When most people think of high rise buildings, they think of tall skyscrapers in Chicago or New York. However, buildings seven stories or taller are actually defined as high rise buildings. So, not only are there many buildings in the City of Milwaukee that meet that definition, but many suburban areas, including the North Shore communities, have many of these buildings. 

Even a small fire in a high rise building can cause significant danger for the occupants of the building and the emergency responders. Just the smoke created from small fires creates significant evacuation challenges. Fires in these buildings normally require large scale responses, thus requiring support from multiple fire departments.

For the past year, members of the fire departments in Milwaukee County have come together to create a regional high rise fire suppression operational plan that includes policy, equipment and training components. For the past two weeks, a group of trainers from the participating departments have been training command level supervisors on the latest tactics, strategies and on the regional response plan. Part of this training includes running the supervisors through incident scenarios using simulation type software. The next step in this implementation plan will be to train street level supervisors and their crews on the plan and actually conduct a full scale training exercise in a high rise building. 

Incident Type	Incident Count
Fire/Rescue/Service Weekly Average (2015 & 2016)	40 38
Emergency Medical Weekly Average (2015 & 2016)	152 108

Priority 1 & 2 Calls Meeting Response Goal of 7:02	89% (goal of 90%)
Average Response Time Priority 1 & 2 Calls	5 minutes 19 seconds (goal of 6 minutes)

*Priority 1 & 2 calls are calls for service which the Department sends an initial responding unit to a scene with lights and sirens operating. Priority 3 calls are responses that are considered non-emergent.