Fire Safety History, Standards, and Detection Technology

Introduction: Origins of Fire Safety Concern

The history of fire safety and prevention is generally associated with the events of the Industrial Revolution. The proliferation of factory working environments and the dangers of highly mechanized operations created a disaster waiting to happen.

Though it would not be until far later in the 20th century that the United States would establish an organization specifically tasked with ensuring compliance with standards aligned to human health and safety, the turn of that century initiated an ongoing intensification of public and governmental awareness of the need to improve fire safety methods. It would be the need for proper fire-safety administration — and the incidents that illuminated that need — that ultimately delivered society to the vastly improved, though still imperfect, standards in circulation a century later.

With labor exploitation rampant and no centralized authority yet commissioned to address this reality, it would take one of America's greatest labor tragedies to incite meaningful change in fire safety and overall worker safety standards. Fire was a commonplace hazard to factory work in the urban production centers of the industrial era.

"One of the most notable was the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City in 1911, in which nearly 150 women and young girls died because of locked fire exits and inadequate fire extinguishing systems" (EHS, 1). This event became a lightning rod not just for the labor movement but also for the advancement of fire safety research. An absence of proper safety standards and procedures — not the fire itself — was to blame for the unnecessary deaths. The result was a necessary governmental recognition that a lack of fire-safety oversight was tantamount to a violation of human rights. Not long after this fire, "the governor of New York appointed the Factory Investigating Commission. Over the next three years, the commission held dozens of hearings, resulting in the passage of the most sweeping set of workplace labor reforms in America" (NPR, 1).

Regulatory Milestones and the Rise of OSHA

The Triangle Shirtwaist disaster provided the background for the eventual adoption of proper fire safety standards, with fire prevention also becoming a focus of strategic building efforts. To that end, in 1970, Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which "established for the first time a nationwide, federal program to protect almost the entire workforce from job-related death, injury and illness" (McLaury, 1). This prompted the 1971 creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which was charged with developing a comprehensive plan toward achieving that goal — including the means to administer the plan and the tools to reinforce its regulatory demands.

Chief among these newly developed regulatory demands was a wide-ranging set of organizational requirements undertaken in the name of fire prevention, fire safety, and the minimization of casualties resulting from fire in occupational settings. These measures set a template for improving fire safety methods that would eventually transcend occupational contexts and enter the broader realm of residential and home fire safety.

Among the standards established, regulations required: adequate fire exits and clear evacuation routes, sufficient indoor ventilation, organizational fire action and evacuation plans, well-maintained facilities and utilities, and an ongoing emphasis on operational care and procedural control to institute fire-preventive practices. Additionally, current standards require that business facilities maintain such fire-safety resources as a building-wide alarm system, a set of updated and operational fire extinguishers for internal firefighting when necessary, and proper demarcation of all fire exits so that employees can readily identify the correct evacuation route. These standards were all grounded in the understanding that effective fire detection and fire prevention are essential means of saving lives.

Fire Suppression Technology and Sprinkler Systems

In terms of technology available today, research indicates that life-saving methods such as fire sprinklers are not universally deployed. Many older tenement, apartment, and residential buildings in American cities have not been retrofitted with this relatively accessible technology. Although sprinkler systems are not required by law in all commercial buildings, they are regarded as among the most effective means of minimizing damage and casualties from fire. Functioning in coordination with alarm systems, sprinkler systems are typically activated by smoke and heat, making them a sensible response in facilities with a higher potential for fire danger, such as textile factories or chemical plants. "Over the years, fire sprinklers have become mandatory safety equipment, and are required by building codes to be placed in hospitals, schools, hotels and other public buildings" (Bellis, 1).

Though retrofitting buildings with sprinkler systems can be economically costly — especially for landlords of smaller buildings — the consequences of failing to adhere to proper fire safety standards can be severe, with fatality and structural loss being the most serious outcomes. Research conducted in recent years suggests that these technologies are being steadily improved in reliability and sensitivity. The integration of fire sprinkler response with smoke or fire detection systems has offered fire safety researchers an opportunity to refine the detection and response capabilities produced by that connection.

Conclusion

This discussion indicates that present research is pushing toward higher standards in fire safety. However, few of these advances have been economically democratized or fitted to meet the needs of the private residence. Moreover, all indications are that while stricter legal restrictions would improve this imbalance, they are not necessarily enforced effectively today. Smoke detection technology has remained relatively static and unchanged in residential settings for many years. Research indicates, however, that technology capable of saving lives and improving fire safety in the home does exist — provided that it is eventually adapted to meet residential needs and made accessible to all segments of the population.

Works Cited

Bellis, M. (2006). Fire Sprinkler System. About Inventors.

Bosch Corp. (BC). (2008). Smoke Detector Offers Early Fire Detection, Localization. ThomasNet Industrial News.

Conference Report (CR). (1991). Worcester Polytechnic Institute Conference calls for Firesafety Innovations. Fire Technology, 27(4), 359–361.

EHS. (1991). Workplace Fire Safety. Oklahoma State University Physical Plant.

ERRI. (1991). Hamlet, NC Chicken Plant Fire Kills 25. Emergency Response and Research Institute.

McLaury, J. (2005). The Occupational Safety & Health Administration: A History of its First 13 Years. U.S. Department of Labor.

McLoughlin, E., Marchone, M., Hanger, L., Germann, P. S., & Baker, S. P. (1985). Smoke Detector Legislation: Its effect on owner-occupied homes. American Journal of Public Health, 75(8), 858–862.

NPR. (2001). The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. National Public Radio.

Rose-Pehrsson, S. L., Shaffer, R. E., Hart, S. J., Williams, F. W., Gottuk, D. T., Strehlen, B. D., & Hill, S. A. (1999). Multi-criteria fire detection systems using a probabilistic neural network. Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, 69(3), 325–335.

Siemens Building Technology (SBT). (2009). Cerberus PRO. Siemens.com.

Towner, E., Brussoni, M., & Powell, J. (2009). Evaluation of the community fire safety innovation fund programme. [University].