Residential Fire Sprinkler Questions

Before We Go Full Steam Ahead With Residential Sprinklers,
There are Questions ??? Which Must be Answered.

By Nick Markowitz Jr.
Fire Investigator and Alarm contractor

With the passage of ICC regulations now requiring fire protection sprinklers in residential properties, there are many questions which need answered before we start enforcing them. That is if the builders and their cronies do not see to it that we exclude that part of the ICC Fire Code here in Pennsylvania and many other states.

Having spent many years dealing with commercial fire sprinklers and their problems due to the below zero cold weather we get, and low water pressure we have in this area, I am already familiar with all the problems which are going to follow us over into the residential area.  First off, what about the residential systems? Will they be required to be monitored 24/7 by a monitoring company or will a simple bell do like we have on some commercial systems?  When that bell does go off, lets hope someone hears it and calls 911 . If a bell or horn does not do it, like in rural areas, will insurance companies then require monitoring to get a fire policy?

While we’re talking about insurance companies, will they raise residential rates due to all the damage a sprinkler system can cause? A customer of mine built a big home in Fayette County and was among one of the first to install a residential sprinkler system in the late 1980’s.  Upon notifying his insurance company he installed them, his policy went up 50% instead of going down because now there was the danger of all the water damage should a sprinkler head pop.  Needless to say he turned them off and depends on the smoke detectors.

Which brings up another question, if a residential owner turns off his required sprinkler system and then has a fire will the insurance company not pay, and could he face a code violation citation? Then talking about accidental trips what about the cold weather we have here and home systems popping during the winter?  Homes are often vacant while people are vacationing down south “We call them Snow Birds” or selling their home.  This is when traditionally we turn all water off in homes and lower or turn off heat all together.  Will we then have to insist on dry or anti freeze systems and monitored low temp alarms being used to prevent accidents?  Better yet, what about pre-action systems in a home?  How many heads will get knocked off by kids playing or people moving furniture etc.?

Then we have the problem with water supply.  Will municipal water suppliers demand a separate water meter and then require you pay commercial rate for sprinkler water?  You better believe it,  if they can get away with it.  Then again, what about the water pressure itself?  If there is not enough pressure, or homes are driven off a well, will we be required to install inground tanks and water pumps to supply adequate pressures like we do with commercial buildings?  These will also have to be supervised and monitored electrically?

You also would have the additional cost of back flow devices.  Will it be required they’re tested every year just like they do in commercial buildings?  Will the residential sprinklers need annual testing as well?  What about water hardness, corrosion, and scale?  Will systems be mandated for this testing and inspection as well like we are suppose to do with commercial systems every 5 years?

Yes I see many problems coming.  How many more trips will local fire departments make in the coming years, especially in the winter time?  The big question 20 years from now when that sprinkler system is really needed, will it even work just like the Arc Fault Circuit Interrupters (AFCI) which are required in the Electrical Code?  Well as usual I guess we are going to find out the hard way like we did with GFCI Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters, which 10 years out stopped working and a new design standard needed put in place.  I am just waiting for all the usual confusion and everything else that goes on every time we pass new codes and years of effort to get things straightened out.  Just once I would like to see a code completely thought out and field tested to look for and eliminate problems before they happen, so that wasted money and man hours are left at a minimum.  Sprinklers YES problems NO.

Fire Rescue Headlines: Vehicle Accident, Haz-Mat, Vacant House Fire

Here are your western PA firefighting and rescue headlines for Tuesday, July 28th, 2009.

• An SUV ran off the road and took out a utility pole in Penn Hills last night on Frankstown Road. [WTAE]

• A fire in a vacant house spread to a second house in the Homewood section of Pittsburgh last night. [WTAE]

• An interesting incident in Canton Twp where a crane fell into a vat of diluted acid, causing a large yellow cloud of chemicals to rise into the air. [WTAE]

Tri-State Antique Fire Engine Association 2009 Muster

Just wanted to give a plug out to the Tri-State Antique Fire Engine Association’s upcoming Muster in Pittsburgh at Heinz Field. The 2009 Muster will be held August 15th, from 9:00am until 3:00 pm.

