Fire Alarms

[WJProctor]

Hi,

 

I do quite a bit of Amdram, and one of our locations is a Village hall that we rig out to become a mini theatre. However last time we had a fire inspection we were told we must have a audible bell in the Auditorium. This seems to go against all things ive been taught before which say the bell must be silenceable during performances. What are other peoples views?

[PaulDF]

What do the fire officer and local licencing authority say?

[mac.calder]

A lot of modern systems which your local authority should accept have a key switch to move to a secondary system of alert (ie a flashing light, where failure to acknowledge within (for example) 15 seconds causes the primary system (alarm bells) to kick in).

 

Most venues where I have been lucky enough to have some level of control over the fire system (a lot of black boxes I have worked in cannot issolate the alarm system during shows) have had decent systems which allow alerting of foh or stage management staff - one was even patched into the cans system and gave voice message, that was nifty as all the ops knew what was going on.

 

As mentioned, talk to a licensing officer, they will be able to pull out folders of regulations and basically define exactly what you need. As you mentioned it was a hall, you will probably find that they are treated slightly different to a theatre.

 

As for

ive been taught before which say the bell must be silenceable during performances.

 

It is preferable. That way you can relay instructions and confirm it is not a false alarm before you evacuate. It is by no means compulsary. Many fire systems these days will hijack the pa anyway and give a pre-recorded evac message.

[andy_s]

in our venue, there is a two stage system. In performance conditions, if a smoke sensor is activated, there is a 300 second investigation period before moving to evacuation status. if a second sensor is activated, the system moves straight to "evacuate". If a break-glass call point is activated, there is no investigation period, on the assumption that activation means someone has actually seen a fire. Of course this leaves us with the issue of vandalism to manage. During the investigation period, the flashers don't activate, but the usher stations have an alert indicator. So in most situations evacuation will be managed by the theatre staff rather than by people responding to a voice or audible alarm. When there is no audience in either of the auditoria, the alarm will be a one stage version, the alarm will sound and visual indicators activate, and people (staff) will follow the set evacuation procedure.

 

As has been said in this thread and elswhere, panic is a major issue in managing emergencies, and it is considered that simply ringing a bell and shouting "fire" in a large crowd of people unfamiliar with the environment has the potential to spread panic. Our new system has yet to be fully commisioned, so we'll be doing drills and tests to find out what pitfalls there may be with the automatic move to evacuate if two sensors go off, which is not a version I've had in other venues I've worked at.

[Jivemaster]

The alarm spec woll be a term in your licence for the performance in the venue. Talk with the licensing officer. The level of automation will depend on the staffing of the venue less skilled staff -more automation. do you have enough stewards to evacuate the punters safely??

[WJProctor]

Yeah we would be able to get the punters out safely and quickly. As mentioned though I dont like the idea of an alarm sounding and the auditorium been in darkness and everyone trying to run. Could spell disaters.

[mac.calder]

The venue should have emergency lighting battons if there is a chance that it will be used in the dark. They are fairly essential, and usually turn on when power is cut, which means when there is a fire, and the electricity is cut (hopefully automatically through the fire board when you confirm fire), the emergency lighting activates, giving a moderatly lit environtment to evacuate from.

[Andrew C]

and the electricity is cut (hopefully automatically through the fire board when you confirm fire), the emergency lighting activates, giving a moderately lit environment to evacuate from.

So what this implies, is that if you have a small fire in the cleaner's store, all the main lighting in an auditorium full of people goes out? I don't think I've ever heard of such a system!

Over here, you have "maintained" lighting, which is on all the time, but supported by batteries for emergency, and non-maintained which is battery powered but only comes on in event of mains failure. There are all sorts of ways of mixing, matching and implementing systems; all down to local authority requirements.

[WJProctor]

Well we obviously have emergency lighting yes, but as Andrew C says, Ive never personnally heard of a system that cuts the power. I work for the Technical Service Dept at my local hospital and their fire systems are some of the most advanced, and they dont cut the power! They do lots of nice things, like linking in with the Building Management System and it shows areas that the fires are in on maps. Useful when the Fire Brigade turn out.

[mac.calder]

So what this implies, is that if you have a small fire in the cleaner's store, all the main lighting in an auditorium full of people goes out? I don't think I've ever heard of such a system!

Over here, you have "maintained" lighting, which is on all the time, but supported by batteries for emergency, and non-maintained which is battery powered but only comes on in event of mains failure. There are all sorts of ways of mixing, matching and implementing systems; all down to local authority requirements.

 

The one I have seen was zoned, so if there was a fire in the store cupboard, the circuits in that room were cut, (which also meant a number of external sockets went out as well) and any emergancy lighting would go on in those spaces. Obviously in a theatre you have a separate auditorium zone, a backstage zone, a dimmer zone etc etc etc so that when that room was cut the rest stayed on. This of course means you need to have a decent power circuit layout, otherwise it is pointless, but this system was designed to be installed in a new venue, so the entire venue was designed to integrate, from power management to fire to audio etc. I dont know that much about it except the separate systems were tied together by a single system built by 4th year computer systems engineering students at my uni (which is how I managed to see it), but all separate systems were off the shelf.

[Jivemaster]

Only your Local Authority can issue the licence, only they can issue the alarm requirements. Actually discuss it with them, They have the majority input.