NEAFC 32nd Annual Conference.pdf - New England Association of ...

ENGLAND ASSOCIATION O:F Fm~ CHEFS
The Massachusetts Fire Chiefs’ Club has its representative on our State
Commission on Fire Safety in Convalescent Homes, Hospitals and Institutions,
on which I also serve, and the organization has been backing our Commission
up fully.
However, you should acquaint yourself with the tentative recommendations
of the N. F. P. A. for Fire Safety For Nursing Homes, copies of which
I have here: When their detailed standards come out a little later, give them
your serious and effective attention, and try to get them adopted in your State
and City.
As to the matter of sprinklers, in setting specific requirements, of course
every Fire Chief will say, at once, ’~Put in Sprinklers!" Boston’s excellent Fire
Code for convalescent homes requires Sprinklers. N.F.P.A. records now almost
no loss of life, and little, property damage, where sprinklers were present,
in the numerous fires that have occurred in nursing homes. At the hearings
before our Commission, the fire chiefs from our cities, one after another,
advocated sprinklers, and rightly so. ¯
The nursing home operators, however, rai~sed practical problems. One,
of course, was expense. They said that the amount the Welfare Boards are
willing to pay just will not justify a capital expenditure of what one proprietor
told us had been esti_mated bythe installer to,amount to $600 per patient. The
nursing home people also questioned having sprinklers in rooms, where bedridden
patients lie, although all agreed that sprinklers are desirable in basements,
hallways and Closets.
This brings us. to the question: ~What kind of an institution is. the nursing
home?"
The size o£ its accommodations, we already know. They run from four
or five guests to two hundred fifty persons per home. Physically, the institution
is likely to be some former gentleman’s mansion; an immense structure,
such as no family W.ants or can afford to operate, nowadays.
Very likely, it is balloon frame, has a mansard roof and great porches.
There may be hydrant protection; but, even then, the home may be located
where there is only six-pound pressure in the main, as with one our Commission
heard of. ¯
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~’There are institutions, six miles £rom-a fire station, ~where the roads
are not plowed," a member of the Commission from the western part o£
our State told us.
The chief physical hazards,, aside from smoking, are the heating plants,
the multifarious electric apparatus and appliances, large vertical openings.,
careless housekeeping.. Beyond this, you will find crowding of beds. and patients,
housing of attendants, in attics.-
In MasSachusetts, the district officers of the State Police are requiring
automatic fire detection Systems, and extinguishers, and ekits from every room
to reach the outside. These are all important safeguards~ And yet, in spite
of the willingness of many operators to provide ~these improvements, there is
still left much responsiblity on the local fire chief, enough so that his. nights
may easily become sleepless~ i£ he is a worrying man.-
So let us look at the. local Chief’s responsibility. To start with, the granting
of the original license is, in most states, dependent on the Fire Chief’s. advice
and approvaL~ ~.. ~
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