Facts Don’t Matter: Passive Fire Protection, Part I he Alliance for Fire and Smoke Containment and private property.” Hence, the basic premise of Mr. Licht’s paper Control (AFSCC) Inc., is a trade association that repre- is in error. Tsents manufacturers and installers of passive fire protec- Of course, there are many in the code enforcement field who tion products. The January 2002 issue of the trade association’s would argue that property protection should be a basic part of newsletter indicates the goals of the organization, which are: any building code. To some extent, those who make this argu - ment are correct. It is a legitimate concern of government that “The promotion of the passive protection as part of a ‘bal - property owners not be allowed to construct buildings that anced design’ap p r oach to fire prot e c t i o n . ” would endanger their neighbor’s property; however, the protec- “The promotion of prop e r ty protection and public welfare, tion of one’s own property against economic loss should not be as well as life safety.” a concern of government. More than likely, most Am e r i c a n s “The education of code officials and [building] designers on would agree that the government should not dictate where peo- fi r e protection issues.” “The promotion of fire fighter safety and the facilitation of fi r e fighting activities.” There are many in the code In order to promote one of the goals of the AFSCC, the edu- enforcement field who would cation of both code officials and building designers, AF S C C argue that property protection technical director Richard Licht has written two papers on the subject of the fire protection requirements contained in building should be a basic part of any codes. These two papers are titled “Maintaining Life Safety building code. Ef fectiveness in the New Building Codes” and “Balancing Active and Passive Fire Protection Systems in the Building Codes.” In the interest of furthering the AF S C C ’ s goal of edu- cating both code officials and building designers, as well as ple live in an effort to minimize property damage caused by other building professionals, a discussion of both papers writ- earthquakes, storms or floods, or dictate the specific auto some- ten by Mr. Licht is warranted. This month, we’ll take a look at one drives in order to minimize damage to the vehicle in the “Maintaining Life Safety Effectiveness in the New Building event of an accident. Why then should the government be in the Codes.” Mr. Licht’s second paper, titled “Balancing Active and business of telling building owners how to protect their own Passive Fire Protection Systems in the Building Codes,” will be property from loss? analyzed in a future column. Mr . Licht also states in his paper that “smoke detectors, con- The abstract of the paper titled “Maintaining Life Safety tainment area, passive fire protection and automatic fire sprin- Ef fectiveness in the New Building Codes” puts forth the klers – taken in concert – this quartet of construction features is premise that “the challenge [to the writers of building codes] is responsible for an improving record of life and property protec- to support construction economy and practicality while pre- tion in commercial buildings that have been constructed in the serving life safety and property protection.” While on the sur- U.S. over the past several decades.” While most involved in face, this statement seems reasonable enough, it is, in fact, a building regulation would accept this statement as being true, it misstatement of the purpose of both the International Building is not actually supported by any research. We can state with cer- Code and NFPA5000. Section 1.2 in the 2003 edition of NFPA ta i n t y , however, that the number of fire responses by fire depart- 5000 states that “the purpose of the Code is to provide mini- ments in the United States has plummeted since 1980, despite mum design regulations to safeguard life, health, property, and the fact that the population of the United States has increased, public welfare and to minimize injuries.” While the purpose from 226 million in 1980 to 281 million in 2000. According to statement in NFPA5000 seems to support Mr. Licht’s reference statistics published by the National Fire Protection As s o c i a t i o n to property protection, explanatory material contained in An n e x (N F P A), there were more than 2,988,000 fire responses in the Aof NFPA5000 clarifies the intent of the code with respect to United States in 1980, but only 1,708,000 fire responses in property protection by stating, “it is not the purpose of the code 2000. Given these statistics, the improved fire safety record in to provide design regulations that solely affect economic loss to Continued page 10 Page 8/Plumbing Engineer Copyright © 2003 TMB Publishing. All Rights Reserved