NFPA Journal - July/August 2012 - (Page 72)

A BETTER PLAN stop an event needs to be clearly defined well before the event begins. Such awareness would benefit other venues worldwide with flawed or incomplete emergency preparedness plans, says IAVM’s Hansen, who offered his expertise during the Witt Associates investigation of the state fair collapse. “The LSE gets used, but I don’t think it’s been applied or used effectively enough because of confusion by code officials and authorities having jurisdiction,” he says. Hansen cites some confusion over which aspects of the LSE should be addressed by event managers and code enforcement officials, the latter typically analyzing a structure’s physical features. “The venue operations and production folks are also not understanding it well enough to make it a useful tool.” NFPA’s handbooks and other technical resources can help users avoid confusion, and Hansen says additional help is on the way. In 2010, the Technical Committee on Assembly Occupancies formed the Operational Requirements Task Group, which aims to clearly define the role of venue operators, before and during events, through the development of new operational guidelines. In the event of a severe storm, for example, these provisions could help users determine the relationship between the proximity of a storm cell and when a facility manager should initiate a response. “We haven’t changed the need for the LSE, but we’ve tried to provide an outline and further guidance for what it needs to address,” says Hansen, who sits on the task group. The committee will weigh in on the task group’s proposals at its next meeting in August, with the intent of developing a special manual or additions to the 2015 edition of the Life Safety Code. Life safety 2.0 The responder Angle While the Life Safety Evaluation is geared toward designers, managers, and inspectors of event facilities, it also references a number of areas that are critically important to responders. The Witt Associates report produced on the Indiana State Fair collapse incident, as well as the tabletop exercise conducted a month before the incident by the Indianapolis Division of Homeland Security, addressed a number of these issues, including pre-incident planning, a unified incident management system, and a coordinated incident response. These are just some of the elements of emergency response that are covered by NFPA codes, including: NFPA 1561, Emergency Services Incident Management System This standard outlines an incident management structure that can be used for any type of event. NFPA 1620, Pre-Incident Planning This standard details the methodology and data collection forms that can be used before an incident to develop customized response plans that address a range of potential hazards. NFPA 610, Emergency and Safety Operations at Motorsports Venues This guide includes detailed approaches for providing protection to the public where attendance is in the tens of thousands in open venues exposed to the weather. Another bullet point on the committee’s agenda is an analysis of the new Fire Protection Research Foundation/ Code Fund project “Defining Emergency and Non-Emergency Use of Buildings by Occupants.” The Life Safety Code contains provisions that address protection from both fire and non-fire emergencies, though the extent of the code’s use for the latter is unclear. A variety of non-fire scenarios that are occurring at both assembly and non-assembly occupancies—crowd crushes at Black Friday retail events, trampling deaths at religious pilgrimages, and injuries resulting from celebrity meet-and-greets at malls, to name a few—are examples of how the LSE could help prevent seemingly positive events from going awry. At their August meeting, the Assembly Occupancies Committee, along with the Mercantile and Business Occupancies Committee, will discuss a literature review developed for this project that identifies the number and extent of such incidents. Addressing all aspects of live events through standardization has also gotten the attention of the entertainment industry. Following the release of the state fair investigation reports, a safety summit was held in Indianapolis in April that brought together U.S. fire service officials and industry insiders on expanding the use of the Event Safety Guide (also known as the “Purple Guide”), a highly utilized manual in the United Kingdom. Produced in 1999, the guide addresses all aspects of event safety at venues while providing guidance on collaborating with emergency services. Leading the charge in creating a U.S. version of that guide is the Event Safety Alliance, which was formed after the Indiana collapse and includes 400 industry leaders interested in standardizing safety features at live events. “We’re working on rewriting the document to include U.S. codes and standards,” says Jim Digby, the alliance’s executive director and director of touring and production management for the rock group Linkin Park. He spoke with NFPA Journal following the band’s June concert in Bucharest, Romania. “We hope to develop a U.S. version that points to NFPA and other existing codes.” This apparent collaboration among many parties with a vested interest in crowd safety is initiating a new emphasis on crowd safety, according to IAVM’s Hansen. “We need to build a commitment with everyone—from the designers that apply the codes, to the management and operations staff, to the AHJs who inspect [these facilities], to the event performers—to emphasize we’re going to take life safety seriously,” he says. “It needs to be a universal, acrossthe-board commitment. I see it coming together, and I’m excited about it.” Fred durso, Jr., is staff writer for NFPA Journal. 72 NFPA JOURNAL JULY/AUGUST 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - July/August 2012

NFPA Journal - July/august 2012
Contents
First Word
Mail Call
In a Flash
Perspectives
Firewatch
Research
Heads Up
Structural Ops
In Compliance
Buzzwords
Outreach
Electrical Safety
Wildfire Watch
Fenway at 100
Crowning Achievement
Safety at Center Stage
Firefighter Fatalities in the United States, 2011
What’s Hot
Looking Back

NFPA Journal - July/August 2012