Cohousing-L Mailing List: Fires & Fire alarms & fire access

[Jim Snyder-Grant (jimsg]

In response to the Boston Globe story, Alison wrote about a near-fire in her
community in Brunswick, Maine & asked some questions about fires & fire
alarms.

I don't know what's different between the Two Echo design and the New View
design, but we certainly hear each other's smoke alarms, even in winter with
the windows closed. The fire we had was caught early before any major
structural damage was done - the main disruption was LOTS of smoke damage -
the fire was in the basement and the whole house was smoky by the time the
fire got put out.

The alarm in the common house is wired directly to the fire station, the
individual alarms are not. In this case, the fire department was called by a
neighbor - no one was home in the smoky unit.

We also learned that our access paths were not quite as accessible to fire
equipment as we thought -- a later version of the landscape plan had dropped
a large boulder right in the middle of what should have been the fire trucks
turning radius. Luckily the fire department improvised a path through some
bushes & got close enough to the house.

We've made changes to our layout since then - moved the boulder, added a
fresh layer of stone dust & gravel to widen the sidewalk access in a few
places. After consulting with the fire department again, we are also
considering additional changes in another cluster of houses.

We learned later that the department had had internal disagreements about
our layout, and had approved it over the concerns of some of the members.

In any case, after any community is built that might have any fire access
issues, I heartily recommend calling the fire department and inviting them
to come over with their truck and make sure they understand and agree on how
to get to each unit.  During the permitting process, the fire chief or his
designee has looked at the site map, but the extra step of bringing the real
crew out after you are built means that the real steps that are needed are
understood by everyone involved. Plus, meeting your fire people in a
non-emergency situation is Good Thing., and fun too - be sure to let the
kids know!

-Jim

Jim Snyder-Grant
jimsg [at] newview.org
18 Half Moon Hill
Acton MA 01720
New View Cohousing
http://www.newview.org


_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.communityforum.net/mailman/listinfo/cohousing-l