August 2003 Fire Protection Continued from page 8 the United States in the last 20 years or NF P A 5000 are limited. In other words, “pressure is being applied by certain spe- so can certainly be attributed to the large simply because a building is protected cial interest groups to move away from drop in the number of fires occurring, throughout by a sprinkler system does not proven and tested life safety practices in combined with the installation of smoke mean that all other fire protection features the model Building Codes for reasons of detectors in residential occupancies. are permitted to be eliminated from a ec o n o m y . These interest groups propose Although this may be considered to be building. For instance, sprinklered build- eliminating penetration firestops, fire- heresy in some circles, the extent of the ings are still required to be provided with rated gypsum board, fire doors, fire ef fect of “containment area, passive fire protection and automatic fire sprinklers” on the fire safety record of commercial Most Americans would agree that the buildings in the United States is government should not dictate where people un k n o w n . Mr . Licht further states in his paper, “it live in an effort to minimize property damage. is crucial that the new Building Codes reflect a clear understanding of the sys- tems nature of effective fire protection if we are to avoid sanctioning the construc- egress routes and exits, and exit stairs are dampers, structural fire-proofing and tion of buildings that are code-compliant, still required to be enclosed. In many fire-rated ceiling tiles from the Building but unsafe for life and property.” Ag r e e d cases, the rating of corridor wall con- Code in favor of sprinkler systems.” – the protection afforded to the occu- struction is only permitted to be reduced, Again, these statements are exaggera- pants of a particular building (and the not eliminated. It appears that Mr. Licht tions of the actual facts about sprinkler building itself) is dependent upon the would like us to believe that the fire safe- “t r a d e - o f fs.” First, many of the “trade- interaction of building features, but ty of occupants of sprinklered buildings is of fs” in passive fire protection have been before making too much of this, it is crit- totally dependent upon the successful included in the model building code pub- ical to understand that the “trade-offs” in operation of sprinklers, but this simply is lished by BOCA and in the Life Safety passive fire protection incorporated into not true. Code for more than 25 years. Hence, it the International Building Code and Mr . Licht also asserts in his paper, can be stated that many of the “trade- of fs” in passive fire protection have actu- ally been “field tested” in jurisdictions that have utilized either one of these two construction codes. Given this, it would be difficult for anyone to assert that many of the “trade-offs” in passive fire protec- tion are not proven and tested life safety practices. Indeed, one of the advantages of having multiple model building codes in use in the United States is that various fire safety schemes can be “field tested” and the sprinkler “trade-offs” included in the International Building Code and NF P A 5000 have successfully passed 20 years of “field trials.” Along the same lines as the previous statement, Mr. Licht also writes, “more and more fire ratings are being reduced as a financial incentive to encourage the use of sprinklers. However, as noted in the following material, there are serious questions related to the ultimate safety of this practice.” Given the fact that “trade- of fs” in passive fire protection have been permitted by the BOCA Code and the Life Safety Code for more than 20 years, Mr . Licht should be able to cite a multi- tude of examples of the failure of build- ings designed to comply with the BOCA Code and/or the Life Safety Code to pro- vide adequate protection for the building occupants. Interestingly enough, Mr. Circle 006 on Reader Service Card Continued on page 14 Page 1 0/Plumbing Engineer Copyright © 2003 TMB Publishing. All Rights Reserved August 2003 Fire Protection Continued from page 10 Licht does not provide even a single example in his paper. Th e reason why Mr. Licht doesn’t provide any examples of the “failures” in buildings designed utilizing “trade-offs” in passive fire protection should be obvious – there simply aren’t any. While Mr. Licht doesn’t provide any examples to support his assertions, I can cite a number of examples of major failures of passive fire protection to contain the spread of fire and smoke: the fire at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas in 1980, the fire at the First Interstate Bank Building in Los Angeles in 1988 and the fire at the One Meridian Plaza Building in Philadelphia in 19 9 1 .