Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Cape Coral, FL: Working towards fire sprinklers in all new homes

11/30/2011

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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

N.J. Assembly panel passes bill requiring sprinkler systems in new homes

Your comments: N.J. Assembly panel passes bill requiring sprinkler systems in new homes

Published: Tuesday, November 22, 2011, 10:15 AM     Updated: Tuesday, November 22, 2011, 10:24 AM
1122sprinkler.JPGA portion of a fire sprinkler is shown in this file photo. An Assembly panel approved a bill that would require sprinklers in all new homes.
A debate continued about requiring sprinklers in residential homes and if they would be worth the added cost as legislation passed an Assembly panel on Monday. The bill would direct the state Department of Community Affairs to withhold occupancy permits for new one- and two-family homes unless they are equipped with sprinkler systems similar to those required in hotels, dormitories and apartment buildings. Fire safety officials support the legislation saying sprinklers have been saving lives for 100 years and limit property damage. Opponents, though, say the requirement would add thousands of dollars to home building costs.
NJ.com users are discussing if sprinklers should be required in residential homes.
NJ.com user plk writes:
Are they crazy? They are pricing people right out of being able to build a home. And we wonder why N.J. is the most expensive place in the country to live? The politicians on this panel are just totally out of touch with reality.
If this passes and becomes law, the home building industry in NJ is dead.
NJ.com user firefox writes:
Another expense that is not needed! Smoke alarms are good enough. These legislators don't care about the additional cost this will bring to the middle class consumers. What about home insurance? Is that going to drop 50%?
NJ.com user yellow_house writes:
Read the article, folks. This is not N.J. alone doing this. This change was incorporated into the latest version of the International Building Code (IBC). I read a recent article in Fine Homebuilding that estimated the incremental cost during new construction as only a couple thousand dollars per house. Seems cheap to me compared to the cost of my family's lives. I expect that similar comments were said back when smoke detectors were required.
NJ.com user james1787 writes:
As a firefighter I am in support of this bill. Today's new homes are built with such crappy material in terms of firefighter safety. Much material today will burn through far quicker, such as floor joists or truss construction in the roof. It takes no time at all for a floor or ceiling to be rendered unsafe in a newer home. Sprinklers could definitely make a difference on making it safer for not only the homeowner but for firefighters as well.
Do you think sprinklers should be required in new homes? Respond to these and other comments byjumping directly to the comments section of the article.

Monday, November 21, 2011

American Fire Protection in 2011 - Politics vs Human Life

N.J. Assembly panel advances home sprinkler system measure

MONDAY NOVEMBER 21, 2011, 4:13 PM
STATE HOUSE BUREAU
TRENTON - Legislation to require sprinkler systems in new homes passed an Assembly panel Monday, but not before reigniting a debate about whether the safety measure would be worth the added cost amid a staggering economy.
The bill (A3278) would direct the state Department of Community Affairs to withhold occupancy permits for new one- and two-family homes unless they are equipped with sprinkler systems similar to those required in hotels, dormitories and apartment buildings.
"Sprinkler system have been protecting lives for 100 years throughout the United States," Timothy Travers, a spokesman for the National Fire Protection Association, told the Assembly Housing and Local Government Committee. "Building homes without fire sprinklers equates to building substandard housing."
Fire safety officials support the legislation, saying the systems have been proven to save lives and limit property damage caused by blazes. But opponents fear adding any additional costs to new home construction, an industry struggling to rebound after the recession.
"Unfortunately, this bill adds thousands of dollars in costs to the housing that middle and modest income families are already struggling to afford," Dominick Paragano, president of the New Jersey Builders Association, said in a statement opposing the bill.
The Christie administration last year doused an effort to require the residential sprinklers when it chose not to implement the provision contained in the 2009 International Residential Code. Lori Grifa, head of Community Affairs, said the department was worried the requirement "might impede the recovery of the residential construction sector."
Similar requirements are in effect in Maryland, South Carolina and California. A residential sprinkler mandate took effect in Pennsylvania this year, only to be struck down by the Legislature and Gov. Tom Corbett.
Some lawmakers in New Jersey have advocated for the sprinkler requirements for at least a decade, but to no avail.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Arson Forensics Sets Old Fire Myths Ablaze

