electronic monitoring

Virtually every day, stories about vandalism in schools appear in the press, all with one consistent theme.  The vandals and criminals discharge fire extinguishers in the facilities causing substantial damage, evacuations, school closings and costly cleanup charges.  Here are some stories about schools that have been subjected to fire extinguisher vandalism in just the past few weeks.

Fire Extinguisher Vandalism Rates Increase at St. Boneventure University

According to a recent article in the school newspaper, The Bona Venture, Fire Extinguisher vandalism and misuse rates have increased dramatically campus wide in the last several weeks.  Misuse of this vital fire safety equipment has resulted in mass student evacuation from buildings and residence halls and costly cleanup projects. As Ralph Aloia, the deputy director of safety and security for the university points out:

"The cost of a fire extinguisher itself is around $70; however, the cost to the community could be their safety, welfare and health," Aloia said. "When extinguishers are taken from their intended area and discharged, the potential cost of personal-property damage and life safety from fires to others is a huge issue."

"It is only a matter of time when a fire happens again," he said. "The history of the university speaks volumes about fires here. The community needs to come together about disregarding each others' safety. How would one actually feel if they knew their actions led to someone getting severely hurt?"

We couldn't agree with Mr. Aloia more.  Fire extinguishers extinguished approximately 5.32 million fires in the US last year, and ensuring that these vital pieces of life safety equipment are where they are supposed to be, available, accessible and functioning properly is what en-Gauge was founded to accomplish.

Vermont School Vandalized for the Third Time This Year

A tiny Vermont school district has been burglarized and vandalized three times so far this academic year.  As Vermont TV station WPTZ.com reports:

Vermont State Police are investigating a burglary at the Twinfield Union School early this morning, the third break-in in the tiny district this academic year.

Superintendent Nancy Thomas said a damage estimate was not yet available but she said there was broken glass, fire extinguisher residue all over and office equipment was stolen.

The 440-student K through 12 school was closed Monday for cleanup but will reopen on Tuesday.

As a community, when a school is forced to close for a day due to fire extinguisher vandalism, what is the economic impact?  How many parents need to take a day off from work?  How much lost productivity does this result in?  The cost is a lot higher than a custodian's time to thoroughly clean a building.

Vandals Trash Special Needs School, Discharge Extinguishers

In a sad story, vandals in California broke into a special needs school and caused significant damage to the Richard Henry Dana Exceptional Needs Facility and the elementary school next door.  In each instance, there was significant damage to the facility and the locations were coated with residue from discharged extinguishers.  Watch this segment from KABC in Los Angeles to see the damage.

As you can see in the video, the police investigators don't hold out much hope that the criminals will be caught.  Another benefit of electronically monitoring fire extinguishers is that alarms can be triggered when an extinguisher is pulled, resulting in a rapid response to situations like this.

Oklahoma City School Vandalized, Thousands in Damages

According to KFOR, Channel 4 in Oklahoma City:

A metro elementary school was targeted by vandals over the weekend. Officials say the vandals caused thousands of dollars in damage and it's not the first time this school has been hit recently.

Principal Phillip Cunningham said, "Everything was on the floor, fire extinguishers discharged, a lot of equipment broken and damaged."

These types of stories are all too common.  With budgets tight and school boards struggling to stretch every dollar, losing days to cleanup or fire damage is unacceptable.  To learn more about how to ensure your school is protected with electronically monitored fire extinguishers, contact en-Gauge today.

RTLS and Life Safety Monitoring:  Reducing Risk, Lowering Costs, Improving Patient Care

As Real time location systems become more widely deployed and used to track vital equipment, especially in healthcare facilities, manufacturing plants and the hospitality industry, businesses are starting to look to integrate critical life safety equipment in their RTLS deployments. Devices such as employee distress medallions, medical oxygen tanks, fire extinguishers, AED’s (Automated External Defibrillators), IV pumps and many others are being integrated into RTLS infrastructure providing businesses with tremendous ROI through improved process and reduced inventory, as well as substantially lowered risk and improved life safety.

RTLS systems are wireless networks deployed inside of facilities, that in conjunction with RFID tags and a software layer, provide businesses with insight into exactly where on their campus each piece of tracked equipment resides at any point in time. In addition, sensors play an important role in life safety monitoring as well.

Fire Extinguishers and RTLS

Does the fire extinguisher in the northern hallway, on the 4th floor of the Green building have pressure? Has it been removed, or are there obstructions in front of it that may make it difficult or impossible to access? These sensors provide information into the “state” of the equipment, while the RTLS solution provides insight into the “Location” of each device.

