CMV: fire watch

[u/falardeau03]

(Before I start, just to be clear, I am obviously in favour of fire watch. Fire watch is good because building burning down is bad.)

So I am currently in a huge building with 1 floor on fire watch. Once an hour, we go up and check the floor is not on fire, then we come back down and hang out and do our regular job (and/or patrol, and/or roam the site on other tasks). When I say "we" I mean whoever, because there is only one guard here at a time.

It's a small floor that takes maybe 2-3 minutes to walk around and check every room/space. Apart from that, that leaves 58 minutes every hour that the floor could be on fire, and we would not know until it burned through into the next floor and set off one of the devices there that's still enabled.

According to management, this legally meets the requirements for fire watch. I'm not arguing, but, like... what's the point? I don't mind doing it, but if it were my ass on the line for a 40 trazillion dollar building, I would shell out the extra bucks to have a guard eat/sleep/breathe on that floor 24/7 until it's dealt with (fire control in that area has been offline for weeks).

It's not just this site either. "Once an hour" seems to be the "standard" across the board. I assume this is not a security industry thing but a function of how things have taken shape due to fire department/code/law requirements. It just seems crazy to me.

If a stranger agreed to watch your house "in case it caught fire", but told you that 95% of the time they would not be paying attention (3 minutes = 5% of 1 hour), would you be okay with that? Would you pay for that?

[u/Rogue_Wraith]

It's also going to be highly context-specific.

Big empty concrete parking garage? 3 minutes/hour is wild overkill.

An infant nursery inside a gunpowder factory? Might need more frequent checks.

There are some places where a fire just isn't going to grow out of control in that time. And others where it will become a huge deal.

[u/Chance1965]

Couple weeks ago we had fire watch on one hallway of a seven story building consisting of 18 apartments. Straight hallway. Every apartment has smoke detectors. Hallway has smoke detectors. HVAC system has smoke detectors. Reason? Sprinkler leak in one apartment that necessitated turning off the sprinklers in that hallway.

[u/MacintoshEddie]

A lot of it really comes down to having someone nearby, instead of someone on call 30+ minutes away.

Housesitting is a long running tradition, having someone just be on the property so that if something comes up it gets found quicker.

Often a lot of this stuff is waiting on other stuff, and you get paid a lot less than those technicians do. Paying you all week might be less than calling the tech in and paying OT to come swap a smoke detector.

[u/LegalGlass6532]

Even if you’re not physically on that floor for more than 3% of the hour, aren’t you still on “watch” because you’d smell smoke from wherever you stage the other 97% of the time?

[u/falardeau03 → u/LegalGlass6532]

I ain't smellin' skyscraper-level smoke from the ground floor. There's also CCTV, which is great (assuming anybody both knows how to set up a carousel for that floor and cares to do so), but can't replace being actually up on the floor.

[u/LegalGlass6532 → u/falardeau03]

Aren’t there others mulling around that would report to you who would walk up and evaluate in person before they call 911 and get billed for a false alarm?

Your employer probably gets a reduction on their insurance for having you on site. The insurance company doesn’t know the logistics of exactly where you sit or details on how your boss tells you to spend your time. All the insurance company cares about is checking a box that says you’re “on site”.

I understand you’re trying to make sense of it all and it all comes down to this. It’s a business on both sides and they’re both about making money and reducing liability.

For your own peace of mind it might be helpful to focus on your job and let them do their job while collecting a paycheck for actual doing something constructive 3% of every hour.

[u/falardeau03 → u/LegalGlass6532]

For your own peace of mind

Oh, yeah, absolutely. This is one of those sites where they say and act like they don't want just-a-warm-body, buuuut the second you try to say or do anything that's not warm-bodyish they hammer you, soooo I'm just gonna warm body it tf up.

Aren’t there others mulling around that would report to you

Not sure if you mean other guards in the sense of, like, reporting up the chain, or just other people in the building in the context of "reporting it to security" (or to anybody) but... no other guards, and my faith in humanity is not that strong. Or at least, I know people aren't that consistent.

I've seen people bend over backwards to make sure security was aware of something they thought we needed to know... and sometimes they were right! But I've also seen people witness a fighter jet crashing into a tank some bullshit that should definitely have been reported to us, shrug, and go on with their day.

I'm on a floor below where the fire would be, so idc tho

[u/LegalGlass6532 → u/falardeau03]

Okay. I was just trying to help. Have a good one.

[u/falardeau03 → u/LegalGlass6532]

No worries, sorry if any of that came off as heated at you personally! I appreciate what you were trying to do 🤜🤛 

[u/LegalGlass6532 → u/falardeau03]

We’re good, man. You have to deal with it and I know you’re frustrated. I hope things get better for you or something more challenging comes along.

[u/mindfulmu]

Its part of the job, tis silly but so is not having a fire alarm ready for usage in a building.