Fire Alarm Reminders

by John Raabe

As some of you are aware, we have had a few fire alarms on property lately. Luckily, the most recent alarms have been triggered by minor concerns, such as overcooked food and the dumping of unapproved material in enclosed spaces (p.s. make sure you aren't dumping out loose dirt/strong chemicals in the parkade elevator vestibules or trash rooms!).

Of course, you big deal, " and can ’t always count on them being "no residents should always treat every fire alarm as if it is a real fire and can potentially be life threatening. This means that your first course of action should be to get out of the building, and await the "all-clear" email from the Association. Do not call the Association offices; the phone lines need to be left clear for staff members to communicate with emergency services.

For those that don't know how the fire alarm systems work at Toscana, I would like to take a quick moment to give an overview of how they work. Each unit was built with smoke detectors, and some unit owners have chosen to upgrade their systems to also include CO2 detectors. The units on the interior of your condo are not tied into our system at all. If these detectors start to sound, they do not notify the management staff or emergency services; be sure to call 911 immediately if your alarms have triggered and an emergency situation is present.

Also in your unit is an annunciator that is tied to our system, and is there to alert you of a potential fire in your building and serves as a signal to evacuate. It is very important that when doing remodels, or having any kind of work done, that these annunciators, and their wiring, is not damaged or removed because it will cause a problem in the whole system.

Each unit also has fire sprinklers that will activate if the air around the sprinkler itself reaches a certain temperature. Only the sprinkler affected by the fire will go off, not the entire system.

Smoke and heat detectors are located in all hallway closets and common areas; these are tied into our system and are what actually report the potential of a fire and trigger the building alarm. This system is monitored by a fire monitoring service, which dispatches the fire department immediately and calls the Palazzo Centro office or Night Manager to notify the staff of a potential hazard.

As stated earlier, when the fire alarm goes off in the building the most important thing is to evacuate the building and get yourself and your families to safe area. Please do not call the office to check whether it is a real fire or not, during this time everyone will be running around trying to assess the situation and assist wherever possible. When you call the office, the only person you will be able to get in touch with is the admin who will not have any information to give you, and my need to be making or receiving important phones call for other members of the team. You don ’t want the phone lines to be tied up and prevent important information from being communicated to emergency services in the event of a fire.

It is safe to re-enter the building once the alarm has been silenced. After assessing the situation, the Association will send an email to your building notifying everyone of what we found or what occurred.

If you or a family member has a disability that will hinder their exit from the building, you can contact the fire department and register as a handicapped individual needing assistance. This adds you to a special list, where they will come to your unit first in the event of a fire to help you exit the building. The office staff will not enter the building if there is smoke or fire.