University Stadium Prioritizes Occupant Safety with Upgraded Fire and Emergency Communications Systems
By Veronique Janin-Trudeau, Vice President Fire Service Operations, Johnson Controls
At large universities across the country, football is built into the culture of student life, and in some cases even in the surrounding communities. At a single event stadium executives and operations teams find themselves responsible for the safety of thousands of occupants, where tensions are high as teams compete on the field. To ensure occupant health and safety, as well as seamless game day operations, facility management teams need cutting-edge facility technologies.
After undergoing a large renovation, this university’s stadium executives took the opportunity to install a long overdue network upgrade to their fire and emergency communications technology. With a capacity of over 80,000 people, facility leaders took action to mitigate risk and ensure the safety of all occupants by installing new fire panels to cover all quadrants of the stadium as well as fire alarms in the newly renovated areas of the stadium.
Delivering Advanced Fire Solutions
Before installing new technologies in the stadium, the Johnson Controls team worked with the university’s fire department and the local Fire Marshal to evaluate all existing systems. They then collaborated to develop a plan for the stadium and set up recurring meetings to ensure the project was moving forward according to the established timeline. Johnson Controls also worked closely with the university’s technicians to help articulate the design. Given the short timeline of the project, and to ensure they were delivering quality upgrades throughout the stadium, Johnson Controls hired an additional subcontractor to assist with the electrical work involved in the project.
In the end, Johnson Controls installed new 4100 ES fire panels, addressable speaker strobes and addressable amber strobes, all designed to work seamlessly together in the event of an emergency. The panels integrated into the existing building system and can pinpoint the source of a fire, alert or other event within a stadium environment. In the event of a fire, the addressable speaker strobes can report the location of an event to the fire alarm control panels, providing operators with critical event information, whereas the addressable amber strobe technology provides non-fire alarm alert notification for use with Emergency Communications systems.
A Seamless, Winning Operation on Game Day
With the installation of fire panels and addressable strobe technology, stadium operations and security personnel can easily identify any issue within the stadium and deploy on-the-ground employees to the incident immediately. With improved fire panel graphics, the fire department can identify the situation and better direct emergency service personnel to the appropriate areas. The integration of emergency communications devices has further decreased incident response time. Additionally, by using the network audio in an emergency event, facility operations can evacuate certain sections of the stadium instead of evacuating the stadium in its entirety, creating a safer situation for occupants.
In addition to occupant health and safety, a major priority for the University is to ensure game day operations run smoothy. With an upgraded system and new fire panels, game day operations are a breeze, and stadium employees are now able to focus on other stadium priorities and ensure a positive fan experience.
Learn more about how you can improve your facility’s fire and emergency communications strategy: https://www.johnsoncontrols.com/fire-detection