Bronx fire

Self closers are a pain in the arse. How many do you have?

one on the half hour SCFD to the garage

How many office buildings have you walked round and seen the "Fire Door" propped open with a handy fire extinguisher?

Chris

But that's why they are kept near the door ;-)

Loads. How many times have you moved the extinguisher so the door performs as designed?

I've seen buildings where some self closing fire doors can be held open on magnetic latches which get disabled if the power goes off or the fire alarm is triggered.

I worked at a place where they were fitted.

Loads. ;-)

I will confess to finding myself more aware of safety matters than most, mainly because of various work-related stuff over the years.

I remember being at a social event which happened to be attended by the guy I knew as our company safety officer. Guess who dragged his chair right in front of the fire exit ;-)

At an event, I usually at least make sure that I know where the exits are, and the routes to them. Carrying out such a visual check, over the last 30 years I have found (and taken action on):

Emergency exit chained and padlocked: Bury Met Marquee with no fire exits, no exit signs, no emergency lighting: Lincoln Castle grounds. Previously failed electrical circuit leading to flat batteries in emergency lights and exit signs: London Inadequate exit signs and locked door on exit route: Whitby.

Even when the organisers have done their best, I have lost count of the chairs, piles of bags, push chairs and so forth which have been placed across the exits. Self-preservation doesn't seem to be a strong instinct.

I was at an event some years ago in a marquee, where the generator shut down and the emergency lights automatically came on. The generator was restarted, so the emergency lights went out. However, all the other lights were controlled by the lighting desk, which took several minutes to boot and get the lights back on.

I don't think anyone had actually thought through that very likely sequence of events.

The only extra bit of kit required was a switch in the mains feed to the emergency lights, or a few working lights not fed through the "clever" desk.

Chris

I wondered how they worked, with no visible wiring, but apparently they are triggered by the sound of the fire alarm.

Chris

Yes, I fitted these in our amateur theatre some 10 years ago. It did stop the Fire Extinguisher dance. Mine were retrofit battery operated.

Our safety officer once flymowed his toes while wearing sandals. To be fair that was a *long* time ago, before HSWA.

The vast majority of interventions or changes *within my work experience* have been very sensible, and met with few objections. It's not often publicised, but the reduction in workplace injuries since HSWA (and then ISO 9001) has been very impressive.

Excellent.

Everyone's responsibility really. Trouble is, most will reckon that it's someone else's problem.

except when your arse is on fire (and I don't mean after red hot curry).

Part 19. All new houses to be fitted with automatically closing fire doors ?.

Modern fire alarm systems are very clever and programmable. They don't just react to call points and detectors, they can trigger what ever sceanario you need.

Halma make Apollo detctors and have a whole range of interface devices that can be strung along the 24V 2-wire loop of detectors, call points or whatever. Every device on a loop is addressed individually by the fire panel so it can send a command to the I/O module which can release magnetic fire door closures, turn off lift motors, anything.

Like this one

Flymow toes used to be common diagnosis in A&E on summer weekends. I don't think it is quite so common these days.

Indeed they may be, but the devices I mentioned above don't need any wiring, making them a much simpler (and probably cheaper) retro-fit.

Chris

Chris J Dixon formulated the question :

I can imagine regular battery replacement being a pain, I think most are mains powered.

I'm not sure they even see that there's a problem. They simply don't think. And they/we don't think it will happen to them/us.

Until I volunteered to be a fire warden at work and underwent some (very basic) training I'm not sure I'd ever really thought about H & S at all.

The one area I did take notice of (still do) was aircraft safety briefings after reading an article by someone who escaped a crash because he had taken notice of the briefing, looked for his nearest exits (yes, plural) and understood how to work them.

You can get standalone battery powered door wedges that release when they 'hear' the alarm.

I assume they release when the battery fails.