A BAD SITUATION COULD HAVE BEEN MADE WORSE
WHEN A FIRE ALARM WAS NOT
RESTORED AFTER A FIRE?
Nick
Markowitz Jr.
Member
Emsworth VFD and
Private
industry Fire Investigator
Recently
one of my long time Fire Alarm customers suffered a 12:30 am fire in building 90#of his group of
apartment buildings90# 100# and 110# which are all under one common non fire
braked roof he owns south of Pittsburgh Pa.
An
electric Space heater a tenant was running on a top floor apartment over heated
wiring and caused it rub against a wall stud which had metal lath running along
it, resulting in a Arc Fault that failed to be cleared by a conventional
breaker and the local fire dept had to respond and pull down the apartment
ceiling and put out the fire, and turned off power to building 90#.
The
local Fire system in the building went off and was silenced and the dept left
after determining the fire was out. Not allowing any one to occupy building 90#
till power was safely returned. I received an early morning call to restore
power to the building and upon my arriving to start electrical repairs to the
effected apartments to my horror I found that the fire dept had allowed tenants
to stay in the attached buildings 100# and 110# with no fire protection working
as they had silenced the alarm which feed all 3 building sections but had never
reset it. 12 units of the 16 units building were occupied for over 9 hours with
no fire protection. What if another fire had broken out or worse yet what if
there had been a rekindle temperatures were below freezing and there easily
could have another tragedy. The building should never have been left un
protected .Had I been called early enough the system could have been isolated
from 90# and continued to protect like I did to the system after I arrived or
at the very least the fire dept should have left a fire watch in place with
fireman or Apartment maintenance personnel till I arrived to isolate and fix
the Fire system. Had there been another fire the fire chief could have faced
serious criminal and civil problems over his negligence for not either making
sure the system was working or a fire watch being in place. I can under stand
his concern so many people with out a place to stay with as cold as it was but
at the very least a fire watch would have been sufficient till the system was
restored. As required by NFPA 72c
This
is another case were poor training and lack of professionalism could have lead
to another far worse tragedy. A fire system in a building should never be left
silenced and not reset unless an appropriate Fire watch is in place. Especially
In an occupied residential structure like an apartment building.
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