From University of Maryland - College Park
Jim Robinson

Robin Oldfield wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> I have several questions and would appreciate any feedback.
>
> 1)  I am currently working with Residential Housing to define roles and
> responsibilities (staff & students) during fire alarms & drills.
>

Our policy is that students evacuate; staff "leads" the evacuation.

>
> 2)  Our off campus housing smoke detectors and fire alarm systems are all
> hard wired but do not signal into a central location.  This is a concern,
> how are other Universities handling this?  We are implementing wireless
> technology on our campus for internet users, is there any wireless
> technology that could be used to monitor the alarms?
>

Although most of our campus residential buildings (total of 46 resident halls
& 22 fraternity/sorority houses, roughly 2/3's monitored) are connected to our
Work Control Center via our HVAC monitoring system, it is not compliant with
any fire standard and not 100% reliable. Most off campus houses (not owned by
the University) are NOT connected to any central monitoring. All of our signs
& training instruct occupants (both staff & students) to call 911 from a safe
location. Most of our sleeping room detectors, both on & off campus are single
station. The exception is in the 'handicapped rooms' where they are connected
to the building fire alarm. Corridor & stairwell detectors are connected to
building fire alarm systems. We are exploring the connection of our fire alarm
systems to our new (still in design) central communications & alarm monitoring
station, operated by our Dept of Public Safety using the campus ethernet
backbone.

As far as wireless technology goes, we have two building fire alarm systems
manufactured by World Electronics. These use transmitters in manual stations,
smoke detectors, tamper & flow switches. The AV circuits are hardwired. These
are local fire alarm systems but this type of system can be used to link
several buildings that are close to each other and dry contacts in the main
panel can then be monitored thru some other means.

There are also a number of wireless communications systems that transmit
signals from fire alarm systems to a central point but since we haven't been
looking this way, I'm not familiar with any of these manufacturers. Some pick
up just a couple of generic dry contacts, others can capture the digital
information coming from newer addressable fire alarm systems.

>
> 3)  We are considering creating a fire safety position that would include
> inspections & training.  I am interested in knowing if many of you have
> such a position and if so what Department do you report to and if possible
> a job description.
>

I would suggest that your fire safety position conducting inspections &
training report to your ESA/RM position or to your public safety director in
order to maintain some degree of independance from those who fix stuff and are
tasked with maintenance. But this function also needs to have direct input
into construction in the front end and maintenance issues in the back end in
order to be successful.
    We currently have 1 fire protection engineer (+ a couple of part time
FPE's) in our Env Safety Environmental Affairs unit doing construction &
renovation plan review & planning; a fire marshal & deputy fm in Env Safety
Risk Management unit that do inspections, investigations, & training; and 12
technicians (+ 6 students) in our Facilities Management Operations &
Maintenance Life Safety Systems unit that do the inspection, testing &
maintenance of our fire, life safety & emergency equipment.

>
> Thank you in advance!
>
> Robin L. Oldfield
> Facilities Management
> Environmental Safety Administrator/Risk Manager
> 300 College Park
> Dayton, Ohio 45469-0327
> Phone: (937) 229-4503
> [log in to unmask]
> www.udayton.edu/~env-safe/