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Minutes of Executive Committee & chapter meetings
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Carl Baldassarra speaks to Chapter about Life Safety Evaluations
The March Luncheon Meeting of the Chicago Chapter was held at Petterino’s Restaurant in Chicago on March 1, 2010. Carl Baldassarra, Executive Vice President of The RJA Group and a Fellow of the SFPE, gave a presentation on the Life Safety Evaluation (LSE) required by the City of Chicago High Rise Retrofit ordinance passed in 2004. A synopsis of Mr. Baldassarra’s comments is shown below.
The High Rise Retrofit ordinance was adopted after the 2003 Cook County Building fire. It included a comprehensive package to improve life safety from fire in existing high rise buildings (buildings over 80 feet in height). According to city estimates, about 1,300 buildings will be affected. Of these, about 200 are commercial buildings and about 1,100 are residential buildings. The LSE was mandated for existing buildings exceeding 80 feet in height and used for non-transient residential uses or a commercial historic building. Exceptions include non-transient buildings or historic commercial buildings that are protected throughout by automatic sprinkler systems.
The LSE is a systematic approach to evaluate the positive and negative attributes of a building. Points are awarded for positive features and points are deducted (or no points are awarded) for negative features. There are a minimum number of points required to demonstrate a level of life safety from fire that is equivalent to the level of life safety that would be provided by compliance with the Chicago Building Code (CBC) for an existing building. A LSE score that meets or exceeds the minimum required score does not guarantee against loss of life or property damage, and it does not imply that a building is in compliance with the requirements of the CBC, nor should it be construed to waive compliance with provisions of the CBC applicable to existing buildings. It demonstrates that the level of life safety is equivalent to the level of life safety required by the CBC.
If a building does not demonstrate an equivalent level of life safety to that required by the CBC, improvements to the building must be completed by January 1, 2012 to bring the level of life safety in the building up to the level required by the CBC.
According to an analysis performed on 222 buildings which were surveyed, only 7.2% of the buildings received a passing score on the initial survey. The major deficiencies were a lack of voice communication systems, lack of rated fire doors on stairway enclosures, penetrations through stairway enclosure walls, deficient corridor wall separations and inadequate or missing door hardware. The average cost of compliance to demonstrate equivalency using the LSE method was about $ 207,000 per building. The presentation on this topic can be found on the Chicago SFPE website.
According to an analysis performed on 222 buildings which were surveyed, only
7.2% of the buildings received a passing score on the initial survey. The major
deficiencies were a lack of voice communication systems, lack of rated fire
doors on stairway enclosures, penetrations through stairway enclosure walls,
deficient corridor wall separations and inadequate or missing door hardware. The
average cost of compliance to demonstrate equivalency using the LSE method was
about $ 207,000 per building. Click
here for a pdf version of the PowerPoint presentation (2.1Mb).
(Submitted by J. Talbert, 3/4/10)
January Luncheon Meeting
Firefighter Exposure to Smoke Particulates
The January luncheon meeting of the Chicago Chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers was held at the William Tell Inn in Countryside, IL on Monday, January 11, 2010.
Mr. James Dalton of the Chicago Fire Department made a presentation about a 16-month research project that is currently under way to evaluate firefighter exposure to smoke particulates during post-attack fireground operations. This project is a joint Research project involving the Chicago Fire Department (CFD), Underwriters Laboratories (UL), and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine (UCCM).
This research is funded by a Department of Homeland Security, Aid to Firefighter Group Fire Safety and Research Development Grant.
The research included material burn tests and large scale burns conducted by UL; field tests conducted by the CFD, health assessments conducted by the UCCM, and tactics implementation by the CFD.
The goal of the project was to measure the concentration of smoke particulates to which firefighters may be exposed during post-attack fireground operations. These operations typically consist of overhaul operations after the fire has been controlled. According to Mr. Dalton, it is typical in the CFD operations that firefighters are required to use self contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) during fire attack, but it is up to the discretion of the firefighter as to whether or not to continue to use the SCBA after the fire has been controlled. The guidance that most firefighters follow is that if they cannot see smoke, it is considered to be safe to discontinue use of their SCBA. Mr. Dalton indicated that he believes that other fire departments around the country follow a similar practice.
The study is not yet complete, however, the findings to date suggest that even though no smoke may be visible after a fire is controlled, there may still be significant amounts of toxic by-products in the air because most of the smoke particulates present during overhaul operations are too small to be seen. Consequently, firefighters may be breathing in significant amounts of toxic byproducts without their knowledge because the air may be saturated with these invisible smoke particulates.
When the research project is completed, the results will be published on the Department of Homeland Security website and the Underwriters Laboratories website. In the interim, if you wish to know more about this subject, you can contact
James.Dalton@cityofchicago.org or
Thomas.Fabian@us.ul.com.
Submitted by: Joe Talbert, February 1, 2010.