Edit: Thanks for the folks that are in adjacent areas that got back to me and were kind, I was just curious as a laymen New Yorker.
UPDATE: One of my friends got back to me I guess they have blueprints and do drills and do drills and shit and that I’m not allowed to know the rest – whatever bitch tits, comments basically stated that
In: 75
I can’t remember what the proper names for these things are. But all buildings (in my location) have a fire panel on the outside, which is well documented. On this fire panel, there are all the controls for alarms and testing, as well as hydrant connections, and a floor plan.
Fire fighters go to that as their first point of contact. That gives them everything they need to know.
The myriad of FDNY requirements, plans, documentation that goes into getting a building approved and built allows the FDNY to better understand the layouts and operations of most buildings. This is not limited to NYC. Most cities and towns require FD approval and walkthroughs at a minimum prior to certificate of occupancy.
When I did volunteer fire, many moons ago, we would regularly go out to larger buildings in our area and do a walkthrough/talkthrough of how we would handle them, taking note of everything from the layout and construction materials, to the type of doors it has. We might even go over some training scenarios with the ladder truck and stuff, if the owners were willing to let us.
On top of that, our detachable toughbook on engine had a program with pretty much all the building blueprints emergency services could get their hands on. We also had as many paper copies as we could back at the station, with more than one person tasked with making sure it’s all kept up to date.
As for how that translates to a place like NYC, I’d imagine whatever they have makes my stuff look downright primitive.
Firefighter from the FDNY here. In our academy we study the common layouts of the buildings we’ll be running into during our time on the job. For example an old law tenement in Manhattan will usually have two apartments per floor with a fire escape in the back of the building. If that same type of building has fire escapes in the front of it, that usually means each floor will be four apartments instead of two.
Simple knowledge like that is what we learn helps us to put out the fire and find where people will most likely end up during the fire if they get into a bad spot. We then study and do inspections on all the different types of buildings we will most likely go to in the area around our fire houses when we get out the academy to be proficient as possible.
TLDR: Firefighters learn a lot about buildings in their area around their firehouses to be prepared as much as possible to fight fires
I used to work IT for a small city (25k people) and supported the police and fire departments. My state has a public safety coop that helps provide various software and systems for public safety entities and one of them was a system that lets you pre load in building plans and make notes. All the fire trucks have laptops on them and could pull up the maps and info on sites they made and could review them on the way or on site during an emergency. They would also coordinate with some of the larger places in the city like the large industrial manufacturers to go over safety procedures and get yours like some others have mentioned.
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