{"id":37968,"date":"2016-03-08T16:06:36","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T20:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=37968"},"modified":"2016-03-09T11:27:08","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T15:27:08","slug":"new-fire-alarm-system-in-mackenzie-chown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2016\/03\/new-fire-alarm-system-in-mackenzie-chown\/","title":{"rendered":"New fire alarm system in Mackenzie Chown"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lengthy fire alarm in the Mackenzie Chown Complex Monday, March 7 was exactly what is supposed to happen when the <\/span>fire alarm<\/span> system is activated.<\/span><\/p>\n

For many who work and study in the building, the continuing alarm on March 7 was unusual and perplexing.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, the building <\/span>is being retrofitted with a<\/span> new alarm system and it was working as required.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday’s alarm bells rang for as long as it took the staff to respond, investigate and clear the issue,\u201d said Rick Faser, Brock University\u2019s Manager of Emergency Management and Life Safety. \u201cThe fact that the bells did not stop until the alarm was reset is a good thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said Chown Complex occupants are used to the bells simply stopping, despite the fact the alarm hasn\u2019t been investigated and the cause determined.<\/span><\/p>\n

When it comes to fire alarms, the <\/span>audible alarm should <\/span>never<\/span> stop ringing on its own, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said the fire alarm retrofit in the building was a result of its age and degrading functionality. As well, the old technology could no longer be repaired or sourced in North America.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMost importantly, the system was beginning to impact the overall life safety of the occupants by providing inadequate notification (fire alarm bells) during evacuations,\u201d Fraser said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He said that lack of fire alarm bell continuity gave the impression to evacuees that the fire alarm had been reset and that it was safe to re-occupy, which was in fact not true, and in very serious cases it was possible that persons would be walking into a building that was unsafe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis new system will increase the overall life safety of the building and its occupants by improving the detection and notification during normal operation,\u201d Fraser said. \u201cWe\u2019ve also gone above and beyond the minimum code requirements by installing automated voice messages that require no human intervention and will ensure that evacuation announcements are broadcasted<\/span> throughout the building,<\/span> as well as installing external speakers which are connected to the fire alarm and will be used to broadcast the \u201cAll Clear\u201d messages to evacuees waiting outside the complex. This is a historical burden that we now lift from the Fire Wardens, which will hopefully make their jobs that much easier.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lengthy fire alarm in the MacKenzie Chown Complex Monday, March 7 was exactly what is supposed to happen when the fire alarm system is activated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[54],"tags":[3904,3902,3903],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37968"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37968"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37977,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37968\/revisions\/37977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}