CENTERBURG — The Central Ohio Joint Fire District has been making safety inspections at businesses in recent weeks, and expects to continue until all businesses within the district have been inspected.
The fire code is part of the Ohio Administrative Code, and mandates annual inspections. These inspections usually fall to the local fire department.
Mount Vernon News Video
|
During the past few years, the COJFD has not had the resources to conduct the inspections and was not specifically required to until the administrative code was revised in 2005. The revisions made all building codes conform to the International Code Council regulations. This brought fire safety inspections under ICC conformity and also gave fire departments more authority.
“When it comes to building occupancy and construction, I, as the fire chief, have more authority than the state building code guys do,” explained COJFD Chief Joe Porter.
For Porter, though, the main goal is not how many violations and citations his department can find. It’s more about the kind of community Centerburg and the surrounding area can be.
“The whole thing is geared to making the buildings and businesses in our community safe for the business owners and customers,” said Porter.
Stacie Mount, store manager for Only Need To Ask, a cellular phone store in Centerburg, said the inspections were a good thing “because it makes sure all the (business) property owners keep the buildings up to code.”
“It also makes me feel safe and it makes me feel safe about taking my children into the different businesses and knowing they are up to code,” she said. “There are a lot of old buildings here.”
Mount also feels more confident about the safety of her children because the program includes inspecting the schools as well.
Many businesses want the inspections because it helps with insurance. While being up to code does not usually have a direct effect on insurance rates, it does help indirectly.
“Rates are determined by the age of the building and the condition of the building,” explained Scott Jobes of Biggs Insurance. “They don’t require that you have a sprinkler system, for instance, but it helps. And they look at the square footage. But building condition is the main factor.”
Being up to code is not unimportant, however.
“They do ask that on the (insurance) application,” Jobes added. “And things like has the electric been updated, has the plumbing been updated and what amperage, is it 200 amp service? And they want to know when they were updated and was the work done by a reliable contractor.”
The new regulations give the fire department a lot more teeth as far as enforcement.
“We also have the ability to work with people instead of saying ‘do this or else,’” Porter said. “We’re doing everything we can to be proactive down here. None of our businesses down here want to hide anything. They want to work with us and we are working with them.”
Porter said fire safety depends on a lot of the little things. If there is a fire and customers do not know where the exits are — because they are not properly marked or accessible — many people could be injured or lose their lives.
There are many things to look for and the Ohio fire code is about a 4-inch thick, ring-bound volume. But Porter starts out with checking the basics. Properly working exit signs, currently certified fire extinguishers and unobstructed fire exits are just a few of the things for which he looks.
Fire exit signs must have a battery backup in case the electricity goes out. Coupled with the exit signs are emergency light units. Both of these have test circuits and a simple push of a button tells the inspector if all is working right.
“We have had great cooperation from the businesses here,” Porter said. “There have been many times when we have given a business 30 days to fix something and they might call us back in a week and ask us to come out again because the problem has been fixed.”
While the department is looking for code problems it is also taking advantage of the time to do a related safety function. The inspectors are also doing what Porter calls “pre-plating.”
“When we go in to inspect we also look at the layout of the building,” Porter said. “This gets put down on paper and it will help us in case of a fire in the building. This way we know how many rooms there are and what they are used for. It also lets us know where utility cutoffs are in case we need to know that during a fire or some other emergency.”
Porter said this information can be extremely valuable in protecting not just the firefighters, but the public as well.
Inspections started in March. If Porter can stay on schedule, he predicts he will be finished for this year in October, although some businesses require an inspection every six months instead of every year. The whole process will begin again next March.