We encourage everyone to attend and support this great event. Everyone is welcome to attend, and there is only a $20 entry fee for fire apparatus.

Events include Drafting from the river, viewing antique fire apparatus, a dalmation dog show, and lots of kids events. Trophies, plaques, and ribbons will be given out for a variety of the events.

For more information, visit www.tsafea.org

Penn Hills MVA – Frankstown at Verona Road

On July 18th, 2009, Station 225 and 227 Rescue were alerted for a multi vehicle accident with injuries and unknown entrapment. 225 Capt. and 225 Serv arrived finding negative entrapment canceling 227 Rescue. 225 Units remained on scene for clean up and Traffic. Multiple Patients were Transported and treated on scene.

More pictures and info at Station 225’s website.

Fire Rescue Headlines: Fatal MVA, Fatal Chopper Crash, Apartment Rescue, FD Debt

Here is a look at your western PA firefighting and rescue headlines for Thursday, July 23rd, 2009.

• Awful story out of Redstone Twp, Fayette county where there was a fatal accident last night that killed an 18 year old girl.  Her two brothers are firefighters and responded to the call.  Four people in the car she apparently hit were injured in the crash. [WTAE]

• A man died after trying to crash land a helicopter in Wharton Twp, Fayette county yesterday. [WTAE]

• Sticking in Fayette county, a home was destroyed while the family was on vacation in Menallan.  [WTAE]

• As reported yesterday evening, people needed rescued from the Fox Chapel Mews apartments in O’Hara Twp.  Hoopie World posted fire dispatch audio last night.  More information at [WTAE]

• Finally, Carnegie Volunteer Fire Department is back in the news again.  Unfortunately they are behind in payments to Fidelity Bank and owe $937,000.  [Tribune-Review]

Fire Incident Audio Added

Four more incidents have been added to the Fire Audio section, including the Fox Chapel Mews apartment fire in O’Hara Twp that is in the wrap up stages at the time of this writing, two Millvale fires from earlier in this month, and a motor vehicle accident in Marshall Twp that happened in June.

Visit the Fire Audio page here.

Fire Alarm Activation – FD Notification Times Need Improved

By Nick Markowitz Jr.

We need faster response times between when a fire alarm signal is received at a 3rd party monitoring center and when 911 actually dispatches it

When a fire alarm activates most of them send a signal to a 3rd party monitoring center called a central station.   They are manned 24/7 which then retransmits the information to the appropriate county’s 911 communication center and this is where the problem begins.

Most fire panels can get their signal to the 3rd party facility in under a minute and in some cases under 30 seconds.  It then on average takes 1-2 minutes for the 3rd party operator to pick up the phone and place the call to 911. The information is displayed on their terminal by the automation software being used by the central station alarm receiver.  When the 3rd party operator calls the 911 operator they then have to type in the information they receive.  That information is then sent to dispatchers who using CAD Computer Operated Dispatch computers designed to help determine which fire units are called.

This is where time starts to bog down.  I have seen 911 centers in SW Pa. take up to 9 minutes from the time they are called to when the tones to alert firefighters is sounded.

One way to close this gap would be to be able to have the information the 3rd party operator has on their screen also be able to be displayed on the 911 operators terminal when they are contacted.  This information could then be instantly transferred to the dispatcher.  Also 911 centers need to be much more aggressive in demanding from their CAD software vendors products, which can handle anomalies where you have communities with same sounding names and streets.

How many horror stories over the years have happened because the CAD software has screwed up and dispatch delayed?  I had just such an example happen to me where I am converting systems over to a central station which where formally monitored directly at communities dispatch center.

I was having a problem at an apartment building which was causing a false fire alarm.  The alarm was not giving an indication in the building as it should have where it was coming from, and after doing a preliminary check over of the system the problem turned out to be a bad smoke detector in the laundry area.  I went up to the fire dept to talk to the duty officer to discuss a strategy to try and stop the false alarms when my phone rang.   It was the central station the building was going off again and they had already contacted 911 before calling me.  I got in my vehicle to meet the firefighters at the building but after I left it was still almost 2 minutes before they got notified from 911 which I heard coming over my scanner. This never would have happened when this community was dispatching its own calls.  2-3 minutes may not seem like a big amount but when it comes to a fire it can be life or death when in 3 minutes a room can be totally consumed by a fire.  There is no golden hour like you have with serious trauma victims.

