Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Hi Sheri, unless an identified fire hazard I would suggest not including a bbq in the open air burning and prohibiting same. Most of these buildings are either condominium corporations with by-laws for these types of things or have rules set for tenanted buildings. Issue seems to regulate itself. My thoughts.
Mat Williamson,
Fire Prevention Inspector – Burlington
Hi Matt, in Burlington we chose to conduct non-sprinklered facility inspections (for VO’s) in person and the remainder via FaceTime or other software. As with many that we’ve heard from the problems arise generally due to heavy use of block in construction and so patience is much needed.
Available if you should want to discuss.
Mat Williamson,
Fire Prevention Inspector – Burlington Fire Department
Chapter 6 Vice President 905-320-4867
Hi Del, in Burlington we are using AMANDA7 and it is a great program for inspection and code enforcement activities. With this, we also use FDM for incident response – tracking but are transitioning to Emergency Reporting software. Available to discuss anytime.
Mat Williamson
905-320-4867Hi Heather, trust all’s well! I know we did have some inquiry from one of your colleagues on this and I was asked to weigh in. I was previously with the City of Oshawa and I would suggest you engaging them. You could start with either Glenn Green in Fire or Jerry Conlin in By-law (both more or less the most senior officers). Oshawa had a ‘warrant team’ of sorts and had a Special Enforcement Unit with much of their responsibility in obtaining information – evidence to support the obtaining of entry warrants. I am available to discuss at any point as I was one of the leads on the team, but this was some time ago so things may have changed since then (2004-2008).
Mat Williamson, Fire Prevention Inspector – Burlington Fire Department
905-320-4867
Yes, generally a good means to evaluate – confirm the building owner is doing their testing and inspections.
Mat
No charge here in Burlington. Definitely see the value to have fee for use for any service, including inspections. Good conversation / topic.
Mat Williamson
Fire Prevention Inspector
Assistant to the Fire Marshal
City of Burlington-Fire Department
1255 Fairview Street, Burlington ON L7S 1Y3905-637-8207 Ext. 6323
905-333-1570 (Fax)Hi Darren, was the actual presentation available for viewing?
Hope all’s well.
Mat Williamson
Fire Prevention Inspector
Assistant to the Fire Marshal
City of Burlington-Fire Department
1255 Fairview Street, Burlington ON L7S 1Y3905-637-8207 Ext. 6323
905-333-1570 (Fax)A couple of notations:
– Impact on rural care occupancies with respect to financial cost with sprinkler installation. Costs are significant with respect to water supply (cistern, reservoir etc.) and supply (pumps). Sprinkler industry recognized by College of Trades as of Jan 1, 2017 and costs for services anticipated to rise. Alternative solutions (e.g staffing increase, containment) may have provided an alternative.
– 2025 compliance date being given to LTCF’s, to which Government owns many versus 2019 compliance date for retirement etc. Optics were and are bad.
– Group C Retirement Home and ‘approved scenario’ fire drill. What ultimately was the purpose of requiring the drill. There is no assistance provided in some cases and people live independently as they would in a C occupancy. We’ve had supervisory staff simply demonstrate that they can perform tasks as assigned in the FSP (e.g. activate fire alarm, meet fire department).
– I share the comments of the forum group and that is that the checklist is insulting. We have recognized training in each discipline in Ontario and to put this forward would be akin to having a FF have a checklist as to how to connect to a hydrant
– 9.7 referring to 9.5 for compliance and specific to group homes. Difficult from a construction stand-point often with what was a single detached dwelling and I’m not certain how much thought was provided as to construction and compliance with same. I anticipate group homes specifically in Ontario have been inaccurately (or not even) retrofitted. The other notation with respect to group homes is that in your smaller facilities you’ll hear owner’s say that the “home” was chosen for the respective resident as it was not institutional in nature. The 9.5 requirements (containment etc.) go against this principle and I’m not certain operators (or Code Officials to an extent) were at all understanding of this.
