Dan,
You pose a question that many of us have wrestled with for decades.
However, there now exists a tool that should make all of our lives easier.
The tool is Occupancy Vulnerability Assessment Profiling (OVAP), developed
under sponsorship of the U.S. Fire Administration with input from a select
group of fire officials (Ronny Coleman, retired California State Fire
Marshal, chaired the committee).  OVAP is an electronic based program that
allows knowledgeable fire professionals to categorize buildings into four
groupings very quickly.  Input time for a single building usually takes no
longer than one minute.  Once the proper data is entered, scores are
automatically tabulated and buildings are placed into either the Low,
Moderate, High or Extreme classifications.  Data entries cover building,
life safety, water demand and risk factors.

OVAP can provide the user with an objective fire and life safety analysis to
both prioritize buildings and aid in the decision making process you
mention.  For example, one question asks if the Means of Egress is
conforming.  We have found that by improving the means of egress will move a
building from the Extreme down to the High hazard classification.  Based on
our limited experience, it appears that buildings falling within the Extreme
Hazard classification due so because of code related issues.  Therefore,
High Hazard is not an unreasonable classification for your typical
university or college research building.  As such, we are currently using
the program to prioritize our buildings by hazard classification and then we
identify which deficiencies, if corrected, would give us the biggest bang
for the buck while improving fire and life safety.

Like I said, we have found OVAP to be a tremendous evaluative and decision
making tool and I'd invite each of you to investigate its potential.
Probably your best source of information would be the USFA.  However, should
any of you like to contact me, please feel free to do so.

Mike Chandler
Fire Chief
UC Davis Fire Department
530/752-1236

-----Original Message-----
From: International Association of Campus Fire Safety Officials
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Dan Maas
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 07:31
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Evaluating Fire Safety of Residence Halls


Here's a tough one for all of you,

Does anyone have or know of a methodology of evaluating the fire
safety of a residence hall or other facility for the purposes of
ranking them for fire safety improvements?  Bringing every building
up to current standards of fire protection is a great goal but it
can't happen overnight.  We're trying to look at ALL of the factors
in determining what gets upgraded first but it's a rather subjective
process.  Type of construction, current detection, current
sprinklers, egress distances, compartmentalization and other stuff
all factor into it.  For example:

Three buildings, all fire resistive construction.
All have in room, local smoke detectors.
None have corridor smoke detectors tied to the fire alarm.

One has no sprinklers but is well compartmentalized into small units
that have egress into a common hallway and egress directly outside.

One has sprinklers in means of egress but is poorly compartmentalized
with long hallways and spread out exit stairs.

One has a full sprinkler system and is fairly well compartmentalized
with short hallways off a common stairwell but the one stairwell is
the only means of egress.

Given all those factors, which building gets a new fire alarm system
with corridor smoke detectors first?  What's the justification for
doing one building before another?  I'm looking for a methodology
that weights each factor appropriately.  Does anyone know of
something like that from a recognized organization or has anyone
developed your own ranking system?

DANIEL MAAS      (607)254-1634     FAX: (607)255-1642
Emergency Management Coordinator/Event Management Coordinator
Fire Protection & Emergency Services
Cornell University Environmental Health & Safety
EH&S Bldg,  201 Palm Road, Ithaca, NY  14850
email: [log in to unmask]

******************Disclaimer*************************
The comments and views expressed in this communication are
strictly my own and are not to be construed to officially represent
those of my peers, supervisors or Cornell University