Sonoma Veterans War Memorial Building

126 First Street West

Sonoma, CA 95476

(707)938-4105

Fire 74: Fire Protection and Suppression Systems

April 14, 2010

Team Gold Star

Kyle Jordan

Domanic Marks

Samuel Munguia

The Sonoma Veterans Memorial Building is one of eight Sonoma County owned and

operated buildings that are dedicated to a public purpose in the memory of the men and women

who have defended our nation. The role of fire protection equipment and systems is to

contain/control fires before they get large and cause loss of life and property. In this report we

will be exploring the fire protection systems for this building because we recognize that the

safety of human lives, property and long-term profitability of the Sonoma Veterans Memorial

building all hinges on their quality.

This Veterans facility is located two blocks from the historic Sonoma plaza at 126 First

Street West in the city of Sonoma, California. Designed by architect J. Clarence Felciano this

16,200 square feet building was built in 1952 and is now over forty-eight years old. The

building site sits on 10.2 acres, the largest of the eight memorial locations in Sonoma County,

and is adjacent to a Memorial Cemetery. See diagram D-1 for building floor plan.

General Building Description and Purpose

The Sonoma Veterans Memorial Hall is a spacious single story commercial facility with

concrete walls and wood frame construction. As defined by the California Building Code this

building is an A2 classification. Structural highlights include bowstring trusses in the auditorium

and a roof is comprised of diagonal sheathing over wood joists.

This building was structurally evaluated in February of 1991 and seismic retrofitting was

done. In May of 1991 seismic retrofit was completed and columns hold downs, and sheer walls

were all added into place. The building was also retrofitted with an automatic sprinkler system in

January of 1996 and a new roof was installed in the summer of 1996. In September of 1997 steel

beams were added under the wood trusses and steel columns were added to support the overall

structure of the building.

The building features a spacious carpeted lobby, large 80’ x 55’ auditorium with

hardwood floors, a retractable theater style seating system and theatrical stage with full lighting

capabilities. The building is equipped with a full commercial kitchen featuring a pass through

counter to the 63’ x 33’ dining room. There is also a 45’ x 19’ lounge room, office area, shop

room, restroom and shower facilities and ample storage space. See diagram D-2 for specific

building occupancy standards.

This dedicated memorial is used for meetings, events and ceremonies by the veterans and

public year round and has been identified as an emergency shelter, disaster response and post

disaster recovery location if needed.

Operation and Maintenance Responsibilities

Responsibility for operating this building transferred to the Regional Parks Department in

1978 and since then its use and operation have been managed by the Regional Parks Department,

which handles all the marketing, booking and collection of rental fees. In the mid 1990’s,

building maintenance responsibility was transferred to the Facilities Operations Division of the

General Services Department. The grounds are maintained by Regional Parks. Capital projects

are managed by the General Services Architecture Division and funded through the Capital

Project Budget, with most of the capital funding coming from the County’s General Fund.

Fire and Life Safety Overview

The faster the building occupant and fire service personnel can respond, enter, locate the

incident, and safely operate in a building, the sooner they can mitigate an incident in a safe

manner for themselves as well as occupants. Fire protection systems and equipment are installed

in buildings to protect employees, the public, the property and the firefighters that will respond

to an emergency. Like most other types of equipment, fire protection systems and life safety

equipment need periodic inspection, testing and maintenance to ensure reliability.

The building is equipped with fire extinguishers with classifications that are appropriate

for their location. The kitchen is equipped with a Wet Chemical Extinguishing System over the

gas range. There is a fire alarm panel with detectors that are monitored by the local Sonoma Fire

District. There are fire sprinklers throughout the Dining room, Lobby, Lounge, Auditorium and

stage area. The buildings Auxiliary services also mitigate the dangers. See diagram D-3 for Fire

and Emergency equipment plan.

Sprinkler System

The NFPA standard 13 addresses the installation and design of commercial sprinklers.

The wet pipe sprinkler system in this building consists of 2 ½ inch steel piping. A wet pipe

sprinkler system consists of water already in the piping ready to suppress in the event of a fire.

The sprinkler system runs throughout the entire building and can flow roughly 20-40 gallons of

water per minute. The system is fed by one of the two 5 inch underground water lines. The

underground lines are estimated to have 65-85 psi of residual pressure.

