Fire Safety Plans

[officerchick]

We are updating the fire safety plan for this, and several other, buildings - they have not been updated since 2005 apparently. Management and Security have agreed on a designated gathering spot in case of evacuation, but now we need to find the best way to assemble and account for persons. The assistant's first idea was hand held signs (think airports in the movies) held by the Fire Wardens. The manager wants orange vests, and doesn't think the signs will work, and I can see her point. I want to look into having th suite number or company name put on the back of the vests. What do you think of these ideas, and do you have any better ones?

[davis002]

I would make the tenants responsible for reporting to whoever is in charge that all of their employees are present and accounted for. If someone is missing, they would be the first to know.

As far as mustering, you could avoid unnecessary signs by simply assigning each tenant a designated muster station in your gathering spot. What you could do is map out this gathering spot, divide the area, pencil in the tenants, and provide each tenant with this map in the fire plan. Each tenant should have designated muster personnel that are responsible for overseeing the evacuation of their space and the accounting of their employees at their muster station. They would then report to whoever your incident commander would be... "XYZ, Inc. is clear and all accounted for".

Another idea I have is something I saw during my time working on cruise ships. When a space was cleared out, they would hang a bright yellow "CLEAR" tags from the door handles. Now when fire personnel enter the area, they will instantly know that the space is clear and they can focus on the fire. You could have those designated muster personnel responsible for hanging the tag.

I am by no means a fire expert, but I think some of these ideas could work. The bottom line is your plan should be thorough yet simple.

[N. A. Corbier]

Signs and that are great, but the first thing that needs to be done is determine three muster points, all of them far enough away from the building that they will not be in the way of the responding fire department, and that they are upwind of the fire.

If there is actually smoke coming out of the building, don't be downwind of it. You have no idea what is causing the smoke, and it could be toxic.

If there's no smoke, then your primary muster point should be large enough to accommodate everyone. This does not have to be a military formation, and the property management company (the folks who pay security, I'm guessing) does not have to be (nor should they be) responsible for all tenants in the structure.

The tenants should have their own emergency response plans, that they should submit to the fire department, the police department, and the property management company. From there, the PMC can develop their own plan for the public spaces and management controlled areas of the facility.

Its nice that a management company wants to be responsible for every aspect of the operation, but the tenants don't work for the management company -- and in an emergency will follow their own plan or lack of plan. Ensure first that the tenant companies have their own emergency plans, what those plans are, etc.

If you have food service facilities as a tenant, ensure that you know exactly how they'll respond to a fire... They will have special procedures to deal with their flammable materials if they cook.

[FireRanger]

Nate,
You are correct but only to a certain point, while it is not the Property Manager's responsibility to ensure everyone gets out. They do have some responsibility in coordinating their teants efforts to ensure that all the tenants can safely evacuate in a efficent manner.

OC,
If your property management company is going to float the bill for the vests I recommend the following ones: http://www.buyemp.com/product/1061701.html Scroll down and you will see item 003 that has a clear plastic window. You can write up names/identifiers and place them in that window. Most bang for the buck where as places like galls will require you buy at least 8 vests if you want them to have custom writing on them. There are also other options depending on how indepth your client wants to get into the IC system of things. Also they will need to understand like Nate said most tenants probably already have their own plans and command structure in place. Your PMC just needs to coordinate everyone. If you want/need more info about incident command systems PM me.

Also all smoke from a fire is toxic, all smoke from vehicle fires, structure fires, etc can cause cancer, can kill you and contains harmfull gasses that were not burned by the fire. Not to go to far off topic but nothing solid or liquid burns. Fire is basically a very fast and very hot form of oxidation where the item that is "on fire" is actually breaking down into a vapor and that vapor is what is fueling the fire. This is why if you light a candle let it burn for a while then blow it out. You can relight the candle by holding a lit match close to the wick in the smoke. There is still enough unburnt gasses in that smoke to create fire.

[integrator97]

All good ideas, to which I have nothing better to add. Just curious, about how many people, and different tenants, are in your building?

[officerchick]

Thanks for your input. Nate, I forwarded your info on to the assistant manager. FireRanger, I did check out those vests and the only problem I see is that the vests they are currently looking at run about $5.00.

[wvd1979]

We have a pretty straight forward evacuation plan. There is a designated assembly area and supervisors are required to take an inventory of their people and report any missing people to the security personnel. If there is a serious incident with hazardous conditions, the security personnel notify the commanding fire/rescue officer of potential missing persons.

We also have a handicapped employee who might require assistance in leaving the building, so we have people who check on her. (She gets around OK, but she can't move very fast if there is an emergency.) There is a wheelchair available for any people with limited mobility.

