The Bay of Plenty District Health Board’s new fire safety systems and processes exemplify the state of the art in fire detection and management. Based on software and hardware manufactured by Lower Hutt’s Pertronic Industries, the tailor-made systems precisely match the needs of both hospital managers and fire-fighters.

Hospitals present unique problems for building owners, occupiers and fire-fighters. For most buildings, the aim is to completely evacuate the building and shut off services such as power as quickly as possible. Hospital staff don’t want to move patients undergoing surgery, resuscitation, or other critical procedures unless they are directly affected by the fire. It is not feasible to completely shut down building services such as electricity and oxygen because some patients depend on these critical services.  Instead, hospital buildings are divided into cells, separated by highly effective fire barriers. If a fire does break out, fire-fighters must control it without evacuating unaffected areas or depriving those areas of essential services. Fire-fighters need to quickly find the fire; and they must be able to isolate services such as power and oxygen without endangering people in other parts of the hospital.

The Bay of Plenty District Health Board (BOPDHB) in 2005 initiated a major redevelopment of the Tauranga Hospital, including two new five-storey ward blocks, a new two-level podium block, and refurbishing and upgrading several parts of the existing buildings. Completed in 2011, the redevelopment included installation of new fire detection systems in the new and upgraded areas.

The new fire alarm systems satisfied building code requirements at the time. However, the BOPDHB identified some opportunities to increase fire safety and further reduce the risk to patients. So, in 2009, BOPDHB Property Manager Jeff Hodson commissioned two fire engineers based at Beca’s Tauranga office, Ben Hume and Hamish Denize, to review the health  board’s fire systems. The wide-ranging study looked at training, alarm systems, fire-fighting systems, and response plans, at Tauranga and Whakatane Hospitals.

Among its findings, the review identified a need for a graphics-based system to present information from the fire detection equipment in a more useful form. For example, immediately a detector is triggered, the existing fire panels would call the Fire Service and trigger alarms in the affected building. But they would not notify relevant hospital staff such as the duty manager, who is responsible for managing the situation until the Fire Service arrives. “That depended on someone getting on the phone, or trying to find them,” said Rob Fenton, Pertronic Industries Sales and Marketing Manager.

Mr. Hume and Mr. Denize surveyed the market for a PC-based graphics system that would satisfy the health board’s requirements. An important issue was that hospital buildings are continually reconfigured or upgraded. The BOPDHB needed a fire information system that could easily cope with regular change. Most of the available systems failed this test: Implementing small changes required highly specialised technical expertise.

In contrast, they found that the Firemap system from Lower Hutt’s Pertronic Industries Limited was easily reconfigured by the same contractors who install fire detector modules. That’s an important reason why the BOPDHB decided to install a Firemap system. 

Tauranga Hospital’s fire detection systems are built around Pertronic’s smart fire panels, with individually identifiable detectors and modules. Each building has several fire zones (up to 28 in the largest building) monitored by a fire panel with a set of LEDs and a small text display. The LEDs indicate which zones contain detectors that have been activated. The text display can be used to access detailed information, such as the fire panel’s event log, which keeps track of individual events such as the triggering of a detector. However, fire-fighters dealing with an emergency situation do not have time to extract this detailed information. In any case, they would need to remember complex operating procedures to get the information. And because each alarm panel is a stand-alone unit, the information cannot be accessed from remote locations. The only way to find out what is going on is to go to the affected building and check out the alarm panel.

The Firemap system extracts data from fire panels and displays it on large touch-screens, which can be located anywhere an internet or intranet connection is available. Tauranga Hospital has three 23-inch touchscreens: One in the telephone reception area, another in the property services office, and a third in the Fire Service attendance point, which also has a printer. When a detector is triggered, these touchscreens automatically display a floor plan of the relevant building. The floor plan shows the location of each alarm detector, with active detectors highlighted. When the redevelopment of Whakatane Hospital is finished, the property management office will be able to look at the fire detection systems at both Whakatane and Tauranga.

Updating system hardware is very simple. The Pertronic fire panel automatically registers each new detector or module immediately it is connected. The installation contractor needs to type in to the fire panel the new component’s location. Then the contractor must input the location into the relevant floor plan in Firemap. There’s no problem if the BOPDHB is unlucky enough to have a fire while the contractor is upgrading the system. Firemap automatically displays a text message identifying the active detector, along with any other information the contractor was able to input before the alarm went off.

Individual fire panels do not depend on Firemap. If a detector is activated, the panel triggers the relevant alarms and calls the Fire Service. But because it adds major benefits to the basic fire systems, the health board’s Firemap system is designed for maximum reliability. It runs on the hospital’s high-reliability servers, which have battery and diesel generators for emergency power. Multiple displays ensure the Firemap system remains usable even if one or two displays are affected by fire.

The new system significantly improves how hospital managers and fire-fighters deal with fire risks. Immediately a detector goes off, hospital managers can find out exactly where the problem is. Firefighters, when they arrive, can print out a diagram that shows exactly where they need to start searching the building. “This significantly improves the Fire Service’s response,” Mr. Fenton said. 

A minor basement fire at Tauranga in March 2012 highlighted the value of the graphic fire detection system. In the middle of a fine hot afternoon, an electrical fault in a control panel beneath the Accident and Emergency Department triggered sprinkler systems and a Fire Service callout. As a precaution, the Accident and Emergency Department was evacuated, with patients being treated in unaffected areas or in parked ambulances. Although the department was busy when the fire broke out, it was fortunate that no-one was being resuscitated, and the evacuation did not put any patients at risk.

Following that incident, the BOPDHB commissioned Mr. Hume and his colleagues to convene a review involving staff from the hospital, the Fire Service, and Pertronic Industries. After studying the relatively minor incident at Tauranga hospital, this review team identified several possible improvements.

The team developed a new fire response plan, which identifies three key hospital staff who need to respond immediately a detector goes off. The hospital duty manager, who is a medical professional, takes control of the site. This person knows how to satisfy the needs of patients who depend on critical services. A staff member from the property services office also drops whatever they are doing and responds to the event: They know how to switch off the various services and how to get around the buildings. The third team member is a security officer, whose staff are able to investigate the affected area. Security staff also use their radio equipment as a back-up communication system. When the Fire Service arrive, the Fire Officer takes over, but they work closely with the hospital’s response team.

The review team also made small, but very significant, improvements to the Firemap system. Pertronics downloaded the event logs from the fire panel and reconstructed the incident, as seen by the fire detection system. “We realised that by the time the Fire Service arrives,” Mr Hume said, “twenty or thirty detectors might have gone off.” Pertronics changed the software to highlight the first active detector in red, helping pin-point where the fire might have started. The review also pointed out the need for a printout the Fire Officer could carry around. “Little changes like that make a big difference during an emergency,” Mr Hume said. “Pertronic Industries have been very good to work with in this respect. They worked with us in a constructive way to improve their products.”

The fire detection systems at Tauranga and Whakatane Hospitals go beyond basic building code requirements. The world-leading technology satisfies clearly-identified needs that are unique to hospitals. Ben Hume is obviously very satisfied with the system. “I especially enjoyed being able to work with the DHB and Pertronic to develop a system that offered real safety benefits,” he said.

This article first appeared in Engineering Insight magazine, May 2013.

Posted in Hospital, Tagged NZ - Bay of Plenty, Mar 15, 2013, 12:00 AM