Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Theatre fire codes must be heeded, but good luck finding them
Backstage at BackstageJobs.com | Life behind the scenes…: "A BackstageJobs.com user’s e-mail lead me to this discovery. This person had discovered that the theatre they were working in had no fire extinguishers. This would seem odd to pretty much any theatre person in the US, if not the world. The reasoning given by building management was that because the sprinkler system could be manually activated through pull bars, they were not required to keep portable fire extinguishers."
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7 comments:
I wonder what would happen if a state said that they would be willing to adopt the NFPA code but only if it would be provided to those to whom the code would apply. Yes, there is a way to view it online, and you can probably find a copy in major libraries, but neither of them works when you need to refer to it on a job site without internet access. How do you open up the book to show someone what they're doing wrong if you can't afford the book itself? And if those in charge of the facilities can't afford it then how can they be expected to know what it says?
I'm confused by this already- too many different codes! And I haven't even started trying to read them! However, it seems to me that it is ridiculous for all of these codes not to be available for free, rapid access online! Fire safety is taken seriously in the performing industries, but it seems those trying to regulate the safety don't seem to care. I am hoping that at some point in the next four years, i will get an education in fire codes, and that by then these codes will be easily research-able (and also hopefully standardized...)
This seems to be another one of those things that unfortunately goes by the wayside in a lot of places. I believe that for something as serious as this, there should be a simple, straight forward way of accessing all of those necessary codes and regulations, without paying a ridiculous fee. By making it this difficult, they are basically inviting theatres to ignore the codes.
I knew that fire codes varied by state and that much of what was enforced is up to the individual fire marshals, but I had no idea how hard it is to get a hold of the laws in the first place. $71 just to get one section of the codes you will need is ridiculous. If they expect us to follow the laws, they need to make said laws easily accessible. What is the purpose of charging for these laws and codes? To fund people to inspect whether they are being followed. So that they can go to places that do not follow code in order to fine then. I am confused.
Fire safety is not something that should be massed around with. Just as MSDS are required to be accessible within a space, so should fire codes. After all, what good is having a law if no one knows it?
This is crazy, first of all the fire codes should be the same across the country because so many stage hands travel to wherever their work takes them. Second of all, whatever the fire codes are should be easily accessible to everyone online as well as in print. I think that this is just another way of the government getting money in more than one way. First they are getting money because people need to buy the codes, second they can make money by fining theatres which aren't following these impossible to find codes. I think this is despicable. Also, a lot of smaller theatres don't have the money to buy the codes!
The fact that it takes so much effort to just find out what the fire code is is pretty scary, and more than a little frustrating. The fact that you can't access these documents without payment, and yet still have to follow them by law seems ridiculous. How are we supposed to follow these regulations if there it's so difficult to access them? This is something that needs to be fixed, either making the codes more standardized, or make them much easier to find via some kind of online database or similar device, and make it free! This is information that we need to know in order to keep ourselves and people in theaters safe
At least they're letting you view these online now. For a while, you couldn't. Purchase or a local library was the only option.
I suppose a simple way to ensure that your building/performance is up to spec, is to have it inspected by the local fire marshall. Here at CMU, this is quite easy, but in the real world, it's less so, and much more cost-prohibitive.
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