FIRE LOSS MANAGEMENT

FIRE LOSS MANAGEMENT

Part 24: THE “HOW” OF MANAGEMENT, CONTINUED

We have been focusing on the five steps of managing a fire: discovery, alarm, evacuation, suppression, and recovery. Previously we discussed the deficiencies of people as transmitters of fire alarms. We continue the discussion by presenting an alternative—the automatic fire alarm.

AUTOMATIC FIRE ALARM

An automatic alarm system is another way of shouting “Fire,” and it is only as good as the action it brings about. An automatic fire alarm sometimes is substituted for needed sprinkler protection with the justification, “The fire station is only two blocks away.”

Patrick E. Phillips, SFPE fellow, P.E., and chairman of the NFPA’s Signalling Systems Correlating Committee, repeatedly has warned that fire protection and fire detection are not synonymous terms. Only if the fire alarm is received where someone is ready, willing, and able to control the fire can detection be considered protection. In some cases, the fire forces are not available; in others, the fuel is of such a nature that the fire is out of control when fire-suppression forces arrive.

(Photos by author.)

A fire alarm system was installed in the library of a college located in a rural area. The nearest fire department was 25 minutes away. When the fire alarm system sounded, the fire department was called, but by the time firefighters arrived the fire was completely out of control. The system was not a total loss, however; it did get the students and faculty up in time to sec the fire.

Another basic fallacy that often comes up in the sales talk of automatic fire alarm salespeople is the assumption that practically all fires start small, are readily extinguishable, and go through an extended growing period during which the fire readily can be extinguished by almost anyone. Many fires grow to large size in an extremely short time. Others start in inaccessible locations. These are only two cases where an automatic fire alarm may not be the answer.

One problem with an automatic fire alarm system is that many of the conditions present during a fire also normally are present in the building. Smoke detectors are set off by smokeproducing appliances and if on a sensitive setting, by people smoking. Heat detectors are sensitive to normal high-temperature situations. Flame detectors can respond to the lighting of a cigarette. Procedures designed to eliminate accidental alarms obviously cause some loss of sensitivity and delay in the transmission of a real alarm. Proper installation and maintenance can do much to reduce the number of alarms caused by nonfire situations.

RESIDENTIAL DETECTORS

The availability of relatively inexpensive combustion-product detectors has produced many stories of lives saved in nighttime fires. Unfortunately, there are also many stories of fatalities where smoke detectors were not available, the batteries were run down, or the detector was disabled because of nuisance alarms. Many residential detectors are found disabled because cooking smoke has triggered repeated alarms. Some detectors on the market have a switch that shunts out the detector for 15 minutes. I found the model I tried unreliable.

The International Association of Fire Chiefs is conducting a campaign to encourage people to replace smoke detector batteries when they set their clocks back in the fall. (See “Change Your Clock, Change Your Battery,” Dispatches, October 1990 Fire Engineering.)

One fire department distributed detectors as part of an awareness campaign. Some months later while conducting a follow-up, members found that a number of sweet, older people carefully had put the detectors in dresser drawers or other “safe” locations so that “nothing would happen to them.” To solve this problem, firefighters volunteered to install the smoke detectors properly in their spare time.

A good smoke detector educational effort is worth the time of any fire department. The campaigns should emphasize getting everybody out of the house immediately, having an assembly point, calling the alarm from another building, staying away from the house, and not going back for anything! A number of children have lost their lives going back in the building for pets. Getting out and staying out should be emphasized.

Detectors have two modes of operation: ionization from a tiny amount of radioactive material and photoelectric. Each responds to different types of smoke. I recommend having both types because a residential fire can create very dangerous conditions in a few seconds. There is not a second to waste. Some detectors incorporate both ionization and photoelectric operation.

The test button on most detectors simply tests the battery. On some photoelectric detectors, the test button simulates obscuration due to smoke.

EVACUATION

Fires cause injury and death. Burns, smoke inhalation, structural collapse of buildings, and explosion of vessels subjected to fire are only a few of the ways injuries can occur. It goes without saying that only personnel directly concerned with suppressing the fire should be in the burning building. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. When observing a fire drill in a laboratory or industrial plant, I am astonished at the number of personnel who come out of their cubbyholes with quizzical looks, asking, “What’s all the excitement?”

The only way to establish the fact that the building is to be evacuated in the event of a fire is to have regular, organized fire drills in which everybody participates. Unfortunately, this runs counter to a general feeling that fire drills are okay for grammar school children but are unnecessary for adults. It is very hard to convince a mature adult that a fire can develop so rapidly that he or she could panic under emergency conditions. The emphasis on educating children about fire safety apparently has had the unfortunate backlash of creating the attitude that “fire safety is kid stuff.”