There are also sprinklers that run both above the stage and underneath it for added

suppression. Another unique location for the sprinklers is under the eaves and over hang on the

outside of the building. The sprinkler system is automatic and requires no human interaction.

The system activates when the sprinkler heads are exposed to extreme heat, inside the glass bulb

is a liquid that expands when exposed to heat, when the liquid expands the glass breaks. The

sprinklers in the building are classified as ordinary with a temp range of 135-175 degrees F.

There are different heads with different liquids that expand at different rates in the frangible

glass bulbs according to heat temperature. These frangible bulbs are identified by different color

liquids that represent the temperature ranges. The sprinkler heads/ nozzles are strategically

placed to spray large amounts of water on a potential fire. Only the heads exposed to the heat

will activate. There are different designs of heads in the building specifically engineered to work

different. When activated, the system will run until turned off by the fire department.

Replacement heads are required and they can be found in the building by the riser. It is very

important that when a sprinkler head needs to be replaced that it is replaced with the same type

of head so this facility has replacements on hand for that very reason.

The components of a sprinkler system consist of piping, sprinkler heads, valves, and Fire

department connections (FDC). Each sprinkler system includes a water supply main which is the

piping that connects the sprinkler system to the main water supply (the underground municipal

main). System Risers extend vertically from the water supply to feed the cross or feed mains.

Feed mains are piping that supplies water to the cross mains. Branch lines are pipes that contain

the individual sprinkler heads. The fire department connection is located on the outside of the

building. This Connection is used to augment the water supply and pressurize the system. The

fire dept connects and pumps water into the system, this connection is above the water supply

valve. The FDC connects to the riser above the check valve. The piping is set up in this manner

so that even if the OS&Y are shut the fire dept can still get water to the sprinkler system through

the FDC. The buildings FDC are 4 inch piping with 2 ½ inch connections.

Many municipal, government and health department buildings require a back flow

prevention device between the public water main and the automatic fire sprinkler system. The

Sonoma Veterans building has two back flow devices that for extra protection. Any FDC must be

situated between the backflow prevention device and the sprinkler riser. Tamper monitors are

located on the OS&Y valve which will alert those monitoring off premises that there is a

problem. A water flow indicator is located on the riser this indicator will sound an alarm when

water is flowing. The flow indicator consists of a paddle that protrudes through the riser into the

water way. Movement of the paddle sounds an alarm. The paddle is thin and pliable so as not to

obstruct the water flow. The 1987 insurance services report that sprinkler system controlled 98%

of fires. These sprinklers systems are not tested by the fire department but by certified licensed

technicians every five years. The NFPA standard 25 addresses the inspection, testing, and

maintenance on the sprinkler systems.

Suppression System

The Wet Chemical Extinguishing system in the kitchen is a pre-engineered system. The

following components makeup the system: storage tank for the expellant gas and agent, Piping to

carry the gas and agent, Nozzles for dispersal of the agent, and actuating mechanism. This

system is designed to activate when the fusible link in the hood and duct system melts in

response to heat. The fusible link triggers a mechanical release that starts the flow of expellant

gas and agent. This system can also be manually activated from a pull station. This system is

inspected monthly by Sonoma County’s FAC OPS division. If the Wet Chemical system were to

be activated and the agent discharged, the kitchen would not be allowed to be operational until

the health department does there inspection.

Fire Control Panel

The Fire Alarm control panel at this location is what contains the controls, relays,

switches and necessary circuits to furnish power to a fire detection system, and receive sig nals

from detection devices and then transmit them to signaling devices and auxiliary equipment. This

control panel runs on normal AC power but also has a 24-volt standby battery, and an emergency

generator. Because the fire detection system must be able to perform in an emergency without

failure, the control panel is required to provide a trouble signal in the event of a power failure, an

open circuit or a ground fault. It should give an audible or visual trouble signal on the panel.

Another function of the control panel is accepting a signal from the detection device and

triggering the various audible devices and auxiliary devices such as fire doors, fan shut-offs, and

multiple other things. The control panel will also provide test switches, as well as co ntrol

switches for testing lamps, drills, etc. There will also be switches to silence the alarms, reset the

system, or disconnect certain circuits.

The detection systems at this facility can be activated manually, and automatically. The

manual activations consist of single-action and double-action pull stations. A double-action pull

station means you have to push in, to expose the pull-down lever. These are near major exits and

also spaced through corridors. This building also has thermal heat detectors, which are mostly

rate of rise detectors in that they activate when it detects an abnormally high air temperature.

