Ferrari Mailing List: Re: FW: Porsches Lost to a Building Fire

[Doug & Terri (dnt]

Thank you - well put FG
DOUG


-----Original Message-----
From: Ferrari [mailto:ferrari-bounces+dnt=dock.net [at] ferrarilist.com] On
Behalf Of Fellippe Galletta
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 9:45 AM
To: DOUG
Cc: The FerrariList
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] FW: Porsches Lost to a Building Fire

On 7/25/14, Charles Perry <charles [at] carolina-sound.com> wrote:
> Clearly they needed the expertise of our own Fellippe Galletta. Sadly, 
> per the comments, current codes and inspection processes make it 
> onerous to try to be preventive about such things...

I'm assuming there was no sprinkler system in the facility, as it would have
been noted if it didn't perform properly.

A system may or may not have been required. Then you have to factor in the
hazards, which an auto repair facility ranks about halfway up the severity
of hazard classifications, not a big deal most of the time.
The real kicker is tire storage which the article alludes to....and while I
haven't dealt with any tire storage personally in my work, I know off hand
it is one of the worst types of fires to deal with. It is on par or worse
than just about most flammable liquid storage, Group A plastics, which are
all pretty bad in their own right. The problem with tires is that they are a
nasty fire very resistant to being extinguished, often "deep seated".

A lot of how bad tire storage fires can be depends on storage heights,
mounting configurations, quantities, etc. but the interesting thing is that
how something is "supposed" to be stored can very often have little bearing
in how it is actually stored in real life, and a properly engineered system
can be undermined because of user error.

Water supply can be an issue as well in general, especially if you are in a
remote area -- if you have lousy pressure from the municipal water supply,
you can always add a fire pump. But if you don't have enough flow in GPM
you'll need to add a water storage tank, which costs money. If you figure
between 1200-1800 GPM for 90-120 minutes, a lot of water....

One way to "enforce" these sort of things is to have the property insured by
a good underwriter -- Willis, Chubb, XL for example. FM Global is perhaps
the best as they have their own performance criteria that often exceeds
building code and NFPA minimums. Codes care about minimal compliance to
protect the building structure and life safety for occupants, insurance
companies care about money -- property damage and lawsuits. Owners care
about money lost to damage too but only after the fact, rarely before. ;-)

(An exception to this of course is anybody who owns/manages data
centers......you'll see a cost no object approach with these clients as
there is huge money involved when the servers are down).

You have the ability to supplement sprinkler water, with technologies such
as halogenated/inert gas clean agent suppression (FM200, NOVEC 1230,
Inergen, the now defunct Halon 1301, etc), Carbon Dioxide, Dry Chemical,
Foam (AFFF, high expansion foam), etc. all with their unique strengths and
weaknesses.

The gases are good but you need a good seal and extended hold times (won't
help if garage doors are open for instance). CO2 is good too but poses an
asphyxiating hazard to occupants, and might also struggle with hold times.

Dry chemical is strong but not an ideal residue to have on cars if you can
help it (although this is what you'll find in gas stations). Same too for
foam, although this is common in aircraft hangars.

It's one thing to extinguish a fire at all costs, but now you have to be
weary of not damaging precious goods at the same time, haha. I spent about a
year traveling with some fellow Engineers to different Air Force reserve
bases around the US dealing with the issue that a false activation of high
expansion foam on an open C5 or C17 would be more expensive to deal with
than fire damage! It was a reverse fire protection engineering exercise, if
you will.

It's not common to worry about protecting the good itself from damage
-- nobody cares about pallets of destroyed nail polish, or acetylene
cylinders. Just put out the fire and keep it moving. Naturally this
application with cars, artwork, etc is unique.

What it will ultimately come down to is fire prevention more than
suppression; housekeeping practices, liquid storage techniques, proper
drainage, etc. Some of this detailed in this short little data sheet by FM,
if anybody is interested:

http://www.fmglobal.com/fmglobalregistration/Vshared/FMDS0715.pdf

Another aspect which is often overlooked is to get the fire department to
the scene as fast as possible as they play a very critical role in these
types of fires. Manual pull station activation is one thing, but after hours
you need smoke detection. When seconds count, full coverage smoke detection
is a lot better than just relying on waterflow activation through sprinklers
(we could be talking about 1-2 minutes difference here). And if you want to
take it up another notch, spring for air aspirating (air sampling) smoke
detection ("VESDA")......normal detectors sit back and wait for the smoke,
air sampling detection is constantly sniffing for it. These types of
detectors are also better suited to dealing with hostile air environments
than regular detectors.

The resources are there to mitigate these fire issues, just gotta want it.

Of all the building engineering disciplines (architectural, civil,
structural, mechanical, electrical), fire protection is the only one that is
an added cost with no benefit so long as a fire never occurs.
It's only natural that this one area is the one that gets overlooked,
ignored, underestimated, etc.

FG
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