E2V TECHNOLOGIES is the new name for Marconi Applied Technologies, which makes the ArgusT thermal imaging camera. Previously, the company was known as EEV. The company designs and manufactures RF, microwave, imaging, and sensing components for a variety of industrial applications.
The new $17.9 million Tarrant County Fire Service Training Center at the Northwest Campus of Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas, includes a natural gas/propane-fueled SYMTRON SYSTEMS INC. FireTrainer 2000. The FireTrainer simulates 13 individual fire situations: storage, office, merchandise counter, commercial and residential kitchens, bedroom, living room, garage, tractor/trailer loading dock, car, fuel spill, flashover/rollover, and attic fire extension. Other training simulators include arcing electrical panel, leaking gas meter, leaking pipe, and an annunciator panel. The training facility includes an 8,900-square-foot burn building, trench rescue and confined space training props, and strip mall and motel/apartment complex structures. Several configurations of private houses can be set on fire, singly or sequentially, by the instructors. The state-of-the-art computerized safety systems incorporated into the live-fire training equipment can quench the fire and snuff the smoke almost instantly if any trainee is in danger. A fully equipped water facility simulates swiftwater, high-water, and lake conditions for a variety of rescue training scenarios. The natural, rolling contours of the site were retained so the trainees could learn to approach and set their ladders at different angles.
The NATIONAL FIRE PROTECTION ASSOCIATION (NFPA), NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE FORESTERS (NASF), and U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOREST SERVICE announced a partnership to manage and deliver the Firewise Communities/USA program, the newest element of the 10-year-old Firewise program, a national effort to minimize home loss from wildfire. The new collaboration will encourage and acknowledge community-level efforts to address fire problems in the wildland/urban interface.Firewise Communities/USA provides technical support and national recognition for individual communities that are addressing wildfire risks. The partnership allows wildland fire staff from federal, state, and local agencies to work with communities to assess wildfire risk and create plans to reduce them. Communities are responsible for establishing their own network of cooperating homeowners, agencies, and organizations and ultimately identifying and implementing their local solution. So far, 14 communities nationwide have been in-volved for 18 months in the pilot program. Web site: www.firewise.org/usa.
Minnesota and Indiana have adopted the 2002 version of NFPA 70, National Electrical Code, as part of the state building code. The 2002 edition of the NEC includes significant changes relative to transient voltage surge suppression, fuel cells, attachment plugs, receptacle cord connectors, sensitive electronic equipment, and administrative positions.
Kentucky has adopted the most recent editions of NFPA 1, Fire Prevention Code; NFPA 101, Life Safety Code; and 183 other NFPA codes and standards. The state will participate in a training program developed by the NFPA and offered to states that have adopted NFPA 1, NFPA 101, and other key NFPA codes and standards. The training covers all of the code’s requirements and the numerous ways it can be used and enforced. This training and the associated codebooks are free to government code enforcement officials.
