FIR 4311 UNIT I ESSAY

UNIT I ESSAY

COLUMBIA SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY

Introduction

I live in a small suburb West of Texarkana Texas. You can access all the building codes that the City of Texarkana uses with this link: http://www.ci.texarkana.tx.us/148/Building-Codes-Brochures. The building inspectors and the building inspection office address is listed on the building codes and brochures web page. All the building codes that the city enforces are also listed on the web page. The building inspectors listed on the web page are employed with the city. The building inspectors perform many types of inspections on building to include fire inspections, but fire inspections are only a small portion. The fire inspections that the building inspectors perform are just general inspections.

Adopted Codes

The City of Texarkana uses the 2006 Edition of the International Fire Code. The International Fire Code 2006 Edition was approved and adopted by the city council during a normal city council meeting. There have been updates to the International Fire Code, but our local city council has not adopted the new codes as policy for the city. The Fire Marshal will provide recommendations to the City Council if it is determined that codes need to be updated or modified. Updates to any building codes must be adopted by the city council in order for the codes to be used and enforced. The adopted fire codes are in place to help citizens of the community when they are building a new structure or upgrading an existing structure. A builder must read and adhere to all codes that are adopted by the city prior to starting a project. A builder should read the code and then follow up with the standards. Codes may or may not have been updated when the structure was built. The State Fire Marshal has jurisdiction over all local fire departments in the state of Texas. The state fire marshal may be utilized upon request of a public or nonprofit entity with duties related to fire protection, advise or assist the entity in relation to those duties (Government code, Chapter 417. State Fire Marshal, Section 417.004 para e)

Enforcement

The major fire inspections of the buildings are performed by the Fire Inspectors. The Fire Inspectors are fireman whose only task is to perform fire inspections on buildings in the city. Fire Inspectors used to be fireman for the City of Texarkana, but have been promoted to Fire Inspectors. The Fire Inspectors are the subject matter experts when it comes to fire codes, so they are used to perform fire building code inspections. I have a personal friend who is a Fire Inspector. He told me that all fire codes are reported by the Fire Inspectors, but are enforced by the inspectors in the Inspections and Code Enforcement Division of the city. Any issues found during fire inspections are considered high priority and must be addressed in a timely manner. The Fire Inspector determines a time line that issues must addressed. The Fire Inspector must perform quality inspections in order to prevent fire hazards. Enforcing the codes during inspections will protect the city from law suits and protect the building owner from fire hazards in the future. If fire codes are not enforced then the Fire Inspector and the city can become liable if there is a fire emergency due to a code not being enforced. The Fire Inspector must have strong integrity when performing fire inspections and report all fire code issues.

Conclusion

In conclusion, fire inspections that are performed correctly are a very good tool to help prevent fire hazards in our city. All fire inspections must be enforced in order for the process to work properly. A fire inspector must perform the inspection correctly for all people the same. A fire inspector cannot “take it easy” on an inspection just because he or she may have a friendly relationship with the building owner.

REFERENCES

Retrieved from: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/docs/GV/htm/GV.417.htm