Heat detectors are the cheapest form of detection device but are suited mainly for smaller,

enclosed areas. In addition to the heat detectors, we also have both types of smoke detectors,

ionization as well as photoelectric. The ionization smoke detector uses a small amount of

radiation to ionize the air which makes it conductive, and then when the combustion particles

enter the chamber, they attach themselves to the ions and reduce the current flow which in turn

activates the alarm. As for the photoelectric detectors, when the combustion particles enter the

chamber, it obscures the photoelectric beam between the light source and the receiving element

which activates the alarm. Smoke detectors are more costly than heat detectors but are faster to

respond because smoke does not dissipate as fast as heat does.

Flame detectors are also scattered throughout the premises, they are fast with response

but have a high rate of false alarm. Also these have to be places where they can “see” the entire

room since they work on line of sight. Being blocked by stacking material will render them

useless.

Auxiliary Systems

Auxiliary services are special fire detection and alarm systems that can be designed to

perform special functions for buildings that have special requirements in the event of a possible

emergency. The Sonoma Veterans Memorial Building has several examples of auxiliary

functions in place to enhance the overall safety of the facility. There are magnetic doors with

magnetic door stoppers (see P-4), when fire alarm is activated the magnets are released to close

and seal off. This door release closes the auditorium so that smoke and/or fire door will not

spread to other parts of the building.

The heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system will also shut down the

system’s blowers and ensure dampers are actuated when there is a fire to prevent the spread of

fire or smoke throughout other parts of the building. The duct smoke detector is equipped with

an auxiliary relay that immediately cuts power to the fan motor before significant amounts of

smoke can be distributed to hallways, the auditorium or dining areas.

When the emergency system is activated in the kitchen there is also an auxiliary function

that will shut off all gas to the entire kitchen as well as an added precautionary measure to make

sure that there are no additional hazards or explosions due to the presence of gas.

In addition to the above auxiliary systems this facility has also installed other safety

devices and equipment to enhance the overall safety of the building. There are flame retardant

curtains that line the windows and stage so that the bulk of the fabric material in the building is

not highly flammable. There are also exit signs that are powered by electricity and back up

battery in the event of a power outage and glow in the dark reflective strips that line key walk

ways to illuminate exit routes. There are several portable fire extinguishers located throughout

the building and the commercial kitchen is equipped with both a Class K and Class B,C fire

extinguisher.

Summary

Fire is one of the most serious threats to a building, with consequences that can include

harm to occupants and firefighters, damage to the structure and its contents, loss of building use,

visual harm to the streetscape, and impact on the tax base. When a fire occurs it must be

extinguished as soon as possible to prevent a major loss of property and/or life. If detection

occurs early, then a portable fire extinguisher may be very effective. However, a flaming fire

can rapidly exceed an extinguisher’s capabilities. When this happens the fire department must

apply large volumes of water to prevent complete loss. An alternative is to provide an automatic

fire suppression system that can detect the fire and start to control or even extinguish it before

the fire department arrives. This will reduce the amount of damage and recovery effort needed

to place the building back into use.

When it comes to safety and security, there is no margin for error. We covered several of

the main features of this buildings fire detection and suppression systems and can see how they

play a vital part in recognizing the early signs of a fire and in summoning aid. The Sonoma

Veterans Building is an older facility that has continually upgraded their emergency systems to

remain current with the laws and keep the occupants safe. Not only are lives saved by the

presence of fixed detection systems, but damage to property can also be limited if trained help

can be summoned as quickly as possible.

SUPPORTING DIAGRAMS

D-1: Sonoma Veterans Memorial Hall Floor Plan

D-2 Occupancy Guidelines

ROOM

CAPACITY

Assembly Seated Dining Dine/Dance

Auditorium

80’ x 55’

700 500 300 225

Dining Room

63’ x 33’

309 240 144 90

Lounge Room

45’x 19’

141 85 66 n/a

D-3 Fire ad Emergency Equipment Plan

SUPPORTING PICTURES

Please see the attached power point file for all of our supporting pictures that accompany this

report. These images will also be used in our in class presentation to give a better understanding

of the fire systems present in the Sonoma Veterans Memorial Building.

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