NOTIFIER FIRE ALARMS SEISMIC-CERTIFIED AND IN-USE - California Hospital Receives Seismic-Certified Fire Alarm Transplant

Many areas throughout the U.S. require seismic-certified fire alarm systems to protect essential facilities, such as hospitals, police and fire stations, airports and public utilities. Aileen Laforga, systems engineer for Signawest Systems, Inc., a NOTIFIER Engineered Systems Distributor in Newark, Calif., says seismic certification is quickly becoming a standard requirement for more and more types of facilities.

Right now in our area, if you have any type of electrical panel that's more than 20 pounds, seismic certification is required, exclaims Laforga.

In a recent fire alarm renovation of Saint Rose Hospital in Hayward, Calif., Laforga and the Signawest team received news of the NOTIFIER panels' IBC seismic listing just in time.

To accommodate the hospital's expansion of its fifth floor patient rooms, we needed to upgrade the system with a NOTIFIER NFS2-3030 panel, but it had to be seismic-certified, explains Laforga. No other system could accommodate the size of this facility, which includes administrative offices, an ER and pharmacy. So news of this certification was very timely.

This seismic standard is fairly new to the fire alarm industry, but given the recent seismic events here and around the world, we anticipate requirements for this certification becoming more common and widespread, exclaims Dan Corbett, NOTIFIER product manager.