Fire Officers’ Committee

For the purposes of sprinkler systems the Fire Offices Committee" (FOC) have classified the fire hazards of building according to Table 25.4. 

BS 5423 1987 Portable fire extinguishers, British Standards Institution, London Classification of Fire Hazards in Buildings, Fire Offices Committee, London (1973)... 

Report of the Technical Sub Committee on the Fire Risks of New Materials. Home Office, London 1978. 

Various experiments and trials have been made with this explosive by Professor P.T. Cleve, M.P.F. Chalon, C.N. Hake, and by a committee of officers of the Swedish Royal Artillery. It is elaimed that it is a very powerful and extremely safe explosive that it eannot be made to explode by frietion, shoek, or pressure, nor by electrieity, fire, lightning, c., and that it is specially adapted for use in eoal mines, c. that it ean only be exploded by means of a fulminate detonator, and is perfectly safe to handle and manufactme that it does not freeze, ean be used as a filling for shells, and lastly, can be cheaply manufactmed. 

In a series of experiments conducted by the War Office Chemical Committee on Explosives in 1891, it was conclusively shown that considerable quantities of cordite may be burnt away without explosion. A number of wooden cases, containing 500 to 600 lbs. each of cordite, were placed upon a large bonfire of wood, and burned for over a quarter of an hour without explosion. At Woolwich in 1892 a brown paper paeket containing ten cordite cartridges was fired into with a rifle (.303) loaded with cordite, without the explosion of a single one of them, which shows its insensibility to shoek. 

Housekeeping as used here includes indoor and outdoor plant care and maintenance. It extends to every part of the plant (offices, processing areas, laboratories, etc.) a fire that starts in an office area may be equally as serious as one that starts in the plant area. These topics are considered in great detail in the NFPA Fire Protection Handbook All personnel should be familiar with the material applicable to their operations. In addition, the safety committee should consider housekeeping practices in its inspection procedures. Of particular interest are building and plant care and maintenance, indoor and outdoor storage (manner of storage compatibility and... 

Assuming you are not the cause of the toxic situation and that you cannot flx it, extricate yourself or at least reduce your involvement. Take action such as resign from the committee, ask for a transfer to another department or office, request a new academic advisor, find a new position, or fire the client, owner, or customer. 

Oakland University established its Office of Environmental Health and Safety (EH S) in February 1990. It was not until 1991 however, with the advent of the Bloodbome Pathogens and Laboratory Right-to-Know Standards, that EH S began to interact directly with faculty regarding EH S issues (and the regulatory requirements thereof). The relationship developed slowly, and not without faculty resistance. The Laboratory Safety Committee, LSC (chaired by the Director of EH S), was established as a non-governing (advisory) body by OU s President in 1994, in response to a laboratory fire. LSC representation/distribution appears in Table I. 

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