My Opera
Emergency Response: When Minutes Count Part 2,3
Tuesday, April 14, 2009 3:13:44 AM
Part 2: Silent Partners In Fire Safety
Naomi Millán
In an emergency, properly maintained facility systems are allies in addressing the situation, while letting seemingly minor things slide adds to the havoc. To fully prepare a facility for an emergency, it is important to make sure the fire and life safety systems are tested and maintained to code, says David Klein, deputy fire marshal with City of Las Vegas Fire and Rescue.
“You don’t want them not to work when you need them,” he says. “There’s no obvious ROI on them, besides a break on insurance, so they tend to be forgotten.”
There are also a lot of passive fire containment features in buildings, such as fire doors, fire walls, and firestopping that should not be compromised, he says. When doing internal improvements, facility executives should be sure fire walls are not being taken down or fire-rated doors cut in half, for example.
Part 3: Evacuating During A Fire
In general, facility executives can feel confident that their facility's population will not get in the way of the first responders once they're on site, says John Welling, chairman of the National Fire Protection Association's 1620 committee on pre-incident planning, director of environmental health and safety with Bristol Myers Squibb, and a municipal fire chief in New Jersey.
"What people aren't good at is realizing how devastating a fire can be," he says. Fire doubles every 30 seconds. Despite this danger, when facility occupants participate in a drill, they can have too much of relaxed attitude. The habits people form can also work as blinders in an emergency.
"People are like ants," Welling says. "They use the same stairwell, the same door every day. You block that door and they don't know what to do."
Impressing the seriousness and importance of drills on a facility's population, and not just in the wake of larger national tragedies, will help ensure a facility is truly prepared for an emergency.
Naomi Millán
In an emergency, properly maintained facility systems are allies in addressing the situation, while letting seemingly minor things slide adds to the havoc. To fully prepare a facility for an emergency, it is important to make sure the fire and life safety systems are tested and maintained to code, says David Klein, deputy fire marshal with City of Las Vegas Fire and Rescue.
“You don’t want them not to work when you need them,” he says. “There’s no obvious ROI on them, besides a break on insurance, so they tend to be forgotten.”
There are also a lot of passive fire containment features in buildings, such as fire doors, fire walls, and firestopping that should not be compromised, he says. When doing internal improvements, facility executives should be sure fire walls are not being taken down or fire-rated doors cut in half, for example.
Part 3: Evacuating During A Fire
In general, facility executives can feel confident that their facility's population will not get in the way of the first responders once they're on site, says John Welling, chairman of the National Fire Protection Association's 1620 committee on pre-incident planning, director of environmental health and safety with Bristol Myers Squibb, and a municipal fire chief in New Jersey.
"What people aren't good at is realizing how devastating a fire can be," he says. Fire doubles every 30 seconds. Despite this danger, when facility occupants participate in a drill, they can have too much of relaxed attitude. The habits people form can also work as blinders in an emergency.
"People are like ants," Welling says. "They use the same stairwell, the same door every day. You block that door and they don't know what to do."
Impressing the seriousness and importance of drills on a facility's population, and not just in the wake of larger national tragedies, will help ensure a facility is truly prepared for an emergency.