With all this new technology including the 911 center being able to send information right to the responding vehicles laptops it is time we look at the beginning of the call and making it more efficient there.

Fire Rescue Headlines: Mt Lebanon Rescue, Car into Porch, Ambulance Accident, Siren Repairs, Fatal Crash

Here are your western PA firefighting and rescue headlines for Wednesday, July 22nd 2009.

• Crews in McKees Rocks had to extinguish a vacant house fire on Third Avenue overnight.  [WTAE]

• Great job by Mount Lebanon firefighters yesterday rescuing 2 from an apartment building.  An apparent kitchen fire caused the 2nd and 3rd floors of the Beverly Road apartment to fill with smoke, prompting the necessity for the rescues.  No one was injured, and the fire was contained to the originating apartment. [WTAE]

• A driver was killed after going the wrong way on the PA Turnpike near Monroeville last night. [WPXI]

• A Munhall ambulance swerved to miss a vehicle that pulled out in front of them and crashed into a pole yesterday.  There were only minor injuries on the scene. [WPXI]

• Add Trafford to the list of departments applying for the FEMA Station Construction grant. [Tribune-Review]

• Southwest Greensburg is getting their council to pay $3500 for repairs for the fire department’s siren. [Tribune-Review]

• Finally, Sharpsville firefighters responded to a vehicle into porch yesterday afternoon. [Sharon Herald]

Digital TV Service – How a New Technology is Actually Putting Many At Risk During Emergencies

For many people who live outside the city limits and even for many within the city limits the transition from over the air Analog to Digital TV transmission has been a nightmare.

With analog transmission, even when you could not get a great picture you could still hear the broadcast, which many people do to hear their local news.  They do not watch a lot of TV either because they’re busy doing other things or can not afford cable or satellite service.  Many people further out of town that do have satellite but do not have cable listen to local TV news broadcasts using a Multi Band Radio. But that all went away in June 2009 when Analog broadcasting went away except for a small handful of low power UHF TV stations who are still allowed to transmit in analog.  Those handful have very limited coverage areas and all automated programming.  So by June most over the air customers went and bought a converter to use on there analog set or bought a new Digital TV.

Everyone soon discovered when they scanned for channels either there was no service available or only 1 or 2 channels.  The other ones they got where gone, no matter what type of fancy digital ready antenna they bought.  Radio listeners where totally out of luck as TV no longer uses that VHF band they listened on.  People who bought portable Digital TVs to use while camping or at the summer homes also found themselves out of luck as well.

So what’s going on?  The problem is in the digital service itself.  It has a much smaller service area and unlike analog where you could use a tuner to bring in the channel, once you are out of the digital contour wave there is nothing there to tune in. With digital its there or not, no exceptions like with analog.  So now we have many citizens who are unable to tune into a local broadcast during an emergency in there local area.

Yes they can sometimes get local channels on satellite but often times not.  So now what? No problem we just tune in the good old AM/FM radio.  But this is also a problem with so many stations playing canned automated music and talk no one is at the studios to give emergency information or news as to what is going on.  Now what the only option left is a Weather Radio ,which can let you know about bad weather approaching and can also let you know you need to evacuate because a poisonous cloud from an industrial accident is approaching.  This is only if the local emergency agency is smart enough to know that they can do this by contacting the weather service.  The only other way to get info would be if you had a dial up internet account.  Or if you’re lucky you have satellite based internet or your cell phone has internet enabled.  Yes our friends outside the city and in the country are now on there own thanks to the digital revolution they have been left behind and in danger.