The best solution is to make highlevel officials aware of the fact that the organization may be charged with negligence and incurs tremendous liability for employee injuries resulting from fire-related hazards. Although an employee generally is barred under workers’ compensation from suing an employer for negligence, the employee may sue supervisors or managers personally for negligence. Also, an industrial plant or laboratory usually has many visitors on site. Since they are not on the payroll, they are free to sue whomever they please for negligence. More and more court decisions have been placing on the defendant absolute responsibility for the safety of individuals invited or permitted on the defendant’s premises. Judgments, moreover, are tending toward the doctrine that the victims must be made whole—that is to say, the defendant must reimburse the plaintiff for the total amount of money the victim might have earned during his working life. This has led to a growing number of awards in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Suggest to management that their legal staff prepare an opinion on how the corporation would defend itself in the event that a negligence suit alleging that fire drills were never held was brought against management.

Staging fire drills need not be costly or time-consuming. In naval barracks we found it completely practical to substitute fire drills for reveille. Fire drills can be held 5 to 10 minutes before dismissal. While some of the element of surprise perhaps is lost, the objective of using the emergency paths not normally used tor exiting is reached. This is particularly important in facilities where security requirements allow only exits under guard surveillance to be used regularly, and the other exits are sealed and alarmed to be opened only during emergencies.

The exit facilities of a building belong to the occupants, not to the maintenance department, the library for book storage, or the painters for ladder storage. Exits were planned for only one reason—to get the occupants out in case of an emergency. If no emergency was ever anticipated, the exit facilities would not be necessary—the ordinary provisions for getting around the building would be adequate. Exits must be:

• lighted even when there is a power failure,
• cleared of ice and snow,
• opened in the direction of travel, and
• unlocked from the inside.

Also, the outside premises must be lighted after dark.

In laboratories, a single opening serving a pair of adjacent laboratories may function as a secondary exit from either direction. The door should be hung so that it can swing in either direction. One facility designed a door with a panic bar that could be operated in either direction.

SUPPRESSION

Three elements, often present in combination, help suppress a fire: automatic fire protection, occupants, and the fire department. The fire service generally accepts the fact that the single most effective method of combating fire is the installation of automatic sprinklers. Therefore, we should understand the thinking of those who oppose sprinklers so that we can develop counterarguments.

(Photo top right courtesy of the Washington, D.C Fire Department.)

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the spread of requirements for automatic sprinklers.

• The concrete and gypsum industries argue that the building code concessions granted to encourage sprinkler installation create the potential for disaster if the sprinklers are not in service or fail to control the fire.
• A chief argument involves loss of compartmentation. Compartmentation is an excellent concept; unfortunately, the execution is seriously flawed in many cases. Combustible multiple dwellings are full of “pinholes” that violate integrity. There are many openings in fire-resistive buildings that will permit the passage of smoke and fire.
• There is still much opposition to any requirement for retroactive installation. While the opposition is purely financial, the argument that such requirements are unconstitutional has found some favor. Professor Vincent Brannigan, J.D., has found this argument totally without merit (See “Applying New Laws to Existing Buildings: Retrospective Fire Safety Codes,” Journal of Urban Law, Vol. 60, Spring 1983, p. 447.)

Spurred on by a disastrous fire in a high-rise office building, the city of Montreal in Quebec, Canada recently passed a very strong retroactive sprinkler law. (See “City Brings in Retroactive High-Rise Sprinkler Law,” 1. Stronach. Fire International, Feb.-Mar. 1990, p. 23 )

• Many claim that sprinklers are ugly, although they give no evidence that anyone ever refused to enter a building because it contained sprinklers.
• Much of the cost, particularly of a retroactive installation, can go into hiding the sprinkler system and even
• the heads. If the argument of cost is raised, the fire department should be prepared to give the cost of a barebones system and point out that aesthetic costs are the option of the owner and not a fire protection requirement.
• It is a feet that the probability is very low that there will be a serious fire in any building with a large number of occupants who are several minutes away from unpolluted air. It is also a fact that in the typical unsprinklered glass-enclosed office building with interior stairways and a substantial fire load the consequences of a serious fire during working hours most probably will be multiple fatalities.

Those who do not wish to provide the protection argue from “good experience.” In effect, they demand fatalities in order to be convinced. They profess to be unconvinced by completely rational scenarios. This argument is fallacious but, unfortunately, often is accepted by public officials.

• At times the charge is made that there is little experience with sprinklers in high-rise buildings. After the terrible Triangle shirtwaist fire in New York, the law required that all factories higher than six stories be sprinklered. In the greatest migration of an industry in history, the entire garment industry moved into highrise sprinklered loft (rented factory space) buildings in midtown Manhattan. A large body of experience on successful sprinkler operations was accumulated. The experience is summarized in “Sprinkler Experience in High Rise Buildings,” R. Powers, Technology Report 79-1 SFPE 1979.