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Fire Protection Measures – Available When Needed?
Fire protection features, such as: fire alarm systems, sprinkler systems, fire doors, portable extinguishers, etc., installed in a building are installed with the hope that they never have to perform the functions for which they are intended. Those functions are mainly to detect and alarm, control, and suppress, unintended fires. Typical building services such as [...]
Limitations to Maximum Fluid Flow Velocity in a Sprinkler System Hydraulic Calculation
The NFPA 13 does not prescribe the maximum limit for velocity allowed in a pipe while performing hydraulic calculations for a sprinkler system design to the requirements of NFPA 13. The reason for this is that velocity is a self-correcting parameter that adjusts to accommodate changes in other parameters of fluid flow in a pipe. [...]
Fire Mitigation Practices Through Fire History
Fire prevention through fire safety planning and routine fire inspections is key in limiting the spread of fire. Fire code requirements are often added, updated, or revised as a result of fire loss history. In February 1990, a fire occurred in an outdoor tire storage area (approximately 48,000 m² site) in Hagersville, Ontario, which involved [...]
Applying the National Building Code to Historical Buildings Open to the Public
In the past few years, PLC Fire Safety Solutions have been involved in numerous fire and life safety studies for historical structures in Atlantic Canada. Most of these historical buildings are government or municipality owned, where the history of the buildings is important to the culture of Atlantic Canadians. When renovations are planned for these [...]
Fire at the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral
A major fire broke out on April 2019, at France’s world-famous Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, the flames caused the cathedral's narrow spire to collapse. Construction of the cathedral began in 1160 under Bishop Maurice de Sully and was largely complete by 1260, though it has been modified frequently in the ensuing centuries. In the 1790s, [...]