Hill Fire Department faced a formidable challenge.

How to prepare for tens of thousands of people possibly swarming onto Franklin Street, and potentially starting fires or needing medical assistance? And while providing fire protection to the rest of the town during the same period?

They answered the challenge with a detailed incident action plan (IAP), and extensive mutual aid from neighboring city and county fire departments. And with a certain fire photographer in tow!

Their IAP divided the town into two operational divisions:

  • Division I Everywhere in town, except the downtown event area.
  • Division II Downtown event area.

See more photos by Mike Legeros

Downtown

The downtown event area was defined as eight blocks of Franklin Street commercial and mixed-use residential district, with numerous restaurants and bars plus four blocks of Columbia Street, which add college buildings to the mix. Those were further divided into five sectors.

Each sector was assigned:

  • Strike Team Three or more firefighters on foot, primarily for fire prevention/suppression, and equipped with water extinguishers.
  • Task Force Team Two fire, two EMS, two law enforcement members. For deployment as needed.


Foot teams were equipped with harness-mounted water extinguishers (left), and simple medical equipment.

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