Will we now have to have the Digital Rural Act like we did the Rural Electrification Act in the 40’s to bring electricity to rural areas?  It appears so.  They still heavily use Citizen Band Radios, CB’s in the country because cellular service is spotty at best.  So while the digital age was suppose to bring all these great services to the masses it is once again the haves and have not’s.  This also goes with digital radio as well.  The Big AM radio stations like KDKA 1020 AM which broadcasts in both analog and digital can not be heard at night out side of its home county on a car radio because the digital hash noise.  I was recently visiting a friend in Erie Pa and on way home at night I used to be able to hear KDKA loud and clear.  Now its not there.  Nothing but noise and its digital signal bleeds digital hash noise over to close by stations at 1010 and 1030 making them not being able to be heard as well.  Using the current digital technology at night is a bad deal for AM instead of using Ibequety they should have used DRM Digital Radio Monadial like they are using in Europe.  But when do we ever use common sense in this country?

Yes we now have a bigger digital divide than ever and putting more peoples lives at risk than ever before, but we have HD American Idol.

Article by Nick Markowitz Jr

Fire Scene Photography – Gear

I’ve recently been recruited to be the “official” photographer at an upcoming wedding which made me dig my camera gear back out and refresh myself on it.  Unfortunately I haven’t done as much shooting as I should have over the past couple years, and I had to get back into the swing of things.  I’ve been doing research on wedding photography, as I know its a whole different ballgame than fire scene photography.

As I’ve been researching, it has re-ignited my interest in photography.  I thought that I would start some discussions regarding fire scene photography, as we have quite a few fire buffs in the area (although not too many incident scene pictures have been sent to my inbox lately – hint, hint, nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

So my first article in this series is just about gear.  I figured I’d explain what gear I have and hope others via the comments or on the forums will chime in on what they have, use, and works best for them in different situations.

I personally have a Canon Rebel XT body.  I bought it back around 2003 and have been very happy with it.  I found the learning curve to not be too bad, but I also found now that I know what the settings do, I have to better work on picking the right settings.  I have a kit 18-55mm lens and a 70-300mm lens, both of which are just basic low end lenses.  Due to the upcoming wedding, I came to the conclusion it was vital for having an external flash and not rely on the built-in flash, so I recently picked up a Canon Speedlight 430 EX II.  I also have a tripod that I rarely if ever use, and a couple of batteries, memory cards, uv filters, and other miscellaneous stuff.

I was fortunate enough to borrow a 70-200mm IS L 2.8 lens from a co-worker for the wedding and a 24-70mm L 2.8 lens.  To quote Borat, “Wow wow wee wow!”.  These lenses are sharp as hell, and I can’t put them down.  The only problem I’m finding with them is since they retail for about $1700 and $1200 respectively, I’m nervous I’m going to scuff them up or scratch them.   The wedding hasn’t taken place yet, but I’m confident with those lenses that I will get some results that I want.  I have been keeping the scanner close by, waiting for a call that would be worth shooting, but to this point things are quiet or I’m busy when the calls come in.  I’d love to see what these two can do on a fire or accident scene.  The 70-200mm gives you enough zoom power to catch the shots when you are on the sidelines at a scene and the 24-70mm is a great walk around lens.  The only thing missing for me would be a more wide angle lense, like the 10-20mm Canon lens, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers, especially when the lenses have to be given back in a week or so .

After being spoiled with the borrowed lenses, I’m looking to upgrade my gear with at least a nice walk-around lens.  For those not into photography, a walk-around lens is a lens that has a nice range of focal points, meaning it will get some close ups and some wide angles with the same lens, without the need to be changing lenses for every shot.  Like everything else though, money is a factor and I’m stuck with that decision of, will a $500-$600 lens be good enough instead of a $1200 lens?  I personally think that if I’m buying, to bite the bullet and get the better lens.  I mean, I have this web site and I get use out of the camera (when its not sitting on the car seat or my locker at the station) during fire incidents and regular home use.  I guess it really doesn’t matter, as I don’t have the funds for the lower range at this point anyways.  I have been looking at used ones though and it seems like that may be the way to go.

Well, if you read through all the rambling, and are still reading this, you now know what Mr Hoopie World is equipped with if you see him at incidents or parades.  I’m curious to hear what gear you all have.  Be sure to leave a comment or discuss on the forums what gear you have.

Look forward to future fire scene photography articles, including techniques and best practices.

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