Protecting NYC

FIRETRONICS HAS a long history of surveying buildings after fire and explosion incidents, to identify repairs / corrections needed and to evaluate the redundancies that are required to overcome the challenges to successfully notify and safely evacuate the inhabitants during an emergency incident. The Firetronics team has also assisted with the re-writing of several fire codes inclusive of assisting BOMA NY (Building Owners and Managers Association of New York) in developing the current NY City emergency actions plan requirements with New York Fire Department. 

Over the years, the company has worked closely with different agencies, municipalities, and private corporations who evaluate properties for government officials, corporate executives as well as famous athletes to ensure properties are 100% safe for their personnel. When a building, data centre, mission critical facility or a hotel has a 5 star rating on the fire protection systems, it is placed as a preferred facility. 

Requests to evaluate and strengthen a building's preparedness and upgrade the fire protection systems to ensure the systems are reliable with redundancy involves the following scope of work: 

One of the most important factors we always need to focus on is that when preparing for a fire, explosion, or terrorism incidents is to verify the correct operation of the sprinkler systems and evacuation systems, which must be 100% reliable and robust so therefore the system which must have dedicated power sources with redundant power supplies and battery back-up power designed to complement each other. All of the fire protection systems and integrated door controllers, fan shutdown controllers, dampers, smoke removal and sprinkler systems must be correctly inter-phased, supervised and be maintained by professional personnel. Many highrise or tall buildings with large tenancies have installed sprinkler systems, smoke removal systems, smoke door barrier systems and emergency lighting systems, fire curtains, dampers which require additional maintenance and testing. 

We also evaluate changes within the building that may have occurred since the plan was written. We examine the plan closely to verify that all the emergency fire protection apparatuses are included in the plan. We evaluate the training procedures for building personnel, both for full time and part time employees such as off-time provisions for nighttime cleaners, plus we check the plan to ensure that contingency options are built in. Certain buildings can accommodate or cater to thousands of people on a daily basis therefore in many ways, high rise or large, tall buildings are similar to small towns particularly when the buildings are mixed use buildings. 

We additionally verify that the building's fire safety director and fire wardens have a BIC card which stands for the building information card. This card is typically written on 1 page and provides an executive summary overview of the buildings layout and special needs and is presented to the arriving Fire Department Chief to obtain a quick overview of the special conditions within the buildings. 

In some mission critical buildings, we perform stress testing of the system which translates to testing each and every fire alarm device without resetting the system. This method of testing ensures that there is sufficient power to keep the system operating as the fire on building emergency condition may spread, activating the entire system. We also test the entire fire alarm system under battery power during a stress test scenario. 

We additionally conduct fire drills with the Fire Department to familiarise the building occupants with what to expect during a real fire or emergency incident. These drills also provide the Fire Department with more familiarity with the buildings and to test the 2 way radios which in some cases do not operate in the basement or in buildings that have lead insulated walls due to installation of medical x-ray scanners. Once we identify deficiencies with two way radio or audio transmissions we recommend the necessary corrective actions to resolve the situation such as install repeaters, leak cables or additional speakers when dead spots are identifies within buildings. 

The enactment of a full fire and evacuation drill is a win-win situation as it identifies a building's safety inadequacies and familiarises the end users better with the team building exercise and develops a sense of awareness and team building exercise that is priceless during a real building evacuation. 

All of the deficiencies noted during the evacuation drills and critiquing sessions that immediately follow after the drills are put into a corrective action plan based upon the lessons learned. 

After many years of observing deficiencies and listening to the requests and recommendations of experienced fire chiefs as well as safety engineers we focused on incorporating the necessary engineering to overcome the prevailing fire and safety hazards we have incorporated additional software and detection devices to our system to address these challenges. 

Firetronics FT5S 5 Star fire alarm control panel was developed to ensure complete, operation under all prevailing emergency scenarios such as loss of power, impact by explosion, tampering, wire cutting and to provide redundancy operations to overcome obstacles that have been identified during fire evacuations, gas explosions and terrorism incidents. Our system also provides complete 2 way communications and paging as well as supervision of auxiliary systems such as building management, door release controllers, emergency lighting systems plus input from CCTV cameras where a smoke detector is activated. 

The system has the ability to identify doors and dividers that are propped open and immediately reports a trouble condition to the management company or authorities after a 24 hour period. 

It has been designed to comply with all fire codes and standards as well as identifying the needs of fire fighters which were delivered after fire rescue critiquing sessions. We have incorporated external supervisory / monitoring capabilities to alert management companies as well as the Fire Authorities with notification alerts when the fire alarm system has not been inspected and tested within a six month time period. 

The system is also ideal for providing protection for high rise / tall office buildings and multi-use dwelling buildings, campuses such as apartment building complexes, universities, and hospitals, through our approved IP an Wireless transmission network infrastructure. The system has been designed with backup power supplies, battery backup power, redundant controllers, inter-phase to generators, and UPS power supplies inclusive of complete redundancy in wiring circuits when required for mission critical facilities. 

Our system's infrastructure design facilitates activating custom messages in the language of choice in hotel rooms phone systems (or any special meeting rooms) to advise the occupants on the status of a fire condition or on the requirement to orderly evacuate a room. This unique capability assists travellers / visitors from different countries in understanding the potential emergency condition in their native language and also assists with controlling orderly evacuations to individuals who are in different surroundings. 

Our system has direct communication select relays which activate the host master TV controller for a large network of televisions or flat screens utilised in hotels and multi-dwellings to alert guests of an emergency incident in the language of choice. The system can also be utilised in public assembly areas, sporting arenas, shopping centres, large meetings / conference rooms, universities, and hospitals. 

We have also incorporated a tenant/visitor RFID tracking system to enable rescue workers to identify who has left a property thereby eliminating the need to search for an individual. 

All of our fire alarm control panel doors have built in tamper switches which notifies the supervisor or manager when the panel is opened thereby assisting the management in preventing tampering or alterations to be performed without authorisation. The control panel transmits emergency notifications by I.P alerts, wireless and hard wired transmissions to the Fire Department and Management personnel. 

Fire Prevention Control Systems has a strategic partnership agreement with Firetronics whereby Firetronics now has the ability to provide complete building analysis in the UK for the functionality of testing all the fire prevention and associated supporting systems to safeguard plus strengthen a building during a fire and emergency evacuation. 

Firetronics has also hired UK engineering, architectural, site safety and fire protection companies to support the Firetronics team with installations and upgrades of fire protection and emergency lighting systems in order to strengthen the buildings for a fire, bomb attack, or terrorism incident. 

Once we have concluded our initial review and testing of the building's systems and procedures we proceed to perform a thorough walk-thru of the building from the roof to the basement to ensure that all the means of egresses are clear and have correctly operating emergency lighting systems as well as clear photoluminescent markings and signage arrows towards the exit doors. We provide the building with a complete listing of the deficiencies found as well as a thorough point by point detailed scope of work regarding the corrections to be implemented plus the recommendations on the best practices to monitor and check on the ongoing maintenance on the buildings fire protection systems. 

Desmond Burke is XXXXXXXXX at Firetronics. For more information, visit www.firetronics.com