Telgian Engineering & Consulting’s Regional Practice Leader April Musser recently shared her knowledge and offered expert insight into the specifics of integrating fire safety and security solutions in facility design and emergency response planning with Campus Security and Safety magazine. The magazine provides industry-leading news to schools, districts, colleges, and universities on vital topics such as fire and life safety, risk management, incident response, physical security, and active shooters.
Musser has more than 15 years of experience in fire protection engineering and consulting, including code consulting and design. She has designed fire and life safety systems for large commercial and industrial facilities and has managed projects across a wide range of market segments throughout the nation and internationally.
According to Musser, historically, fire and life safety features and security features tended to be at odds. In recent years, however, tremendous strides forward been taken to dictate how facility fire alarm and life safety features should operate in the presence of physical security controls, in order to ensure occupant life safety for egress. Her article explores how today, integrating fire safety and security solutions beginning at the concept stage, is more important than ever before.
One of the primary challenges, she explains, is that, “security planning is based in behavioral sciences, while fire and life safety are based in physical sciences. Security planning seeks to detect, deter, assess, delay, and limit damage through operational, architectural, and technical design elements. Fire safety seeks to control the fire through active and passive systems, such as sprinklers and compartmentation, with the goal of allowing occupants adequate egress time before an environment becomes untenable.”
In order to integrate a complete emergency response plan that incorporates both security and fire safety, it is vital to begin as early in the facility lifecycle as feasible. Musser provides a step-by-step approach that can help guide decisions and identify opportunities, in order to maximize crossover technologies, reduce costs, and develop workable solutions to overcome any conflicts.
To read Integrating Fire Safety and Security Solutions in the Campus Environment in its entirety, please visit Campus Security and Safety magazine.
Media and Interview Inquiries:
Susan McNeill
Telgian Holdings, Inc.
smcneill@telgian.com
480-621-5031