A fire burns in a scale model of a living room in the ATF's Fire Research Lab in Beltsville, Maryland. Until the development of the FRL, there were no fire measurement facilities in the U.S., or anywhere, dedicated to the specific needs of the fire investigation community.
EnlargeCourtesy of the ATF/Courtesy of the ATF
A fire burns in a scale model of a living room in the ATF's Fire Research Lab in Beltsville, Maryland. Until the development of the FRL, there were no fire measurement facilities in the U.S., or anywhere, dedicated to the specific needs of the fire investigation community.
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November 19, 2011
In 1990, a fire broke out in a house in Jacksonville, Fla., killing two women and four children. The husband of one of the women became the prime suspect, and that's when a fire investigator named John Lentini was called in.
At the time, Lentini says, the initial evidence pointed to a fire that was deliberately set. He calculated that it would have taken about 20 minutes for the house to become engulfed in flames — what's called a flashover — leaving plenty of time for someone to set the fire and get out.
But on a whim, Lentini noticed an identical house two doors down that was slated to be demolished. So he and his team refurbished the house and lit it on fire. It only took four minutes to get to flashover, and he realized the fire might not have been a set fire.
Firefighters in the ATF's Fire Research Lab battle a mock fire. The lab is the only facility of its kind in the world to provide the necessary facilities, equipment and staff to work on important fire investigation issues.
EnlargeCourtesy of the ATF/Courtesy of the ATF
Firefighters in the ATF's Fire Research Lab battle a mock fire. The lab is the only facility of its kind in the world to provide the necessary facilities, equipment and staff to work on important fire investigation issues.
After the investigation, it was determined the fire was not arson and the charges were dropped against the husband.
For Lentini, that day was a seminal moment. He says that in the early days of arson forensics, the only science that happened was chemists looking for signs of gasoline on a piece of rug in the lab. In the field, investigators relied on anecdotal experience.
"If somebody would see an artifact and then find gasoline, they would make a connection," Lentini tells weekends on All Things Consideredguest host Laura Sullivan. "And the next time they would see that artifact, they would just assume that gasoline must have caused [the fire]."
The problem was that anecdotal experience could lead an investigator to the wrong conclusion. In recent years, fire researchers and the changes to fire investigations have shattered dozens of arson myths as the science behind arson forensics continues to evolve.
"What I knew about arson, some of it was wrong," Lentini says. "What a lot of people thought they knew about arson was wrong."
Nobody ever set out to send an innocent person to prison for arson, Lentini says, but it absolutely has happened.
Old Cases, New Science
Doug Starr, the co-director of Boston University's Center for Science and Medical Journalism, recently wrote an article for Discover Magazine examining arson cases that relied on now-widely debunked theories about how fires start. In the few months of research he did on the story, Starr says he turned up at least two dozen cases.
One of the earliest cases was that of 16-year-old Louis Taylor, who was convicted of 28 counts of murder for setting the 1970 Pioneer Hotel fire Tucson, Ariz. Taylor was found with several matches in his pocket and fire investigators found what they believed to be evidence of two set fires in a hallway.
"Last year, at the behest of an attorney, several fire investigators looked back at the evidence and said it looked like a classic, accidental flashover fire," Starr tells Sullivan.
Taylor remains in prison, but Starr says the Arizona Justice Project is trying to get the case reviewed.
There might be hundreds of similar arson cases in the U.S., Starr says. In October, the Texas Forensic Science Commission asked that all arson cases in the state be reviewed. That amounts to between 750 and 900 arson cases in Texas alone.
Like Lentini, Starr says early fire investigations were based on apprentice-type knowledge passed down from the observations of previous investigators.
"The trouble is this is all based on observation and intuition, and science needs something more than that," Starr says. "Fortunately the new forms of investigation are based on actual laboratory science in which things are demonstrated to be true or not true."
Setting Fires At The ATF
Some of the newest research on how fires start and burn is now coming from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The federal agency has always done a little fire research, but in 2003 it went all in with a new lab in Beltsville, Md., built just to burn things up.
On a recent visit, researchers were setting a diesel oil fire in their Fire Research Laboratory. The lab's chief, John Allen, says theirs is the largest forensic investigative tool in the world.
The room is massive and open, akin to an airplane hangar. Overhead, a 40-foot by 40-foot exhaust unit, similar to the one over your stove, sucks out the smoke and heat from the fires set in the lab to measure carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, among other things.
The large exhaust hood in the ceiling of the ATF's Fire Research Lab in Beltsville, Maryland is used to suck up smoke and heat from the fires set in the lab to measure carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, among other things.
EnlargeCourtesy of the ATF/Courtesy of the ATF
The large exhaust hood in the ceiling of the ATF's Fire Research Lab in Beltsville, Maryland is used to suck up smoke and heat from the fires set in the lab to measure carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, among other things.
The lab also houses a quarter-scale model of a living room complete with a couch, TV, chairs and a baby crib and toys. Allen says they use this to test fires, take measurements and time flashovers – how long it takes for flames to go from "a fire in a room to a room on fire."
"I would say because the presence of this laboratory, there has been leaps and bounds in advances in scientific knowledge," Allen says.
In another part of the lab, an almost completely finished trailer will be used for the other half of what the ATF does now. The lab recreates fires to help local investigators with actual cases where arson is suspected. In a few days, they're going to burn the trailer down.
"Every day, we're doing something new and different," Allen says. "Many days it is something cutting edge that's never been done before."
This year alone, the ATF's lab has recreated fires from three murder cases. In all of them, prosecutors ended up dropping the charges against the suspects because the lab determined what officials thought might have happened, actually didn't.
 

