ABSTRACT
Once the risks and probabilities of disasters have been identified, physical facilities must be examined in detail and appropriate countermeasures implemented to prevent and minimize the impact of unwanted emergencies. The age and condition of the physical plant will determine the size and scope of this task. A new complex with all new buildings, constructed in compliance with the latest building code would present less of a challenge than an old facility constructed in many phases. The level of commitment, or lack of commitment, to maintaining existing facilities will become apparent as the inspectors proceed. In older buildings that have housed several tenants and many modifications, basic structural integrity may have been compromised. On one inspection of an older facility, the interior of a large warehouse had been renovated into two floors of office space for design and production personnel. A major structural component supporting the roof of the building had been severed to add a door, enabling the space on the other side to be accessed. The bottom chord of the roof truss had been removed without adding reinforcement. No engineering studies were conducted to determine the impact prior to construction. The fire protection system of the building had not been modified to add additional heads in this new building built inside the original one. The company maintenance manager assured me that design safety factors and the adjacent trusses would support the roof. Under normal circumstances, time was proving his point; however, severe snow load, a blocked roof drain, or strong winds could have easily collapsed the
roof with high dollar losses and the potential for death and injuries. A fire separation wall constructed at considerable cost to obtain a two or four-hour rating is easily compromised when an opening is made to allow people or vehicles access. The decision makers may not have even realized it was a rated wall. Other examples of building modifications that have the potential to increase fire spread and endanger occupants include:
• Increased travel distance to exits beyond legal limits imposed by codes • Improper storage of materials including flammables, combustibles,
and toxic materials • Overloaded electrical circuits and/or lack of emergency lighting in
renovated areas • Absence of firewalls and/or fire partitions • Failure to extend firewalls and/or fire partition walls beyond the
underside of a ceiling • Penetration of fire separation walls by utilities (telephone, cable, data-
transmission lines) • Fire doors compromised by physical damage or propped open with
wedges
Although good housekeeping does not ensure a building’s fire safety, this author has never seen a facility with poor housekeeping that was fire safe. If you find a facility with large quantities of combustibles accumulating and in desperate need of cleaning, closer examination will probably reveal larger maintenance and fire protection deficiencies. This first step in preparing the physical facilities for a disaster is to determine their structural integrity on a daily basis, without the addition of an emergency. Technical means alone cannot accomplish this task for you; however, you should use all means available to assist your survey. The availability of thermal imaging equipment is an example of a tool that can assist the inspector in finding air, steam, and water leaks as well as heat or cooling losses. Finding leaks early while they are small saves energy and reveals weak spots in the integrity of these systems that could fail under emergency conditions.
