[Nhcoll-l] Fire Marshall Regulations
Sidlauskas, Brian
Brian.Sidlauskas at oregonstate.edu
Thu Jun 30 12:09:21 EDT 2016
Hi Sarah,
The situation here at the Oregon State Ichthyology Collection is pretty similar to what Andy described for the Kansas collection. For example, the collection has its own HVAC system that that be controlled independently of the rest of the building and that has its own emergency shutoff switch. The room is surrounded by two-hour fire walls, is located adjacent to an exterior wall of the building (allows the firefighters to break the wall in a catastrophe), has a water-based sprinkler system, sparkproof lighting, electrical switches outside the collections room, and so forth.
The mobile shelving has earthquake bars, and is perforated for water flow. It is substantially less perforated than the shelves in the Kansas collection, and our situation is probably not ideal in that regard. Here, I was probably less specific with Spacesavers than I should have been.
As opposed to some others, we were indeed required to construct a holding tank for the full fluid volume of the collection, plus two hours of flow from the sprinklers. It was very expensive.
As I previously mentioned, because the collection is largely in 50% isopropanol, we were also forbidden to move to 70% ethanol (due to concerns over increased flammability of the higher concentration alcohol).
We are restricted from using glass containers over a gallon in size. Anything larger is a steel tank (for specimen storage) or a plastic carboy (for mixing/dispensing).
I hope that this helps!
-- Brian
--
Brian Sidlauskas
Associate Professor and Curator of Fishes
Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
Oregon State University
104 Nash Hall
Corvallis, OR 97331
brian.sidlauskas at oregonstate.edu<mailto:brian.sidlauskas at oregonstate.edu>
541-737-6789<tel:541-737-6789> (office) 541-224-3850<tel:541-224-3850> (cell)
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From: <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of "Bentley, Andrew Charles" <abentley at ku.edu>
Date: Wednesday, June 29, 2016 at 7:15 AM
To: "Sarah K. Huber" <skhuber at vims.edu>, "nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu" <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Fire Marshall Regulations
Sarah
Yes, this is a huge can of worms – mostly due to the fact that there are no fire regulations specific to natural history museum scenarios and fire marshals thus have to extrapolate from existing regulations from other realms and in doing so, we get numerous different interpretations. This is something we are hoping to remedy with SPNHC best practices outlining guidelines. However I think it will take working with fire marshals and the regulatory bodies to put specific regulations in place that can be used for natural history collections but I fear that may be opening Pandora’s box ☺. One of the things I have always wanted to do is work with our fire department to set up a dummy shelf unit and set it on fire to document what would happen and hopefully allay any fears. One day…
In our specific case we have forged a good working relationship with our on campus fire marshal which has helped immensely in ensuring that he is not over-reacting to the situation at hand. We have never been asked to install fire proof cabinets or have a retention pond that will hold all alcohol in the event of every jar and tank rupturing simultaneously!! We have a dedicated wet collection storage facility that has no outlets except one explosion proof outlet on each of the four floors. We have a water based sprinkler system activated by smoke detectors (two need to be activated to set the system in motion) and egress drains in front of each door with non-return valves to prevent sewer smell. We have a mix of compactor a static metal shelving (Spacesaver) that have perforated shelf liners to allow water from sprinkler system to pass through. The compactor units are open top and front and all shelves have earthquake bars. We were mandated to not fill any shelf more than 50% to allow water to flow through the shelves but this is loosely enforced and in most cases we are well over that given that we are running out of space. There is also an upper height limit to our storage to ensure that all jars are the minimum allowable distance from any of the sprinkler heads. We have spill kits on every floor and at least two entry/exits to every floor to allow for emergency exit. All doors have signage posted warning of flammable chemicals (we only have material in 70% ethanol) and formaldehyde which we posted in close conjunction with our University EHS unit. We have a dedicated HVAC system that is capable of changing all air in the facility every two hours, maintains a fairly constant 65 degrees F and 40-50% humidity (humidity swings are common in both summer and winter even after a retrofit of the system) and is regularly maintained by our facilities and operations (F&O) folks on campus (changing belts etc.). We have HOBO recorders on every floor monitoring temperature and humidity which are downloaded every month and stored digitally (we have 16 years’ worth of monthly data) along with F&O installed Johnson controls that are monitored by on campus entities. We also have rolling ladders on every floor for accessing high shelves and use carts for transport of material between the wet wing and wet lab.
Happy to send pictures or specs of any of this if anyone is interested.
Hope that helps
Andy
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Andy Bentley
Ichthyology Collection Manager
University of Kansas
Biodiversity Institute
Dyche Hall
1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
Lawrence, KS, 66045-7561
USA
Tel: (785) 864-3863
Fax: (785) 864-5335
Email: abentley at ku.edu<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>
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SPNHC President
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From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sarah K. Huber
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2016 1:18 PM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [Nhcoll-l] Fire Marshall Regulations
I might be opening a can of worms here, but I would be interested in hearing what regulations your local fire marshall has put into place regarding your wet collections (I am interested only in collections that store fluid preserved specimens in ethanol or isopropyl, including -80 freezers with tissues in ethanol). Everything from fire suppression systems to allowable jar sizes (jars no bigger or smaller than X). While we have not had any issues with our fire marshall, I would like to know what I might be up against in case we ever have problems in the future. We are also trying to plan for future renovation of our space, so having an idea of what might be required by a fire marshall for a facility such as ours would be helpful.
Sarah K. Huber, Ph.D.
Curatorial Associate, VIMS Nunnally Ichthyology Collection
Office 804.684.7104 | Collection 804.684.7285
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