Building side labeling

From MEFD

On the fireground you'll often hear terms like "alpha side", "charlie-delta corner", "bravo exposure". This is a standard way of describing buildings so that we all know we're talking about the same part of the building.

The alpha side is usually the front, the side facing the street, the side with the helpful blue address label, the side with the obvious front entrance, where the command post is located. If not all of those are the same side (it's fairly rare), the incident commander will declare an alpha side by announcing (for example) “alpha side is where 11-12 is parked” or something like that.

From there, bravo, charlie, and delta are the sides counting clockwise from alpha:

Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta sides.png