“Stand up” men needed
Kudos to John K. Murphy for saying what he did in “The Dilemma of Being a Woman Firefighter, Part 1” (http://bit.ly/1gHPQK2t). And kudos to Fire Engineering for publishing it. I am excited about reading the next part. It will be interesting to see what kinds of comments it generates. The good old boy fire “men” groups are still out there, so it is nice to see a man stand up and talk about what is wrong.
That is the constant challenge I have on my small level: I get a lot of men to agree with me that certain behaviors are not appropriate, but not one will stand up in public and make a statement to that effect. On the flip side, if I mention anything, I get the men who roll their eyes and brush it off as just another complaining female.
I am assuming that, in Part 2, Murphy will be talking about how males need to stand up and say/do something. The point I have tried to convey, with little success, is that the only way things will ever change is if more “men” stand up and say something when behavior is not appropriate. This is true no matter how minor the issues are, as those little things turn into big things.
Judy A. Smith Thill
Chief
Inver Grove Heights (MN)
Fire Department
Meeting place: not just at home
Preparation was on its way for the county fair. The fire department was going to have a booth again this year; the smoke house was going to be there-yes, time to teach fire prevention. We’ve all been there, teaching the public what to do in case of a fire. We all take that step to make a positive impact on our community.
Are the things we are teaching making a difference in the right direction? I asked myself this question one day when I asked a child, “When the smoke detector goes off, what do you do?” and his response was, “Jump out the window.” I was amazed at the number of children who gave the same answer. I started to ask myself, “Why are they saying that?”
I took a step back and went through presentations of the smoke house by many different firefighters. All the talking points were hit: checking the smoke detector, getting low below the smoke, feeling the door before you open it …. Then, it hit me.
The visual learning aspects of the children are the most memorable for recall. During the smoke house demonstration, the child leaves the smoke house from the window. Now, I have to change my teaching to show the difference between the use of the door vs. the window. I will explain that we will yell for help at the window and that we will jump out the window only if there is no other choice. This went well as we presented the children with conditions and they made their choices.
As the children were going through the smoke house, parents were looking at fire prevention materials; car seat information; and, yes, even a demo on hands-only CPR. We would get a parent who came up and said he had lost his child and requested our assistance in finding the child, and the child hunt was on.
While teaching a group of kids in the smoke house, I talked about the importance of the meeting place once they were outside of the house. I then thought to myself, the concept of a meeting place doesn’t just mean at home; it applies wherever they are. I began adding to my smoke house demo the question, “Where is your meeting place at the fair?” As you can guess, they had no idea or answer to my question. I told all of them that the meeting place was the Ferris wheel. If they got separated from their parents, they were to go directly to the Ferris wheel. They were told not to stop to talk to strangers and that if they saw a firefighter or a police officer, they should tell him they were lost and were going to their meeting place at the Ferris wheel. We never had to look for another lost child at the fair for the remainder of the week.
Now comes Fire Prevention Week, and off we go to the schools to teach. You guessed it. I am teaching that there should be a meeting place anywhere they go-grandparents’ house, siblings’ houses, even sleepovers. Always ask, “Where’s the meeting place?” This idea was well received, and I felt compelled to share it with as many people as possible. Teach your children that emergencies can happen anywhere. Have a meeting place everywhere you go. Each year, the National Fire Protection Association picks a slogan for Fire Prevention Week, and we teach on it. Wouldn’t it be a good idea if the slogan one year was, “Where’s the meeting place?”
Jim Coppelman
Firefighter/Paramedic
Town of Salem (WI) Fire/Rescue
Modular construction
I am writing on behalf of the modular construction industry to reply to “Modular Concerns: Do We Have a Problem?” by Kevin Gallagher (Fire Engineering, September 2013). There are a number of issues I would like to address, as Gallagher’s attacks on the modular industry go back several years.
In his article, Gallagher states at one point, “I do not know the answers to these questions.” He was referring to his posed question of “Do we have a national fire problem with modular homes?” Later in his article, he asks the question again, “Do we have a problem?” This time his answer is an emphatic “YES”!
I am not an engineer, a firefighter, or a builder, but I have a very simple question: What evidence is there to show this problem really exists anywhere outside of Gallagher’s mind? He has made quite a reputation for himself and found a topic that has generated a lot of interest. Unfortunately, he presents a totally unsubstantiated and biased opinion based on no real evidence for readers and attendees at his presentations.
He even states as much in the article when he says, “Despite the considerable effort of the [National Fire Protection Association’s (NFPA)] library’s staff, we could not find any literature on the topic of modular construction in general or fires in modular structures in general.” I would contend the reason that no data exist on this specific “problem” is that the problem doesn’t exist to the extent Gallagher leads you to believe.
Modular homes, unlike HUD Code manufactured housing, are built to the same building codes as their traditional stick-built counterparts. In most states, modular homes are built to the International Residential Code (IRC) or a state version thereof. There is no “modular home code,” as modular construction is simply a construction process, not a product. This process allows for a safer construction environment; a higher degree of quality control; less material waste in our landfills; and, yes, a safer, more durable home than a site-built structure. And while there is research to show the difference in risk levels between a stick-built home and a “manufactured home” (aka mobile home), that research is not relevant to code-built modular homes.
