Th is is a brilliant question . As someone on this forum mentions, well formed questions take us at least 1/2-way to the solutions.
Questions that follow in my thinking are (after an initial definitions introduction): 1). We can create different bins for fire fatalities : bin a. large life loss fires in high-rises (say 6 - 25 dead) bin b. embarrassingly large life loss in high-rises (25+ dead)* bin c. multiple life loss fires in high-rises (say <= 5 dead) * hire a NRTL with federal funds creating the appearance of effectively digging for new lessons learned. From these ad hoc bins we can ask questions. a. When is it acceptable to an individual to lose 6 to 25 people in a fire? Is it 1 instance in 75,000 chances per year, or put another way, is it one fire every 75,000 years of unchanged occupancy in that building? b. repeat for bin # b c. repeat for bin # c. These questions are rephrased in terminology building owners, economists, BOMA, fire chiefs and building officiols more frequently encounter: How much money should we spend on fire safety for non-landmarked, pre-1975 high-rise buildings? Externalized in this debate, as usual (e.g. The Station Nightclub, Kiss Nightclub, WuWang, Santika, Happy Land, etc.) are the same people who typically die in these building fires--the poor. I wish I could say that this forum here today wants sprinklers in high-rises because they want to save poor peoples' lives; but I just don't perceive enough pro-bono work among our ranks (there is SOME, just not enough) to bank on that claim. Instead, I think the unspoken motivation from the majority of this forum in calling for high-rise sprinkler protection is the same motivation preventing building owners from buying into high-rise sprinkler protection. So the question from this end, is not so much when Chicago will remove the exemption from the high-rise sprinkler ordinance (13-106-205), nor is the question so much when the next bin-a type fire will occur in a Chicago high-rise. Instead the better question might be in converting the debate from an issue of money: "how much money should we spend on fire protection on pre-1975 residential /commercial Chicago high-rises" into an issue of chances of life loss : " At what chance is it acceptable to an individual to lose 6 - 25 neighbors in a fire? The Dutch government would accept that risk, before drawing for a flush. Talking directly about, and publishing acceptable life loss events is not something the USA does well. Comparably, the Europeans excel. I blame largely the public on the low level of this debate, because ultimately, we allow ourselves to be externalized and wander the halls of these hazards marginalized and misinformed. Our schools should be teaching poker instead of calculus. The Dutch accept large life loss events at chances two orders below what I could not get accepted stateside; and the Dutch were willing to accept a thousand+ lives lost to sea wall failure, while fire marshals were unwilling to accept a handful of lives to high-rise fire. Before the debate begins, we all should review our cards, because it is not until we are minimally fluent with the chances of drawing a "full house" that we can begin to predict a course whereby Chicago building developers will donate their money into the sprinkler bourse. The odds of turning the sprinkler discourse from money to probability appears very low to me. But if we did talk life-loss poker, I think the sprinkler forum would find there are larger life-loss problems deserving money than high-rise fires. I hope that debate happen, but to answer the original question... in my opinion, the odds of removing the exemption from Chicago ordinance 13-196-205 before 1 Sept 2016 are only slightly larger than my holding a full house in 5-card draw (about 1 chance in 4,000). Scot Deal Excelsior Fire/Risk Engineering _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://lists.firesprinkler.org/listinfo.cgi/sprinklerforum-firesprinkler.org
