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The development is located along a couple of streets, one of which is a thoroughfare. I assume the fire crews would run hoses up the pedestrian paths from the street hydrants much the way they would on any street that's closed to vehicular traffic. (And you will find pedestrian-only streets in several Northeastern cities, including the one I live in. Some may be wide enough for fire trucks to get down; those often have bollards that the fire crews can remove if they need access. For those that are too narrow, they just run the fire hoses up them.)
And if the development consists of apartment buildings, there's a good chance the buildings will have sprinkler systems; I think most modern fire codes require them if the buildings have more than a certain number of units. If they're dry, the fire crew just needs to connect the hose from the hydrant to the standpipe connection on the outside of the building.
As MarketStEl pointed out there are wide streets along all sides of the complex. But there is also a wide fire lane that runs through the center of the complex. The developer didn't want that, but the city forced them to include it in the planning process.
That said fire safety should be a concern any time you have a large number of wood frame structures built that close together. If a major fire does ever break out in the complex, it's highly likely a good part of the complex would burn to the ground. There is only so much firefighters can do. They can't work miracles.
As MarketStEl pointed out there are wide streets along all sides of the complex. But there is also a wide fire lane that runs through the center of the complex. The developer didn't want that, but the city forced them to include it in the planning process.
That said fire safety should be a concern any time you have a large number of wood frame structures built that close together. If a major fire does ever break out in the complex, it's highly likely a good part of the complex would burn to the ground. There is only so much firefighters can do. They can't work miracles.
That actually happened here in the early 2000s, when a wood-frame building under construction in a Conshohocken apartment complex caught fire and took three neighboring completed structures with it.
And these structures had parking lots adjacent to them, so fire truck access wasn't an issue. Moreover, the Washington Hose Company volunteer firehouse, which serves Conshohocken, was located about two blocks away from the site of the fire.
I don't remember whether Conshohocken Borough revised its fire codes afterwards, but I think it may have.
And slower, and shorter-range... and much less likely to kill a pedestrian or a cyclist.
Apparently you've never been to Sun City AZ....It's safer to cross the streets in Rome.
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