building and construction for fire safety

Instructions

Objective:The purpose of this assignment is to choose a building and report on the construction aspects as they relate to fire protection and life safety.  You may or may not be familiar with the building.  But choose a building that you can have access to.  You will need to be able to walk around the building and speak with a manager to obtain this information:

• How the building is constructed
• What fire systems does it have
• the potential risk to firefighters
• the building’s stability/construction under fire conditions

The building you choose must be a commercial/mercantile structure at least 10,000 sq ft in size.  You can choose a multi-residential structure such as a hotel/motel, apartment, dormitory, etc.  You may not choose a single family residence, a fire station, or any structure under 10,000 sq ft .

Assignment Format:

The assignment will:

1.     include a cover page which contains the following:

• the course title
• your name
• the building name
• Total square footage of the building  (How to measure square footage of a building)
• the assignment due date

2.     be between four to six pages in length, which includes the cover page

3.     be doubled spaced with 1” margins

4.     be typed with a 12 point character size and formatted in Times New Roman

5.     have the pages numbered at the bottom

6.     have at least one but no more than two pages that shows photos, graphics, drawings and/or schematics of the building (the file must be no larger than 10Mb; please check the file size before sending)

7.     be submitted as a Microsoft Word or PDF document with a doc, docx, or PDF fie extension.

 Content:  The assignment will contain the following in its content:

1.     Description and information about the building and its fire protection/life safety features which must include the following:

• Type of construction as per NFPA 5000.
• Descriptions and types of materials used. (masonry, metal, steel, wood, etc.)
• Fire protection features of the building (systems, materials, design, etc.)
• Fire loading and contents of the building.  (What are the contents of the building? furniture, paint, etc.)
• Building design and layout as it relates to life safety and fire protection. ( is it a wide open space, office cubicals, warehouse, etc.)

2.     Expected fire behavior in the building and expected safety (or lack of ) of the occupants.  That is, based on the information that you have discovered, how you would expect a fire in this building to behave.

• Grow or not and why? (create a great deal of heat, be a slow-building fire)
• anticipated occupant safety or a lack of safety if the building is involved in fire

3.     Expected fire operations strategy (or strategies) if the building is involved in fire.

• Consider occupant rescue, fire suppression/control, exposures, firefighter safety, etc.
• Offensive mode (fire fighters inside), defensive mode ( fire fighters outside), offensive/defensive, defensive/offensive.
• Explain, based on the information you have discovered, what strategies you would implement if this building were involved in fire.

The intent of the assignment: The intent of the assignment is for you to define, analyze, and report the building’s construction, layout, fire protection features and the design related to fire protection and life safety.  Using this information, you will determine how you think a fire will behave in the building and how you will react.  You must also develop a strategy or strategies as if you were the Incident Commander and the building was involved in fire.

What this assignment is NOT: This assignment is not a pre-fire plan of a building.  For example, you do not need to tell the location of the water and electricity shut-offs of the building.  You do not need to calculate fire flows to suppress a fire in the building.  You can use information from a pre-fire plan, but it is not a fire prevention inspection of a building or a fire safety plan of a building.

There will be one submission per student only.  There will be no rewrites.

Note:  Please utilize and manage your time during the course to complete and submit a good quality assignment. I am expecting a detailed assignment which speaks to building construction and fire behavior.  I want to know what you have learned in this class.

Please communicate with me if you have any questions or problems.