Friday, November 18, 2011

Sprinkler System Contains Fire at SunOpta Ingredients

November 18, 2011, 10:52 am

By City of Cedar Rapids
Date: 11/17/2011
Contact:
Greg Buelow, (319) 286-5163
Body:
A filter receiving system fire at SunOpta Ingredients, 1050 Wenig Road NE, was contained when a sprinkler system activated.  Firefighters  were called to the three-story processing facility at 10:17 p.m. when the fire alarm system activated and production employees noticed smoke coming from one of the facility’s filter receiving systems on the third floor.  Seven SunOpta Ingredients employees evacuated without injury prior to the Fire Department’s arrival.
When firefighters arrived at the scene the building was charged with smoke.  Fire crews confirmed that smoldering product was contained to a filter receiving system.  The facility’s fire sprinkler system had suppressed and contained the fire.  Crews helped ventilate the building and employees were able to return to the facility within one hour.

The filter receiving system receives product and filters the air so that particulates are removed from the building.  The mill grinds product before it is sent to the filter receiving system.
SunOpta Ingredients makes dietary fiber for the baking industry.  Polyester filter bags inside the filter receiving system were the primary materials smoldering.

SunOpta Ingredients personnel estimated that the damage sustained was less than $1,000.

No further information is available at this time.
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Saturday, November 12, 2011

Fire Sprinklers Are The Only Proactive Form Of Fire Protection


Saturday, November 12, 2011
Opinion
By David Kurasz, executive director of the New Jersey Fire Sprinkler Advisory Board
Several homes on Rebecca Place in Elizabeth were severely damaged during an early morning fire on Nov. 2 that left 12 to 15 people searching for a new place to spend the night. The blaze gutted a two-and-a-half-story wood-frame home and damaged the roofs and top stories of neighboring homes.
The fire escalated to four alarms within an hour as crews initially contended with a lack of water from nearby hydrants. Crews from Elizabeth, Union, Linden, Newark, Rahway and Roselle assisted mutual aid and cover. Thankfully all residents were able to escape unharmed.
Properly installed and maintained fire sprinklers control and typically extinguish a fire before the fire department even arrives on the scene. More importantly, the presence of fire sprinklers mitigates the risk to individuals affected by the blaze, including firefighters who battle the fire.
Fire sprinklers are the only proactive form of fire protection, providing firefighters the time they need to do their jobs effectively and as safely as possible while helping to avoid potential tragedies.
Call Now: 888-652-5737