[FireEMSPolice]

I should see what the plans are at my post. AFAIK, the fire exits are blocked or hard to get to, emergency lighting in areas is inoperable, etc. Funny thing is that the firefighters walk right by these things when they are shopping every morning. I should report the place to the Fire Prevention Bureau but I dont want to be in trouble should they reveal who called it in.

[FireRanger]

You got a family member or friend you trust? Have them call it in as they saw the fire exit blocked. A concerned citizen, is a concerned citizen, besides how many John Smiths or Jesus Martinez's are out there?

[FireEMSPolice]

You got a family member or friend you trust? Have them call it in as they saw the fire exit blocked. A concerned citizen, is a concerned citizen, besides how many John Smiths or Jesus Martinez's are out there?

If I gave somekind of Somali name, I would blend in. There are alot in my posts area as well as the entire city.

[HotelSecurity]

My 3 Montreal hotels hired a company to help us design our evacuation plans. It contains LOTS of photos & floor plans. So instead of it simply saying that the sprinkler shut off valve is located at location X, it shows a picture of what the valve looks like & locates it on a diagram.

A problem I have with hotel evacuation plans here is that they must follow a template made by the fire department. It is designed for office buildings. Hotels are not office buildings where the occupants can practise. Yhese plans insist on having Floor Wardens, Searcghers etc etc. This is good & fine in an office building. Recently I worked day time changing the locks in the hotel downtown. During the day we have extra Maintenance men, Maids, Housemen, Administration staff +++ but out of 29 rooms per floor there were usually less than 3 rooms occupied. At night all 29 rooms can be occupied with as many as 4 guests per room. At night we have 3 staff on duty. So here we have this greazt, good looking evacuation plan but in practical use it is almost usless for the period when there is the most ffanger.

[SecTrainer]

OC, the place to take this question is your fire department. They will be able to give you not only the best "general" advice (they will be highly knowledgeable about evacuation of various kinds of buildings and tenancies), but also very "specific" advice that is relevant to your facility (which I'm sure they already know quite a bit about, presuming they've been doing inspections, etc.), their response times, capabilities, etc.

[officerchick]

Sec, I had already strongly recommended consulting the FD before starting this thread. I was just interested in other members' thoughts and experiences. Thanks for the tip, though.:)

[officerchick]

All good ideas, to which I have nothing better to add. Just curious, about how many people, and different tenants, are in your building?

Comparatively speaking, not a huge building. 10 floors, roughly 20 companies, about 1,000 tenants.

[SecTrainer]

Comparatively speaking, not a huge building. 10 floors, roughly 20 companies, about 1,000 tenants.

Not huge, but certainly qualifies as a high-rise by most definitions (7 stories or 75 feet plus by some definitions, "having floors beyond the reach of a ladder truck", "multistoried building where the number of floors impacts evacuation", etc). Certainly, big enough that the emergency evacuation plan needs to be professionally designed and must take into account the possibility of fires occurring in various locations, which complicates the plan. There are several books on high-rise fire safety if you search using that phrase on Amazon.com.

Unfortunately, they're not cheap at $80++. Here's an OSHA resource that should prove helpful: http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/evacuation/evac.html - follow the different links in the main section and be sure to click on the interactive floor plan exercise, which covers different considerations you would want to consider for a hypothetical building and then apply to your own situation as appropriate. The way I would use this resource would be for your team to review the information it provides and the questions it raises before engaging the fire department or a fire safety consultant. It will speed things along if your side knows what the issues are.

[pfalex]

Assembly areas are great, but my advice is to eliminate the attendance/headcount approach to identifying those who have not made it out.

It's simply no longer (or maybe never was) clear cut as to who is in a building at any given time. Do Floor Wardens know who has booked off sick, or is working from home that day? We have a non-territorial workplace, so you don't know who is working at our site, at another site, customer location, or at home - it varies greatly each day. There may be dozens of contractors are in the building - some on staff, some called in.

It gets to be where there's significant administration (in a very short period of chaotic time) in trying to account for everyone, and the results are suspect. Even putting responsibility on managers to account for their staff is challenging when a person's manager may be located in another building or geography.

With the exception of self-identified persons with disabilities or those who would otherwise require assistance with exiting, a sweep of the floor should be sufficient - no checking of attendance (insert usual disclaimer of checking with the jurisdiction having authority in your area).

[SecTrainer]

Just bumping the thread. What did you finally do about this, OC?

[officerchick]

Just bumping the thread. What did you finally do about this, OC?

Reviewed the info I was asked to review, made my suggested changes and additions, and gave it to the management. I haven't heard anything about it for a while though, so it's probably time to follow up on it with them.