Detectors Give Princeton High Degree of Protection
features
HARRY L. MASTEN
Manager
Some 8000 ionization-type smoke detectors, 5000 of them in dormitories, protect students and buildings at Princeton University. The zoned smoke detector system and fire alarm pull boxes are combined in a proprietary fire alarm system that is monitored 24 hours a day at the campus police station.
We experience about five dormitory fires a month. All these fires have been detected promptly and have been extinguished in a few minutes.
In dormitories, smoke detectors protect every sleeping room, as well as egress ways, attics, storage spaces and other areas of special concern. The detectors are Pyrotronics type F5B, supplied by Pyrotronics of Cedar Knolls, N.J.
About 25 percent of the academic and administrative buildings are protected by smoke detectors, and detectors are being installed in the other buildings as funds become available. All new construction—dormitory, academic or administrative—is routinely protected with smoke detectors.
The fire protection system is zoned by building entry. All detector heads and manual pull stations in each zone are connected with the central panel at the entry to that zone. In dormitories, which have several entrances and stairwells, zones are laid out for each entrance and stairwell and the rooms served by that particular stairwell.
The 75 central annunciator panels are connected to the scanning digital annunciator at the campus police office. This office has a hot line to the Princeton, N.J., Fire Department.
In the event of a fire in a student’s room, the detector activates a flashing light in the hallway above the room door, sounds alarm horns throughout the building, indicates the entry affected at the building control panel, and sends a signal to the campus police office.
