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Club fires spur major changes in fire codes.

Article Excerpt
THE FIRES THAT CONSUMED THE Station nightclub in Rhode Island and caused panic at E2 in Chicago have resulted in preliminary code changes that would place new burdens on risk managers--not only those at entertainment venues but a variety of organizations, including smaller facilities.

Almost any gathering place would require crowd managers for groups of 250 and more, in most venues except for churches. This is a reduction in occupant load from the former trigger of 1,000 occupants.

Code making and enforcement processes for such fires have largely been reactive in nature--somewhat similar to an aircraft crash investigation. A major incident occurs and teams of experts and investigators descend upon the tragedy to find evidence of what went wrong.

The information gathered is used to find out if existing codes were adequate to address the circumstances causing the incident and if those codes were properly enforced. Ordinarily this process occurs with little impact from the "outside" world. Major incidents, however, bring families and friends of the victims as well as the media into the process, demanding to "know how such a terrible incident could have happened and what will be done about it.

Statistics of nightclubs and similar establishments reveal that in recent years the incidents of fire in these places of assembly only account for 0.3 percent of all fires--trends show, however, that these fires tend to result in a disproportionately high fatality rate.

So where does this leave us today? Shortly after these two incidents, the National Fire Protection Association assembled an emergency meeting of the Technical Committee on Assembly Occupancies,...