Wouldn't state overide the town fire marshall?
Yes and no. Both have jurisdiction. However, as stated, my building is owned by the state... on state property. My building is on the NYS capital complex. With that, we have a 8 fire marshals on site, one being on duty 24/7. So, I usually have a
fire marshal in my space at least once during any given show.
I work in an
arena in one town that won't allow any effects including dry ice. They cite it will set off the duct detecters. In my
arena we are allowed to do whatever we want as long as any
pyro is permited and inspected.
Haze or anything else is fine as long as we have a
fire watch. I work in a third
venue that will allow it but you have the
safety guy sitting
fire watch. Three different counties and two different states.
I actually have that same issue. I have
smoke heads on my
stage, one USC 20' off
deck and the rest 65' off
deck on the
grid. When they trip, firewall comes in, audible alarm goes off.... trucks
roll...
etc. However, I can go into a bypass that essentially turns off the strobes, audible, and fire wall relays. It does activate a panel onstage and still sends an alarm to the state police dispatch on property. I then have to inspect the head and give an all
clear.
HOWEVER.... there are air quality sensors in all of my
return air ducts. If one of those sensors gets tripped,
HVAC totally shuts down, an alarm goes off in the state police dispatch, and trucks
roll. No alarm is signaled in the
theatre. Instead, you know it tripped by having firefighters in turnout gear in the back isle. When the
HVAC shuts down, that is it for the day. Shows over, full evac,
etc. The building can not be open with
HVAC shut down and it can not be turned back on until the building clears. So, yes, this is real. It has not happened since I have been in my
current job, but it has happened the the last few years.
Its one more reason I never let a
road LD run their own
haze, instead Mrs. Footer gets to
play "
haze monkey". Now, tomorrow night I have the
bass player from Phish in, so I doubt we will even need to run the
hazer....