Yesterday morning, a 10-alarm fire occurred at Brockton Hospital, a 216-bed health care facility in Massachusetts.  The fire reportedly began in the main transformer room of the hospital.  Without electricity, approximately 160 patients were evacuated, and according to early reports, there were no injuries or fatalities due to the fire.  WCVB shared this report:

More than 60 years ago, many life safety lessons were learned from a tragic fire at Hartford Hospital, which resulted in 16 fatalities.  The changes to building codes, fire codes, and referenced standards that have been adopted since then have greatly improved the safety of building occupants in health care facilities.  From Connecticut Public Television:

It’s too early to know whether fire door assemblies played a role during the fire at Brockton Hospital.  However, fire doors in most health care facilities must be inspected annually, with deficiencies corrected “without delay” (some AHJs quantify this as 60 days).  These inspections are intended to help ensure the performance of fire door assemblies during a fire, and are required by the current model codes as well as NFPA 80.  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and health care accreditors like the Joint Commission currently enforce the 2012 edition of NFPA 101 – Life Safety Code, which mandates the annual fire door inspections.

For more information on fire door assemblies and the inspection requirements, visit the Fire Door page of iDigHardware.

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