Many times I’ve been listening to the radio traffic and heard an officer, both old and new, arrive on location and incorrectly give a size up that classifies the building construction type as Ordinary Construction. The problem we face is a conflict between the word ordinary and the construction type ordinary.
Merriam-Webster.com defines the adjective Ordinary as:
1 : of a kind to be expected in the normal order of events : ROUTINE, USUAL
The following was cut-and-pasted from an article by Chief Vincent Dunne at http://www.workingfire.net/misc7.htm
Ordinary constructed (type III) building is also called a brick-and joist structure. It has masonry-bearing walls but the floors, structural framework and roof are made of wood or other combustible material. Ordinary construction has been described by some firefighters as a "lumberyard enclosed by four brick walls."
Chief Dunne further classifies the construction we most often encounter in residential construction as:
Wood-frame (type V) construction is the most combustible of the five building types. The interior framing and exterior walls may be wood. A wood-frame building is the only one of the five types of construction that has combustible exterior walls. When sizing up a fire in a wood building, the outside walls must be considered for the fire spread. Flames can spread out a window and then along the outside wood walls (in addition to the interior fire spread).
Most of the residential construction in the jurisdiction where I work is not ordinary but (Type V) wood frame. The problem we most often encounter is the conflict between how the rest of the world and the fire service define the word ordinary.
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