This insight leads to substantial opportunities for process improvement and improved life safety. Your facility team is notified the instant an extinguisher is removed, becomes depressurized or is blocked, leading to a reduction in vandalism, rapid response to emergencies (and insight into where the extinguishers are being used), and dramatically improved maintenance and replacement cycles ensuring that these critical devices are available, accessible and ready in an emergency.

Medical Oxygen and RTLS

As another example, consider medical oxygen tanks in a hospital. Today, most organizations have a highly decentralized and inefficient system for managing their oxygen inventory. Nurses and other care providers are responsible for identifying empty cylinders and replacing them. The disorganized process leads to bloated inventory levels, unnecessary refills and life threatening emergencies when finding a full cylinder is difficult.

With RTLS systems and smart gauges, central maintenance teams are notified the moment a cylinder begins to run low and the exact location of that cylinder. They are able to ensure that there is plenty of available oxygen at each location ensuring RN’s are no longer searching for and replacing cylinders in a rush. Understanding the state of the oxygen inventory results in substantial reductions in the necessary cylinder inventory on site. Early indications are that medical oxygen monitoring utilizing an RTLS system will provide a $500 per bed / per year savings over existing processes.

Each additional type of life safety device that is brought into an RTLS system has their own compelling value proposition. To learn more about how RTLS systems and life safety monitoring systems work, contact en-Gauge today to speak with one of our experts.

At en-Gauge, we are always keeping our eyes open for Fire Extinguisher Success Stories,   We

 ran across this story earlier on FayObserver.com.....

A malfunctioning air conditioner was blamed for a fire in a second-floor office at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Ramsey Street (In Fayettville, AR) on Wednesday morning, authorities said.

The fire was reported about 11 a.m. in a file room and was put out with a fire extinguisher in about 5 minutes, said Nixon Spell, a battalion commander with the Fayetteville Fire Department.

Some people were briefly evacuated, Spell said, but no patients were affected.

The en-Gauge system is installed and monitoring fire extinguishers at a number of VA Medical Centers,  we're proud to be helping make our VAs safer.  Having extinguishers monitored 24 x 7 x 365 provides en-Gauge customers with the confidence to know that their extinguishers are where they are supposed to be, accessible and in working order when an emergency occurs.  For more information about how the en-Gauge electronic fire extinguisher monitoring system works, watch this short video.

As in most localities, police cars in Midland, Texas are equipped with Fire Extinguishers in case the officers come across a traffic fire emergency.  Unfortunately, it took a tragedy to realize that many of those extinguishers went years without an inspection and may have been non-functional for extended periods of time.  This discovery had prompted new legislation in Texas to ensure the exinguishers are inspected and maintained properly.

According to CBS7.com, whose investigation into the tragedy and the lack of fire extinguisher inspection inspired the proposed legislation:

...[following] a fiery car crash in 2009 that killed an 18-year-old Midland girl, her father discovered that some of those extinguishers went years without inspection.

"It causes great concern for me. They had non-working fire extinguishers and one was expired for at least three to four years", said her father, Richard Corley.

A CBS 7 investigation revealed that the two extinguishers that didn't work the night of the crash weren't the only extinguishers out of date.

That became apparent when talking to the company Midland contracts for inspections.

"Vehicles are kind of funny. No matter how hard we try, we cannot catch 100 percent of the trucks or 100 percent of the vehicles. That's just the nature of the beast", said James Haun of Midessa Fire Extinguishers.

Calls to local, state and national organizations soon revealed that there is no agency or organization that oversees the inspection of fire extinguishers in city vehicles.

"The city would be the entity that's responsible for making sure that those standards are upheld", explained Jerry Hagins of the State Fire Marshal’s Office in Austin.

It's a violation of law to have an expired fire extinguisher in a business, but having one in a police car is perfectly legal.

The comment that strikes us the most that by the company in charge of fire extinguisher inspections.  Vehicles are not "kind of funny", especially those used by our first responders most likely to be on the scene of a traffic fire.  These fire extinguisher have to work as they are extremly likely to be called upon in life and death situaitons. 

Apparently, at least one Texas Legislator feels the same way.  CBS7.com continues:

After our story, Representative Tom Craddick, decided to take action.

"To me it just makes sense. If you're going to compel your officials to have it in the car you ought to make sure they work", he said.

In drafting House Bill 564, Craddick hopes to require annual fire extinguisher inspections for local governments that keep fire extinguishers in their vehicles.

