The National Fire Protection Association estimates that each year there are approximately 3,300 fires on U.S. college campuses.
December 4, 2009 - Fire Safety/Protection
The National Fire Protection Association estimates that each year there are approximately 3,300 fires on U.S. college campuses. Wanting to be more proactive regarding the safety of its more than 15,000 students and staff, Loyola University in Chicago, Ill., implemented an electronic pre-plan to help reduce property damage and prevent loss of lives in the event of a campus fire.
Each of Loyola’s more than 70 buildings on both its Lakeshore Campus and Water Tower Campus has been pre-planned with CommandScope Electronic Pre-Plan software so that firefighters and other emergency personnel will be able to access vital information to reach an emergency anywhere on campus.
Although fire departments typically keep paper pre-plans of buildings in binders, plans are often outdated and incomplete and can take more than an hour to access during an emergency. With CommandScope, the electronic information is available on computers in Loyola’s security offices and on touch screen monitors throughout the campus.
Each Loyola building listed in CommandScope contains a campus location map, photographs, floor plans, utility shutoff locations, fire hydrant locations, structural information, number of occupants, lists of persons with disabilities, and cautionary notes about possible hazards, such as chemistry labs.
Information is simple to update and is available to the entire system within minutes, which is not only vital for firefighters, but also for other emergency personnel responding to campus security breaches and medical emergencies.
Other system features include integration with computer-aided dispatch programs and secured interoperability allowing other authorized departments to access pre-plans during an emergency.
