Supplement to CODES & STANDARDS Newsletter July 1, 2018
MORE MYTHS BEHIND FIRE SAFETY C. W. Boss. Associate
C. W. (Wayne) Boss is a retired fire inspector with the Phoenix, AZ Fire Dept. and former Fire Marshal in the U. S. Coast Guard. His years of experience in code and enforcement makes him a valuable research in the industry. o SMOKE DETECTORS are all you need for warning building occupants of a fire emergency. Smoke Detection for home & elsewhere should be viewed as the MOST BASIC equipment for warning a Building’s Occupants of a Fire Emergency. From the basic Single Station Smoke Alarm in the smallest Single Family, Multi-family or Other Types of Residential Occupancy environments, to Smoke Detection as part of the most basic Fire Alarm Systems in ALL Other Occupancy Types, particularly where a Hazard to Life exists. While its true smoke detection increases the chances of early evacuation and records of years past show, the quick response of “properly installed and maintained detection devices”, have saved many lives. Unfortunately, all too often, these devices have failed to operate, due either to batteries being dead or not being present at all, because well-meaning but ignorant occupants removed the batteries to use them elsewhere, and failed to replace them. Smoke alarms and smoke detection are both great inventions, but they can do nothing to CONTROL or SUPPRESS a fire. REMEMBER – Smoke Detection does NOT = Suppression! On a similar note: Too many, even those in the Fire Service & other various Professionals involved in Life Safety Design, confuse Smoke Alarms that are designed for use in Residential and similar environments, with Smoke Detection, when in fact they’re two very different things . It would help to 1
remember that a Smoke Alarm is both a Smoke Detector & a Fire Alarm in the same compact Package. While a Smoke Detector is like your Nose, it is continually “sniffing” for smoke and its gaseous and particulate constituents. The difference is a Smoke Detector must be wired to a Fire Alarm Control Panel or similar Unit, which provides it with both primary and back-up power supply as well as the means to receive & interpret the signal when the smoke detector “smells something’. While a Smoke Alarm is wired to a building power circuit & has a battery inside it for back-up power supply. When the Fire Alarm Control Unit receives the signal that the smoke detector “smells something”, the FACP or Control Unit turns on either audio or visual or both types of signaling devices to let the Building Occupants know that somethings burning and it’s time to leave the building – Pronto! o Another Absolute Must is HAVE AN ESCAPE PLAN & PRACTICE IT – A building may have sufficient EXITS, but are they clearly Marked and Lighted, and are the doors, locks, latches or Panic Hardware code compliant, openable from the Egress side (inside), accessible and operable? Are the corridors, hallways and other paths to EXIT, clear, and free of storage, furniture, equipment or other encumbrance? A clear path of travel to EXIT is a must for safe evacuation in the event of an emergency. o WHAT SHOULD YOU DO IF YOU’RE ON FIRE? Roll yourself up in a carpet? Well you could, but most carpet these days is secured to the floor or has furniture sitting on it which might make that a difficult proposition at best, if there is an area rug in the immediate area that’s possibility, but furniture may still be an issue! The most important thing, is for you to get into a “horizontal position” to keep the fire from your face, eyes and breathing passages, hence the advent of NFPA’s STOP, DROP & ROLL! If there is a blanket or large towel you can reach without traveling or running & fanning the flames that you can grab in an instant and wrap yourself in, so much the better! Otherwise just Stop, Drop to the ground and Roll back & forth until the fire is OUT! o ANY FIRE EXTINGUISHER will do the job. Really...? Are You sure about that? Be careful here, because if you chose the incorrect extinguisher 2
for a particular type of fire, in some cases, you may well exacerbate or spread the fire and make the problem and the fire bigger. You must choose the right Extinguisher for what is burning. At the same time, bear in mind the 4 classes of Fire & the Extinguishers that work best on each & the Symbolic depictions for each, See Below, in addition to 4 shapes below... These are International Pictorial Identifications as well.
Class A - Ordinary Combustibles: Wood, Paper. Trash, Cloth, Clothing, Upholstery & similar fuels. Class B - Flammable or Combustible Liquids Class C - Electrical Wiring & Equipment, Computer & IT Equipment Class D – Combustible Metals, Aluminum, Magnesium, Sodium, Zirconium, Titanium o KEEP IN MIND - THE LOCATION OF THE NEAREST FIRE EXTINGUISHER and its Classification.
o FIRE SPRINKLERS CAN CAUSE SIGNIFICANT WATER DAMAGE Oh say it isn’t so! OK it isn’t so! In fact it’s a fallacy in the minds of many, that have never actually seen a Sprinkler system operate under Fire or any other conditions. Thankfully it’s not like is often shown in the movies or on TV, if one Sprinkler Head is activated, they don’t all go off, unless the 3
Automatic Sprinkler system in question happens to be an open-headed System called a “Deluge System” which are typically used in places like Aircraft Hangers, where there exists the danger of fire spreading quickly, because of the presence of large quantities of combustible metals (i.e., Aircraft) and large quantities of low flash point flammable liquids (i.e., the fuel in said Aircraft) that are a significant hazard. Water damage is a possibility whenever water is used to contain and control our adversary, Fire. When a Sprinkler Head operates on a typical NFPA 13- D or 13-R Residential Sprinkler System, the amount of water a given sprinkler head will discharge, depends on the system’s design and area of discharge as designed. The flow from a typical Residential sprinkler depends on the size of the orifice in the head, a typical two head design flows less than 20 gallons of water per minute, which in the fire suppression business is considered about slow as you can go and get the job still get the “extinguishment” job done. If you’d like to consider what can cause significant water damage, enter a Firefighter into a similar Residential. Fire scenario with a single 1/ 1/2” firehose with a combination Fog nozzle which can discharge between 100 & 150 gallons/minute (gpm) depending on the Fire pumper’s discharge pressure provided. Generally there’s always another Firefighter with a line of the same size, backing the first guy up. If the Firefighters go in with a 2 /1/2” hose line and combo fog nozzle the flow can be 200 to 250 GPM and up, again depending on the Fire pumpers output. Suffice it to say the water damage from either size hose line is going to be significantly greater than that of an Automatic Fire Sprinkler head. Even your standard Commercial sprinkler head with a larger ½” orifice is only going to discharge about 50 gallons/minute, a Sprinkler heads rate of discharge increases as the size of the Sprinkler heads orifice increases. The Fact is: Insurance would much rather pay for cleaning up water damage from the operation of a Sprinkler Head or two, because Automatic Fire Sprinklers operate quicker and can kill a fire faster and keep it from spreading and getting bigger as fast, because the initial fire attack occurs when the fire is small, vice that of the “flood” from the flow from several firefighter’s hand lines! 4
Another plus is, if the sprinklers have put the fire out by the time the Fire Dept. gets there, the Fire Dept. will generally check the area of fire origin, make sure the fire is definitely out, then the fire department will shut down the Fire Sprinkler System, change the Sprinkler head or heads that have operated and install new ones, if they’re available (as the code requires) and put the Automatic Fire Sprinkler System back in service before they leave.  Any questions? Contact me at codexperts@aol.com Kelly P. Reynolds Code Consultant
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