This report on the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, One Meridian Plaza fire documents one of the most significant highrise fires in United States’ history.  The fire claimed the lives of three Philadelphia firefighters and gutted eight floors of a 38-story fire-resistive building causing an estimated $100 million in direct property loss and an equal or greater loss through business interruption.  Litigation resulting from the fire amounts to an estimated $4 billion in civil damage claims.  Twenty months after the fire this building, one of Philadelphia’s tallest, situated on Penn Square directly across from City Hall, still stood unoccupied and fire-scarred, its structural integrity in question.

This fire is a large scale realization of fire risks that have been identified on many previous occasions.  The most significant new information from this fire relates to the vulnerability of the systems that were installed to provide electrical power and to support fire suppression efforts.  In this incident there was an early loss of normal electrical power, a failure of the emergency generator and a major problem with the standpipe system, each of which contributed to the final outcome.  These experiences should cause responsible individuals and agencies to critically re-examine the adequacy of all emergency systems in major buildings.

When the initial news reports of this fire emerged, attention focused on how a modem, fire-resistive highrise in a major metropolitan city with a well-staffed, well-equipped fire department could be so heavily damaged by fire.  The answer is rather simple -- fire departments alone cannot expect or be expected to provide the level of fire protection that modern highrises demand.  The protection must be built-in.  This fire was finally stopped when it reached a floor where automatic sprinklers had been installed.

This report will demonstrate that the magnitude of this loss is greater than the sum of the individual problems and failures which produced it.  Although problems with emergency power systems, standpipe pressure reducing valves, fire alarm systems, exterior fire spread, and building staff response can be identified, the magnitude of this fire was a result of the manner in which these factors interacted with each other.  It was the combination of all of these factors that produced the outcome.

At the time of the One Meridian Plaza fire, the three model fire prevention codes had already adopted recommendations or requirements for abating hazards in existing highrise buildings.  Each of the model building codes contains explicit requirements for fire protection and means of egress in highrise buildings.  Actions were and are underway in many cities and several States to require retrofitting of existing highrise buildings with automatic sprinkler systems, fire detection and alarm systems, and other safety provisions.  Since the Meridian Plaza fire, the National Fire Protection Association’s Technical Committee on Standpipe Systems has proposed a complete revision of NFPA 14, Standard for Installation of Standpipe and Hose Systems.  The new version of NFPA 14 was approved by the NFPA membership at the 1992 fall meeting in Dallas, Texas.  All of these efforts are necessary and commendable.  To prove successful, however, they must take a comprehensive, holistic approach to the problem of highrise fire safety, if we are to keep One Meridian Plaza from being surpassed by yet another devastating fire.