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Friday, November 11, 2011

Campus dorms high and dry without fire sprinklers

For a college whose iconic building has burned to the ground three times, prioritizing fire prevention at the school seems practical.
Yet according to the College of William and Mary’s 2011 fire safety report, the majority of campus residence halls lack flame-quenching sprinkler systems. A congressional bill to provide funding for sprinkler system installation at universities could improve the safety of students at the College — and prevent dorms from suffering the fate of the often-scorched Sir Christopher Wren Building.
The Stephanie Tubbs Jones College Fire Prevention Act, introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives Oct. 24 and the U.S. Senate Oct. 31, seeks to address inadequate campus fire safety by providing matching grants to fund up to half of the installation costs for sprinklers and other fire prevention measures in university dormitories.
“The effectiveness of sprinklers, if it’s been properly maintained and installed correctly, they have about a 99 percent effective rate at saving lives,” Edwin Caldas, board member of the American Fire Sprinkler Association Virginia Chapter, said.
Residence hall fires have not been a common problem at the College recently. No incidents were recorded last year, one took place in a Ludwell apartment in 2009, and two kitchen fires occurred in 2008.
But college dormitory blazes are on the rise nationwide. According to the National Fire Protection Association, 1,800 residence hall fires were recorded in 1998, and 3,300 in 2005. Between 2005 and 2009, there was an annual average of 3,840 dorm fires, which caused an average of 3 deaths and 38 injuries each year.
The NFPA maintains that sprinkler systems are highly effective in preventing residence fire fatalities; according to its statistics, the death-per-fire rate is 83 percent lower in residences with sprinklers than in residences without them.
At the College, only the graduate student housing complexes and Hunt, Jamestown North, Jamestown South and Reves halls have full sprinkler systems. Cabell, Harrison and Monroe halls possess partial systems. That leaves more than 60 campus residence halls, including the sorority houses and lodges, without sprinklers.
School officials note that most of the College’s dorms were constructed well before sprinklers were required by building codes, and that current building code does not mandate installing them in old residence halls.
“There’s no requirement to go back and put them in existing buildings, that would be a really big expense for people, and people would object to that a lot,” College Building Official for Facilities Management Bob Dillman said.
Expense is not the only factor prohibiting sprinkler installation at the College. According to Dillman, retrofitting a residence hall with sprinklers poses numerous challenges.
“It is difficult to go back into an old building and do something like that, and often it isn’t done unless it’s during a total renovation,” he said. “The only time we can do something like that is when you guys aren’t in the dorms.”
Dillman, who is responsible for ensuring campus buildings meet safety codes, confirmed that each dorm is in compliance with current fire prevention requirements called for by the international building code, which the College adopted in 2000.
“The fact that they meet code normally defines them as safe,” Dillman said.
Associate Vice President of Facilities Management Dave Shepard said that the College has recently been focusing its attention on upgrading its fire alarms systems, and will look into sprinkler installation in the future. The renovation scheduled for Yates Hall next summer will include sprinkler installation.
“It’s not something we’re ignoring — it’s a matter of rethinking and moving ahead,” Shepard said.
Sprinklers do not guarantee safety, though. One of the biggest blazes in the College’s recent history took place May 3, 2005, when a faulty exhaust fan malfunctioned in Preston Hall. There were no injuries, but there was such great fire damage to the third floor and smoke and water damage to the first and second floors that students assigned to live in the dorm in fall 2006 had to be housed in the Governor’s Inn hotel.
Preston Hall, Dillman pointed out, had sprinklers at the time of the fire.
“One of the interesting things is that Preston was sprinklered, under a code that required the occupied floors to be sprinklered, but not the attic, and the fire started in the attic,” Dillman said. “When we rebuilt Preston, we put sprinklers in the attic. The code changes because people learn from things like that.”
Dillman was skeptical of the Fire Prevention Act.
“Somebody thinks it’s a really good idea and they put a bill together but they don’t go very far,” he said. “I’ve seen this before. It’s a good idea, but it takes a lot of money.”
The College is in the process of hiring a new fire safety official, and the blueprints for the new fraternity housing complex include sprinkler systems.
“As it can afford it, I expect someday all of our dorms will have sprinklers in them,” Dillman said. “I’m hopeful that it will happen. That’s one of the things I’d like to see, because it does improve things. It would be a definite improvement.”