– Not certain of local / provincial awareness of the occupational health and safety considerations going into this. For example, facilities where people have aggression issues, refusal to evacuate, become frustrated with presence of fire officials etc. I for instance did not even as much as have a introductory level session on dealing with persons with mental disabilities, had no / limited experience on a personal / professional basis and was right into actively delivering the inspection program. I have stories, thankfully none involving assault, but I can say I had a guy jump in my lap and a lady with whom you could say was really enjoying our visiting the house..
– 9.7.1.3.(2) – ‘not more than 4 persons’. This came into law with said wording. We quickly asked, well what about staff etc? The Office was quick to say that ‘not more than 4 persons’ was intended to be referring to occupants. Poor legislative wording and could have noted ‘except for staff’ or otherwise.Those are some casual thoughts. Appreciate your efforts as always Gary.
Mat Williamson
Fire Prevention Inspector
Assistant to the Fire Marshal
City of Burlington-Fire Department
1255 Fairview Street, Burlington ON L7S 1Y3905-637-8207 Ext. 6323
905-333-1570 (Fax)Hi All, Vince good post. Caught my attention right away. We try to employ a pretty cooperative relationship with our Building Department, although sometimes difficult. Brief answers to your Q’s from Burlington:
1. Are your fire inspectors certified as building inspectors? (Most have Legal and Fire Protection) (Not designated by Council as OBC Inspectors)
2. Do your fire inspectors conduct plans review? (Site Plan only)
3. Do your fire inspectors conduct inspections on new construction / alterations (building permit issued)? (Not generally, there’s odd instances)
4. Does your building department pay the wages of your fire inspectors that do plans review? (Are they paid an hourly rate by the building department for their services?) (N/A – No)
5. Does your building department cover the cost of BCIN courses, building codes, exams and annual certification? (No)Mat Williamson,
BFDOur condolences Duncan to you and to all of your loved ones.
Your friends in Burlington
Mat Williamson
Hi Andrew,
In Burlington we issue a 236 Form on incident response where smoke / CO alarms are noted in violation. The Form directs them to comply and provides 48 hours. The Captain has the discretion to install or call the PC to arrange install (say if no detection at all). We’re swaying away from installations and definitely never do hard-wired installs. It is the owners legal obligation. When the average house in Burlington is 600,000 and up we figure one can make the required arrangements / payment for installing. I’m available to discuss further by phone.
Mat Williamson
905-320-4867Without referencing I recall NFPA 80 requiring the inspection cycle every 4 years. Our facilities in Burlington have utilized either their own maintenance person and / or a HVAC contractor. Half the work is in identifying where the dampers are located and I’d recommend they label them for future purposes.
Mat Williamson
Hi all, Duncan we utilize the blue but I’d make a quick trip to the local POA court with book in hand if you’re at all uncertain.
Mat Williamson
Hi Karen and all,
Aside from comments already provided, invoicing seems to do the “trick” on these sorts of issues. Has the responsibility of implementing controls (even so far as tenancy termination) on the owners. Always seems people start to really think of things when the invoice arrives.
My two cents.
Mat Williamson,
BurlingtonHi Gary et al,
Burlington until now has operated with generally never leaving a home without protection and installing smoke alarms on each floor level where found missing. We are curving in an opposite direction (with now CO and costs per unit) and that is not installing on responses where there is not a smoke alarm installed / disabled etc. The crew would direct the owner to comply and provide 48 hours. The crew would do the initial re-attendance and non-compliance would be forwarded to FP for enforcement (a ticket in all likelihood). Saying this, the SOG will be provided so that the Captain (possibly in having to confer with the PC) will always maintain the discretion as to conduct an installation. A good case example is teenaged children and the folks are away for the week-end – you would hope we can assist on a response on the installation and are not policy bound.
Gary, shoot me an e-mail directly and I can send you the SOG (or draft thereof).
Mat Williamson,
Burlington Fire