Gallagher cites a difference in the modular construction process that, he says, lends these homes to a greater risk for fire damage. He references the interstitial or void spaces in modular homes. He attempted to get this requirement changed in the 2009 IRC code development cycle and, again, in NFPA 1500, Standard on Fire Department Occupational Safety and Health Program. In both cases, his proposals were rejected, with the NFPA citing “concerns with the reports presented in the substantiation.” (http://1.usa.gov/1bUyv3M).
He was not able to convince his code development peers that a problem exists, mainly because it does not. Despite his setbacks with the NFPA and the IRC, Gallagher insisted that the modular industry conduct extensive and expensive tests to “prove our innocence” while continuing his personal campaign against the industry.
His next target was the use of foam-only ceiling assemblies. In 2010, the modular industry hired an independent consultant to examine the relative strengths of two different ceiling assemblies in a fire emergency: ceiling panels installed with (a) foam adhesives only and (b) a combination of foam adhesives and mechanical fasteners. This process yielded inconclusive results and was stopped prior to the finalization of any written report, mainly because of the downturn in the housing market. Acting conservatively, the industry did not challenge the new code proposal in Massachusetts pushed through by Gallagher that [stipulates that] both foam adhesives and mechanical fasteners be used for ceiling assemblies in all modular homes sold in the state.
Gallagher has been recognized and celebrated for his efforts and invited to speak at national conferences on this issue. However, there simply is no substance behind his claims. His entire argument is based on what he says in the opening sentence of this article: “While standing in front of a burning two-story residence in 2008 ….” Where is his evidence aside from his “observations”?
Modular construction is not a new process. In 1969, a 21-story hotel was built on the Riverwalk in San Antonio using modular construction. That hotel is still safely operating today. Over the past five years, the modular industry has constructed and installed more than five million square feet of permanent housing and building space for the U.S. Government, mainly within the Department of Defense. The happiest place on Earth used modular construction in 1971 when building two of its most popular resorts in Orlando. How likely is it that a multibillion-dollar corporation would risk its reputation and livelihood by housing families in unsafe structures? Neither would we as an industry pose such risks to our customers.
Our industry is proud of the modular homes we build and will continue to provide safe, code-compliant homes at competitive prices. Gallagher has every right to share his opinions on the issue, but your readers should know they are just his opinions and not based on any real evidence. Further, they should seek information from a variety of sources on the issue before reaching any conclusions.
Tom Hardiman
Executive Director
Modular Building Systems Association
Charlottesville, Virginia
Editor’s note: The Modular Building Systems Association is a nonprofit trade organization serving the modular home industry nationwide. Its Web site is at www.modularhousing.com.
Kevin Gallagher responds: For 136 years, Fire Engineering has taken the lead in educating members of the fire service on topics that impact our industry. I am proud to have contributed in a small way toward advancing the cause of firefighter safety by addressing several construction techniques used by the modular industry that, I believe, when exposed to fire, pose a hazard to the men and women of the fire service.
Hardiman’s letter serves his industry well. No company wants its product to be considered anything but the best. I would agree that the hard-working men and women who build modular structures do so with great effort and pride. But the fact remains that large, open void spaces provide a pathway for fire spread unequal in stick-built construction. The fact remains that polyurethane foam structural adhesives burn hot, fast, and complete and that these adhesives are used on at least one side of each joist in the void space. The fact remains that despite actions taken in Massachusetts, as Hardiman’s letter points out, this adhesive is the sole means of attaching ceilings in modular structures. The fact remains that the industry started to conduct studies on the integrity of ceiling systems under fire conditions but then backed away. The fact remains that one modular manufacturer recognized the concerns we raised with the adhesives and voluntarily stopped using them and has stated that he sleeps better because of that business decision.
Hardiman is correct in that my one-man effort to change the IRC and NFPA codes were shot down in 2009. We may differ about the reasons, but I graciously accept defeat. The effort was to reduce the size of all void space between levels of habitation from the current 1,000 square feet the codes currently allow. I was told that the net was cast too wide. In response, I have initiated an effort in Massachusetts to reduce the size of the void spaces in modular structures only. This effort is moving through the code-development process. I would welcome Hardiman’s coming to Boston to explain why compartmentalizing a mini-cockloft is a bad thing for building occupants or firefighters.
As my Web column points out, collecting data on fires in modular construction is a challenge because of the systems we use to record and analyze fire-based data. I stand by my statement that I don’t know if there is a national problem because no national database specific to fires in modular residences exists. What Hardiman tries to use to discredit me could be said about anyone who has sounded the alarm about construction issues for which the National Fire Incident Reporting System doesn’t collect data, such as truss construction, I-joists, balloon-frame construction, and so on. I would hope that the Modular Building Systems Association would join with fire service leaders like Billy Goldfeder, Vincent Dunn, and Greg Havel, who see the need for revising the data collected so that we can quantify the extent of the problem we know to be a threat to our safety based on our real-world experiences. All three of these gentlemen gave their permission to be mentioned in this letter.
I requested the data from the laboratory that conducted the tests on the structural adhesives mentioned in Hardiman’s letter. It informed me that the results are the property of the client. I would be more than happy to yield an upcoming Web column to these data if Hardiman would provide them. Do we have a problem? The Modular Building Systems Association may already know.
Hardiman and his association have every right to express their concerns and disagreement with what I have written. No amount of personal attacks can distract us from our singular goal: to educate America’s fire service so that everyone goes home.
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