We couldn't agree more.  Although with fire extinguishers this vital to public safety, annual inspections probably don't go far enough.  These critical life safety devices should be subject to at least the same level of inspection as those recommended in NFPA 10 for commercial buildings - a 30-day manual inspection or electronic monitoring of those extinguishers like that provided by en-Gauge with our electronic fire extinguisher monitoring system.

 Just how important to society are fire extinguishers?  It turns out VERY IMPORTANT!  Often ignored,  even by the fire community, these overlooked life safety devices play a vital role in keeping us safe.  It is time for fire extinguishers to get the respect they deserve.
 
For most people fire extinguishers are invisible red cans on walls,  never looked at,  rarely considered.  To some they are the joke in a funny story about cooling beer in college or the laugh from the time they shot one off that drunken night.  But in more than 600 businesses and non-residential structures every day in America they are the difference between a minor fire problem and a conflagration.
 
Yes, you read that right, 600 time a day fire extinguishers put out fires in non-residential structures in the United States and many more around the globe.
 

Here are the facts.  

 
According to the most recent NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) data1, in 2008 U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated 1,451,500 fires.  These fires resulted in 3,320 civilian fire fatalities, 16,705 civilian fire injuries and an estimated $15,478,000,000 in direct property loss.
 
Of these fires 112,000 were responded to in commercial or municipal buildings.  Of the over $15 Billion in property damage, more than $3.811 Billion took place in these non-residential structures.  This represents an average loss per reported incident in non-residential / commercial structures of over $34,000.
 
These facts, pure and simple, don’t tell the story of the true value of fire extinguishers to our society.
 

The Vital Role of Fire Extinguishers

To highlight the effectiveness of extinguishers in the early stage fire fighting, a 2002 UK study performed by FETA (Fire Extinguishing Trades Association) and IFEDA (Independent Fire Engineering and Distributors Association) reviewed over 2100 fire incidents and found that in 80% of the cases a portable fire extinguisher successfully extinguished the fire and in 75% of those cases, the fire department was not required to attend.

A similar survey was conducted in 2002 by EUROFEU (European Committee of the Manufacturers of Fire Protection Equipment and Fire Fighting Vehicles) in 6 European countries and it found strikingly consistent results.  In over 2600 incidents recorded it concluded that in 81.5% of cases the portable extinguisher successfully extinguished the fire and in 74.6% of the cases the fire department was not required to attend.

Extrapolating the results of these surveys to the U.S. market provides solid statistical evidence that in approximately 80% of all fire incidents a portable fire extinguisher is the only fire fighting tool needed to extinguish the fire.  Further, they indicate that in 60% of all fire incidents the fire department is not notified (and thus the event would not  appear in NFPA statistics).  If applied to the 2008 NFPA data, fire extinguishers effectively managed approximately 224,000 fires in commercial structures, 168,000 of which do not appear in NFPA statistics.  

Fire Extinguishers in Academic Settings

 
To provide some additional insight, a 2010 White Paper from Worcester Polytechnic Institute reported on the use of fire extinguishers to combat real fires in academic settings.  According to their research, fire extinguishers are used approximately 15,000 times each year in schools, colleges, universities, dormitories, fraternities, sororities and barracks.  
 
That means that fire extinguishers are called into service more that 41 times each day as the first line of fire defense in our nations schools.  What is more important than protecting the lives of our young people?

Fires in Hotels

 
According to a recent article on HotelInteractive.com, a leading web portal for hotel professionals,
 

....an estimated 3,900 fires occur each year in hotels and motels. Annually, these fires result in $76 million in property loss.

According to a recent report by the U.S. Fire Administration, 46 percent of hotel and motel fires are caused by cooking, with electrical malfunctions and heating each causing an additional 7 percent of fires. These fires occur primarily in the evening, between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. While 73 percent of fires are confined to the object of origin, 18 percent are confined to the room of fire origin and the remaining 9 percent of fires extend beyond the room of origin.

With 73 % of these fires confined to the object of origin, it is easy to see the absolutely critical role that fire extinguishers play in keeping the guests in hotels safe.  Extrapolating the prominent studies,  this indicated more than 20 fires everyday are put out by fire extinguishers in hotels.

Fire Extinguishers Protect the Environment

Fire extinguishers also play a critical role in protecting the environment by controlling fires at their very early stages.  According to a 2010 White Paper from Green Collar Research, a leading sustainability on-line research organization,

From a safety as well as from an environmental and carbon release perspective, the management of a fire with a fire extinguisher when it is in its very early stages is a best case scenario.

