Fire Protection for Historic Buildings and Structures

The protection of historic structures from fire damage presents some unique challenges to the fire protection industry. Many of these buildings were built without much thought given to fire protection. Such things as fire walls and fire stops may not have been incorporated into the structure and many of these buildings utilize wood for much of their framing. A fire in such a building therefore, can quickly spread and cause major damage in a very short time.

Most historic buildings were also built with little or no regard for automatic fire detection or extinguishing systems. Consequently, when designing and installing such systems, careful planning and equipment placement must be utilized to minimize the visual and structural impact of the system to the building. The fire protection professional is faced with the difficult task of balancing the need for proper fire protection vs. maintenance of the historic fabric of the building. It is not hard to imagine a system where the desire to hide the fire protection system components results in a system which is minimally effective due to poor placement of theses devices

In 1997, the NFPA issued Standard 909, Standard for the Protection of Cultural Resources Including Museums, Libraries, Places of Worship and Historic Properties. Chapter 7 of this document concerns itself specifically with historic structures, while Chapter 4 provides some guidance regarding fixed fire protection systems. Paragraph 4-1.3.1 (a) states: "Smoke detectors shall be installed in every area where ambient conditions permit."

It has been the experience of the Fireline Corporation that the placement of conventional smoke detectors in historic structures is often dictated by the overwhelming desire of the curator's staff to hide these detectors from the eyes of the visiting public. Poor detector placement will result in a very slow response from the detectors in the early stage of the fire. Additionally, because of the high ceilings and low air movement in many of these structures, conventional spot type smoke detectors, even when properly placed, are slow to respond to incipient fires. When considering the fact that fire in a historic structure can spread rapidly, a conventional smoke detection system, in our opinion, does not provide the best fire detection system.

For these reasons, Fireline has actively promoted the installation of air sampling smoke detection technology in historic structures. It is our opinion that a properly designed air sampling system can provide the earliest possible warning of an incipient fire at minimal cost and with minimal visual or structural impact to the building being protected. As an engineering distributor for Vision System's VESDA product line and the Fenwal AnaLASER, Fireline has tackled many unique fire detection problems. If you are interested in more information regarding our concepts of fire protection for historic structures, please feel free to contact us.