A deadly high-rise fire in Houston has raised questions about Austin's ability to battle similar fires.

KHOU-TV

From condos to office towers, there is a boom of big buildings in downtown Austin. Does the Austin Fire Department have what it takes, to fight fires 20, 30 or 40 stories high?

There are 112 high rises in the City of Austin. Of those, 87 are under the jurisdiction of the Austin Fire Department.

Captain Steve Street, with the Austin Fire Department, says high rise fires are extremely difficult to fight. Because high rises are concrete structures, they keep the heat inside.

"Like a normal house fire, it burns through, and then the heat escapes," Street said. "[With] these, that's definitely not the case. So as you're approaching these fires, they're extremely hot and they're very difficult to get to."

The current safety codes require all high rise buildings be equipped with elevator fire control systems. This allows firefighters to take the elevator up to the floor just below the fire. But if it's not safe to take the elevator, they have take all that extra gear up the stairs.

"It's very difficult because our equipment is so heavy," Street said. "Just our gear in itself ways 70 to 100 pounds. Then we have to take extra hose, nozzles, equipment, air bottles."

All of AFD's ladder trucks extend about 110 feet. That means they can usually reach five stories with their ladders. and by code, any structures that are six stories or more are considered high rise buildings and are held to a stricter safety standard, especially when it comes to exiting.

"If you're in a one or two story building, it won't take you more than a couple of minutes to get out. If you're on the 20th floor of a high rise, it's going to take you quite a while to get out," said Don Smith, AFD assistant fire marshal.

Smith says all high rises have to have sprinkler systems, fire control centers that identify and locate any problems as well as pressurized stair wells and elevator entrance ways.

"If there was a fire in the building and the sprinkler system went off, the alarm system went off, actually these doors would release, and automatically close," he said. "They're actually fire doors, so they would close to keep the smoke out of the elevator lobby."

There are currently eight high rises that don't have sprinkler systems because they were built before the code required them, but a-f-d reports most of those are retro-fitting sprinklers in their buildings.