Providing an acceptable level of fire safety in a building or process area requires effective teamwork and communication from all interested parties, with proper support from management and administration. This article highlights how the teamwork must be effective by highlighting fire incidents and situations in which one or more members of the team failed to perform their responsibilities.
Does The Calculated Occupant Load Match The Proposed Use?
During the design process an architect or code consultant will perform occupant load calculations and the egress system is designed based upon those calculations. Codes typically say that the occupant load is to be based on the higher of two values; one using the occupant load factor and the other using the actual anticipated number of occupants. However, this latter value is often overlooked and early in the design process may be difficult to obtain. It is also not common for the basis of the calculated occupant loads to be shared with the eventual user of the space. This became very apparent on a project in which we were providing third party inspection services for the local code official. Walking through a religious facility we observed a classroom in which rows of chairs were arranged to serve as an overflow room during the first worship service. When we indicated that the arrangement was not permitted due to the occupant load in the room, the immediate response was that no one told them that. In this instance, we were able to verify that the egress capacity and arrangement was acceptable due to a door to the outside directly from the classroom.
A more successful scenario involved the ballroom and meeting space in a new hotel. We performed the initial occupant load calculations and then contacted the sales group for the hotel who were marketing the meeting space. We asked for their sales literature and determined that their numbers did not always match our numbers. We selected the higher number, which was not always the hotel’s number or our calculated values, and presented those values to the code official as the occupant load for each space.
Lack of Coordination Within The Design Team
A two-story vertical opening was to be protected using a draft curtain and closely spaced sprinklers, as permitted by NFPA 13. The mechanical engineer, and the sprinkler system shop drawings, identified the draft curtains as being provided by others. Unfortunately, the draft curtains were not shown on the architectural plans. When the fire marshal arrived to witness the acceptance tests for the sprinkler system, an inquiry was made regarding the draft curtains. Since the building was essentially ready for occupancy, installing the draft curtain was not desirable or easy to do.
As a design firm, we often see changes made to the architectural plans very late in the design process. We are then challenged to modify the fire protection system design based upon the last minute changes to the plans. It is essential that all members of the design team work together to ensure coordination of the construction documents. The International Building Code empowers the building official to require the identification of a design professional in responsible charge. That individual is responsible for reviewing and coordinating submittal documents prepared by the design team. (Section 107.3.4, International Building Code – 2012 Edition)
Design Team and Emergency Planning
Working with a new hospital to develop an emergency plan, we were looking at doing certain things on a smoke compartment by smoke compartment basis. However, the design of the fire protection systems (automatic sprinkler systems and fire alarm systems) was not based upon the smoke compartmentation concepts in the design. As such, the desire to provide occupants of different smoke compartments with different messages was challenging. It was also noted that if the first initiating device is a manual pull station, the location of the manual pull station may not actually be the smoke compartment of fire origin, especially since there is not an exit within each smoke compartment. It should be noted that the 2012 Edition of NFPA 99 now requires that the fire alarm notification zones coincide with smoke compartment boundaries or be in accordance with the facility fire plan (Paragraph 15.7.4.3.1, NFPA 99-2012). The designer of the fire alarm system will need to coordinate the design with the architectural design (smoke compartments), the facility fire safety plan (sometimes not available during the initial stages of design), or both.
Protection of Penetrations of Fire Barriers
It is not uncommon for construction documents to contain a generic statement that penetrations of fire barriers shall be protected as required by the applicable code. Various members of the design team will then show the penetrations of the fire barriers without any regard for how to protect the penetrations. In other words, the design team will often leave the details to the contractors. As the construction proceeds it is then determined that there is no listed system for the penetrations that occur in a given fire barrier. Absent a listed system, a common solution is to protect the penetrations with a system based upon an engineering judgment. Engineering judgments are typically prepared by the manufacturer and are usually required to be reviewed and approved by a third party engineering firm or the code official. Engineering judgments are permitted by the codes as an alternative method of compliance, or equivalency. However, proper consideration of penetrations during the design could reduce the need for engineering judgments on many projects.
Coordination With Emergency Responders
Recently we were working with a large campus of buildings and it was determined that none of the connections on the hydrants or fire department connections were compatible with the connections used by the responding fire service. While it has not yet been determined if the error originated with the design team or with the installing contractor, certainly there was a failure to confirm the type of connectors used by the emergency responders. On other projects we have noted where the clearance height or turning radius is not compatible with the equipment used by the responding fire service.
System Testing and Preventive Maintenance
A two year old, single story retail building that was protected throughout with an automatic sprinkler system was totally destroyed by a fire as the holiday shopping season was beginning. The post fire investigation determined that the underground gate valve at the point of connection to the public water system was essentially closed. Design standards, such as NFPA 13, and building codes typically do not require such valves to be monitored in the open position. The installing contractor provided main drain test results as part of the acceptance test procedure that were not accurate. A third party engineering firm verified that a main drain test was performed and the results were accurately recorded. Contractors providing routine inspection and testing services for the period of two years did not perform a main drain test. The contractors claimed that they were not able to perform main drain tests because the discharge for the test connection was not piped to the outside or to a drain connection capable of handling the flow (as required by Paragraph 8.16.2.4.4, NFPA 13-2013). As such, various members of the fire safety team responsible for the automatic sprinkler system (the installing contractor, the third party engineering firm, and the contractors performing ongoing inspections and tests) failed to properly perform their responsibilities and a significant fire loss occurred as a peak retail season was approaching.
Solution
It is interesting to note that performance based design guidelines and fire risk assessment guides reference including all the stakeholders in the design process or risk assessment procedure. Unfortunately, including all the stakeholders in the process is not commonly done when the design is completed using prescriptive based codes or “deemed to comply” solutions. Many of the scenarios referenced above were the result of inadequate communication between all of the stakeholders involved in fire safety. The problem scenarios identified above can only be prevented and a more effective level of fire safety provided when all stakeholders are part of the design and construction process. In addition, the design and construction process needs to take into occupant the operational needs and considerations of the facility and the emergency responders.
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About the Author
William E. Koffel is President of Koffel Associates, Inc. and Chairs the NFPA Correlating Commitee on Life Safety.