Green Collar Research sums up the beneficial role that fire extinguishers, and particularly electronically monitored fire extinguishers like those offered by en-Gauge, in the following manner.

Fire and fire protection plays a significant role in releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.  Fire extinguishers play a crucial role in protecting the environment due to their proven ability to fight fires while they are at their very early stages.  The availability of accessible and working fire extinguishers assures that the highest possible percentage of fires will be controlled with the minimal environmental impact possible.

Replacing the inefficient and carbon-intensive manual extinguisher inspection methodology with electronically monitored extinguishers will have significant positive impacts on the environment, including:

• ·Fewer carbon emissions from fire incidents in which a missing, blocked or non-functioning fire extinguisher is a contributing factor

• Reduced embodied carbon generated via the manufacture of replacement building materials necessary to repair fire damage

• Reduced carbon emission from the burning of fossil fuels for transportation necessary for the manual inspection of extinguishers

• Reduced water use required to fight fires

• Reduced levels of persistent pollutants associated with fires and waste water run-off

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Fire Extinguishers - Society’s Silent Heroes

With all of the benefits that fire extinguishers provide for us, it is surprising that we don’t appreciate them more.  In fact, the only time we think about them is when we need them in an emergency.  The only time we hear about them is when they are unavailable, or when the are unable to do their job.  

One of the major concerns relative to fire extinguishers is that the 30-day fire extinguisher inspection required by the National Fire Protection Association in NFPA 10, is not sufficient to be sure fire extinguishers are available, accessible and functional at all times.  In order to ensure these silent heroes are ready when needed, it is crucial to have them monitored 24/7, just like all of the other, less utilized aspects of our fire protection systems.  To learn more about electronic monitoring of fire extinguishers, please visit http://www.engaugeinc.net.

Two Texas companies learned the hard way this week that failure to provide a safe workplace - and in particular accessible and functioning fire extinguishers - is very bad for business.  OSHA, the US Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, cited the companies on multiple willful and serious violations and levied fines that equal almost $400,000.

According to Reliable Plant Magazine:

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued Texas Linen Company Ltd. five serious and 15 repeat citations following a safety and health inspection at the company's facility in Austin, Texas. Proposed penalties total $126,400.

...Repeat citations were issued alleging a failure to keep flooring dry; cover floor holes; provide machine guards for rotating parts, points of operation, and sprockets and chains; provide illuminated exit signs and clear exit access; provide properly identified locks for machine servicing; and provide working and easily accessible portable fire extinguishers.

In a separate incident, OSHA has cited U.S. Minerals Inc. with three alleged willful and 35 alleged serious violations for exposing workers to multiple safety and health hazards at the company's facility in Galveston. Proposed penalties total $273,000.   According to the Houston Examiner:

Serious violations include failing to provide covers on chute floors, failing to remove damaged portable metal ladders from service, failing to ensure compressed gas cylinders were properly secured, failing to provide fire extinguishers where combustible and flammable materials were stored and failing to develop and document machine specific lockout/tag out procedures for equipment. A serious violation is one in which there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known.

...Speaking on this issue, Mark Briggs, OSHA's area director for the Houston South Area Office said, “Employers' disregard for worker safety will not be tolerated. This company jeopardized the safety of its employees

 

As a company that has a history of over 40 years in fire protection and life safety, we understand how vital the work is that OSHA does in ensuring workplace safety.  Unfortunately, there are large spans of time in between inspections.  That is why it the en-Gauge fire extinguisher monitoring solution is so important to workplace safety.  The en-Gauge system monitors fire extinguishers 24 X 7 X 365 and ensures that these critical life safety devices are available, accessible and ready for use when needed.  Protect your company, lower your risk and make sure your employees are safe.

 

en-Gauge.  We Make The Places People Go, Safer.

The en-Gauge technology to electronically monitor fire extinguishers was well received at the annual Texas State Fire Marshals’ Conference in Austin Texas.  en-Gauge’s leading regional distributor displayed the technology at the conference and the activity around their display was consistently high throughout the show. 

Many of the regional fire marshals hadn’t seen the technology in person and took advantage of the display to learn how it works and the many benefits it offers a life safety program.  Many of the AHJ’s seeing the technology for the first time asked “why hasn’t this been done before”; a refrain we have heard for years from uniformed officials.  Another exhibitor said afterwards; “the monitored fire extinguishers were definitely the main attraction during the exhibitor portion of the Conference.”