I ran across an interesting article in Wired Magazine this month about how the LAFD is using cutting-edge web technology to better serve the public. Here's an excerpt from the Wired article and a link to the original:
Firefighters are known for their bravery (and their popularity with the ladies). But geek cred? Not so much. Brian Humphrey is trying to change that. From a decommissioned bomb shelter four stories beneath Los Angeles City Hall, this 23-year veteran is single-handedly hauling the city's fire department into the Web 2.0 era. He has about 80 projects in the works—involving everything from Twitter to BlogTalkRadio—that will not only help broadcast urgent information to the public but also gather crucial intel to assist first responders on the ground.
"Short of motorized fire apparatuses, this technology is the best thing that's happened to our department in 122 years," Humphrey says. "It holds more potential to save lives than any other civic tool." Nice, but can it rescue kitties from trees?
We have been using an automobile upholstering company in Lawrence for years. Good quality, attention to detail at a reasonable price. My wife and I arrived at their business at 8AM on Monday for a scheduled appointment to repair her driver seat. We found their office furniture on the sidewalk in front of their establishment in downtown Lawrence. They had experienced a very smoky fire on Saturday night. They were in the process of remodeling their building and were in the final stages on Saturday by applying the final coat of finish to the office floors. They disposed of the clean-up material and rags in a 5 gallon bucket in their work area on the first floor. Spontaneous combustion occurred at abbot 2AM on Sunday morning. Although the building, a three story, wood framed building with residential units on the second and third floors of the building above the upholstering shop, was equipped with an automatic fire alarm system, there were no smoke detectors on the first floor in the shop, but was equipped with heat detectors. There were no smoke detectors in the office either, nor does our 780CMR require them. There was no central station connection, but the security system was connected to the Lawrence Police Department and the motion detectors detected the moving smoke and called the police. The arriving police in turn called the fire department.
There was no injury or loss of life, and the owner, Sal, and his staff amazingly were up and running today in a new location.
Sal admitted to me that he had no idea what spontaneous combustion was or, at the time, how it was caused. This points out to me the importance for those of us that "lay-out" fire alarm systems in hazardous environments, to get an FPE involved. We may know what 72 says, and what 101 and 780CMR and all the 527s require, but in performance-based systems, a factor is just about every system , we may not be familiar with as we haven't had the appropriate education. We may have many years of experience in our field, but did we take the time, during the "lay-out" phase of Sal's system to explain to him that they are using extremely flammable products and that they must be informed how to handle these? If you were an FPE, maybe you would, but at least you would have the education to do so.
Be careful...be precise...and above all know and do the right thing. It's my opinion that it's best to walk away from a project if you are forced, for whatever reason, to do it incorrectly. This also allows you to sleep at night.
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