IFP Mag - Issue 35 digital edition

societies operate primarily by grants and charitable
donations with limited funding. Thus, money will
always be a primary issue in providing good fire
protection in historic buildings.
Meeting the financial challenge of saving
these historic building has evolved this concept of
`adaptive reuse'. Many cities in need of addressing
urban blight, have developed revitalization programs
where developers are able to renovate historic
structures and permitted to change its use and
occupancy and turn these neglected buildings into
thriving mixed-use facilities, office buildings and
residential lofts, to name a few. These renovations
will normally include upgrades to the fire protection
to include the installation of a fire sprinkler system.
The other primary reason historic buildings are
not provided with good fire protection is concern
from the preservation community over the removal
or alteration of any distinctive architectural
feature of the structure. These concerns are not
unfounded due to a combination of lack of
planning, communication and careful coordination
with the historic preservation professional. These
failures can sometimes be linked financially where
a project cut a corner to meet budget and the end
result was an aesthetic failure.
Since the 1940's, the National Fire Protection
Association (NFPA) based in Quincy, MA,
organized a committee to address fire protection
in historic structures and published its first
document in 1948, Protecting Our Heritage:
Historic Buildings, Museums, and Libraries. NFPA
developed a series of recommended practices to
address these special structures. Five separate
documents detailed the specific requirements for
museums, libraries, places of worship, historic
structures and historic sites. Today, NFPA publishes
two codes that specify requirements for historic
structures; NFPA 909 Code for the Protection of
Cultural Resource Properties � Museums, Libraries,
and Places of Worship and NFPA 914 Code for the
Fire Protection of Historic Structures. While both
codes have similarities in content, NFPA 909 pro-
vides specific guidance to libraries and museums
not covered by NFPA 914. Both codes are an
excellent resource in developing a code compliant
fire protection strategy in historic buildings.
Specifically, NFPA 914 identifies a process by which
an assessment strategy is presented that considers
both the fires safety features as well as the historic
integrity of the structure. As part of the process,
it recommends persons with expertise in both
historic preservation as well as fire protection are
involved. The process presented in NFPA 914 is
intended to focus on three key areas;
1 Protection of the building occupants
2 Protection of the building contents
3 Protection of the structure
NFPA 914 also identifies two distinct paths of
assessment, a prescriptive based option or a
performance based option.
With the increasing understanding and accept-
ance of performance based design both in the
U.S. and abroad, the fire protection professional is
provided with a very powerful tool in achieving fire
protection design solutions in historic buildings. A
performance based design is intended to achieve a
specified goal for a specific use, whereas, a
prescriptive based design prescribes fire safety
requirements for a generic use or application. The
obvious benefit for historic buildings is to achieve
a design solution specific to the needs of the
specific structure in lieu of applying a generic code
requirement to fit the historic building. Prior to
the acceptance of performance based design,
code enforcement officials were challenged and
reluctant to accept alternate code compliance
strategies to the prescriptive code requirements.
Now, in many jurisdictions, code enforcement
officials can accept a performance based design as
an alternate to the prescriptive design approach to
achieve a specific design goal or objective. In addi-
tion, they can request an independent third party
review of the performance based design providing
assurances of the design approach.
Computer fire modeling has also made technical
advancements over the past ten years, where
today, a qualified fire protection professional can
create and run fire models using his desktop
computer. Computer fire models allow the fire
protection professional to evaluate a space, a room
or a building by designing a realistic fire based on
actual furnishings and contents of the space and
evaluate the performance of the proposed fire
protection solution against its stated objective. If
the desired objective is not achieved, an alternate
protection scheme can be evaluated to obtain the
desired results. Computer fire models can also
simulate emergency egress from a space or build-
ing to determine safe egress time for the building
occupants. This combined with performance based
design provides an unprecedented opportunity for
the fire protection professional to achieve good fire
protection for historic buildings.
INTERNATIONAL FIRE PROTECTION 15
FIRE PROTECTION IN HISTORIC BUILDINGS
FIRE PROTECTION
in Historic
Many cities in need of addressing urban blight, have
developed revitalization programs where developers are
able to renovate historic structures and permitted to
change its use and occupancy and turn these neglected
buildings into thriving mixed-use facilities

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