Are your firefighters prepared?

[MNicolai]

I was having drinks the other day with a TD from a nearby facility; he mentioned that shortly after he opened a high school space over a decade ago, the sprinkler system went off. The system was designed so that a pump held back the water pressure, and without a redundant backup, a pump failure caused the sprinklers near the proscenium arch to go off.

The fire department showed up to find pooling water everywhere, the sprinklers going off, no fire, and the rigging doing something scary. They immediately called the TD. He showed up on site and told the entire fire department to give him ten minutes to figure out what to do before entering the stage area.

His major concerns were:
-> Are the pools of water on the floor electrified?
-> Will the counterweight rigging start to collapse now that the curtains are soaked with water?

At the time, his floor pockets were underwater, and his main curtain was drawn open, with the outer ends of the batten warped down and the center of the batten was high in the air, all because the water from the sprinklers had caused the curtain to become far heavier than normal. Meanwhile the purchase line for that line set (and for other nearby sets) was that slowly sliding through the rope lock.

His final determination was to kill power to the floor pockets (which was already killed after the circuits tripped) but had there been a company switch nearby there could have been a serious hazard to responding firefights. Rather than try to release the rope lock on the main curtain, he told the fire department just to take their saw and cut the curtains at the floor level to bring the counterweight set into balance again.

Until he told me about that, I never would have considered what happens to all of the soft goods on stage should the sprinklers go off. It's gotten me thinking about how prepared my local fire department really would be in the event of an emergency (or in this case, even just a faulty sprinkler system).

Do all of you think your fire departments would be able to navigate the hazards of your theatre if they had to respond to a call there, whatever the call may be?

 

[MPowers]

What an interesting concept! I Think Mr. Nicolai has hit on something that could be a big deal, and an excellent idea.

Those of you who are TD's, PM's and building or facility managers, et. al., Make the time to take your local AHJ, fire marshall or precinct captain to lunch. Let them know that you would like to help and coordinate emergency response crews with the potential hazards and specific or special dangers of rescue or disaster response in your facility. Help them to understand that a stage/auditorium is a space with many unique and unusual possibilities. For instance, rescue of a fall arrest victim off the edge of a counterweight loading gallery 40' above the stage, a cardiac arrest victim on the loading gallery, the potential danger of vastly out of weight battens in a water drench incident, a slip and fall with a broken leg in the FOH ceiling, etc. etc.

If they know you want to work with them,. they will be happy to work with you. Something to think about, all of you in management or administrative positions should look into it!

 

[DuckJordan]

Well, at least in our space there are only sprinklers next to the dimmer rack and the "shop/Storage" there isn't really any sprinklers close to the soft goods to get soaked that said if ours goes off the dimmer rack shuts down completely killing power its also 6" off the floor so there wont be standing water under the dimmer rack.

 

[MNicolai]

This morning I sent an email over to my local fire chief and proposed a "Fire Protection Open House" at our facility -- a day where the fire department could come in, tour the facility, and I could point out the most likely emergency scenarios and the most elusive hazards an emergency responder should be aware of. I could discuss the different fire protection systems in place in our theatre, what their role is in an emergency, and then open the floor to questions or a discussion on how our staff should handle different emergencies as well as how the the fire department would respond to different types of situations, whether it be a fire on stage, a false trip a sprinkler head, someone dropping a counterweight from the weight floor down onto someone's head, or any other likely scenarios that could occur in a theatre.

Well, at least in our space there are only sprinklers next to the dimmer rack and the "shop/Storage" there isn't really any sprinklers close to the soft goods to get soaked that said if ours goes off the dimmer rack shuts down completely killing power its also 6" off the floor so there wont be standing water under the dimmer rack.

Yee have little faith in the ability for a sprinkler system to flood a room in seconds -- especially small rooms with limited drains. Someone on here posted not too long ago an anecdote about a contractor snagging his shirt on a sprinkler head while coming down a ladder. Within moments the room was flooded and the brand new amp rack and audio processing gear were flooded.

Question for some you theatre safety experts out there, would I be incorrect in saying that false sprinkler system trips are more prevalent than fires in modern theatres with sprinkler systems are?

I can think of multiple local theatres that have had false sprinkler trips, but not a single major fire in the last couple decades that took place in a theatre with a sprinkler system installed.

 

[MPowers]

So, you sent him an e-mail. Did he respond?

 

[Footer]

I have a fire marshal in my space probably once a week, sometimes more. We have a 26 page document just outlining what to do in case of an emergency. That being said though, my job during a fire is to secure the stage (both firewalls in, doors shut), make sure the talent is evacuated and make sure my crew is evacuated. Its not my job to fight the fire or to help the fire fighters fight the fire. I also doubt that firefighters in the event of an emergency would actually even come into the building except to evacuate anyone. Stages evacuate quick, houses can take some time. I'm 5 stories up to my stage, 8 stories to the house, so thats #1 on my list. After the people are out, the place can burn to the ground for all I care. In reality, theatres are pretty safe places compared to what many firefighters face in industrial fires. In those situation, common practice is to just keep the fire from spreading to other structures. I don't think a walk through with the fire dept. is totally necessary. They have enough on their plate as is. And once again, if something does go down, its really not any different from any other industrial location that they are trained to work at. If you get a response, great, if you don't, I would not fret over it.

 

[mstaylor]

Kyle, for the most part I agree but with a counterweight system it is different. That is something I'm sure none of them have ever seen or understand. If sending something way out of weight is going to cause things to fall on them while they are fighting the fire, they will want to know.
I have done walk throughs with our FD many times over the years. I am good friends with many of the senior guys and as their jobs change I make sure the new captains know the dangers. I have walked them through my arena, including the roof and it's hatch system, many times also. I have also done a few rescues with them over the years and we have a good relationship.

 

[MNicolai]

So, you sent him an e-mail. Did he respond?

Just got a response today -- our Deputy Chief is ecstatic about the idea, and replied to me with CC's to his entire training crew of a dozen people. Less than an hour later I had an email from one of the firefighters on the train crew with a PDF attached that's a scanned article the guy printed off on the Iroquois Theatre fire, which he took a highlighter and sent over to me to get some conversation started.