Montclair State University Earns A+ in Life Safety

Going Above and Beyond Code Requirements with Latest Fire System Technology

    Media Contact: Jayson.Kneen@Honeywell.com

With its commitment to life safety and early fire detection, Montclair State University (MSU) has gone above and beyond code requirements with its installation of the latest in fire detection technology.

As the second largest university in New Jersey, Montclair State University’s campus incorporates a total of fifty-eight academic, administrative, and recreational facilities that serve the school’s 15,000 students – 3,500 of which live on campus in its dormitories. University Hall, the newest building on the MSU campus, is a seven-story building that houses forty percent of the university’s total classroom space. It also features a 500-person banquet hall on the top floor, two cooking labs, and the school’s entire information technology department - including all of the university’s servers. Needless to say, University Hall is clearly one of MSU’s most important buildings. As such, it was imperative to install a fire alarm system that could quickly detect a fire emergency and direct emergency responders to the precise location of the incident—helping them respond quickly, safely, and better informed.

Robert Ferrara, MSU’s Director of Fire Safety, explained, “of the school’s existing roster of buildings, all of which play critical roles in the school’s overall success, University Hall’s stature, combined with the fact that it was brand new construction, made it a perfect fit for NOTIFIER’s ONYX FirstVision.”

ONYX FirstVision from NOTIFIER, a world leading manufacturer of commercial fire alarm systems technology and part of Honeywell’s (NYSE:HON) Life Safety Group, is a graphical touchscreen interface for firefighters and emergency responders. ONYX FirstVision graphically displays critical information on the origin and spread of a fire, helping incident commanders quickly locate the emergency and make fast, well-informed decisions to extinguish the fire, reduce property loss, and save lives.

Making the choice to install FirstVision was a relatively easy one for Ferrara given the school’s existing relationship with NOTIFIER and its satisfaction with their fire-detection offerings.

“We strictly specify NOTIFIER equipment,” said Ferrara, a Building Fire Sub-Code official who has over 20 years experience in the fire industry as a licensed fire inspector, including two years as a State Fire Inspector, before arriving at MSU. “For us there is no alternative, and since beginning at Montclair State, I’ve worked to convert the entire campus over to NOTIFIER. After adding several ONYXWorks™ PC workstations for monitoring our fire and security systems and replacing three remaining panels with NOTIFIER products, we are now one-hundred percent NOTIFIER.”

Ferrara acknowledges that fire detection, which FirstVision addresses, often does not receive the same attention as suppression.

“Everybody keys on suppression,” he said. “Suppression is excellent and has its place, but early detection is critical as well. It’s a combined effort.” Fire alarm systems protect life safety; whereas, suppression systems protect property. The fire alarm system alerts occupants that there’s a fire emergency in the building and that they need to evacuate immediately. Ferrara continues, “in fact, we are putting in comprehensive fire alarm systems throughout all our buildings; that’s where FirstVision comes in.”

As Ferrara knows all too well, the majority of buildings are built according to budget; typically, the first things removed are the fire alarms going into the basement, into the mechanical room, and other places deemed lower priority in a bid to cut costs. MSU management, however, is all in favor of fire protection and early detection. That’s why the commitment to NOTIFIER equipment and FirstVision was made so readily.

“Although FirstVision is designed as a firefighting tool, the majority of the time a firefighter responds to a building for an alarm it’s a non-fire event,” said Ferrara. “It’s a pull station or a smoke detector, and a tool like FirstVision helps in dispatching manpower to the proper location.” They can investigate the situation, address it, and get back on active duty, ready for the next alarm. But in an emergency, when time is of the essence, FirstVision’s intuitive graphical interface will help responding firefighters quickly and precisely locate any one of the 200 smoke sensors, 50 duct smoke sensors, or 30 heat sensors installed in the seven-story University Hall building. They will spend less time trying to locate the fire and, as a result, can extinguish it faster. In addition to identifying active alarm devices, FirstVision will also help firefighters locate key resources like standpipe connections, emergency shut-off valves, and stairwells, as well as any structural or chemical hazards that exist. Using this information—not found on traditional fire alarm panels—combined with the ability to easily locate the alarm location, firefighters can perform their jobs safely and with greater efficiency…improving life safety and reducing potential property loss.

The University Hall project was actually one of the initial FirstVision applications. The installation – much of which was performed by Mahwah, N.J.-based Automatic Suppression & Alarm Systems, Inc., a longtime NOTIFIER distributor that specializes in the consultation, design and installation of engineered fire alarm and suppression systems – was accomplished in just eight days, including all custom graphic work.

According to Benjamin Pangert, a 2002 MSU alumnus and the Service Manager for Automatic Suppression and Alarm Systems, Inc. who oversaw the installation, “I primarily deal with customer service and project management. When the MSU project came up, I had an obvious inherent interest in the installation.” Pangert continued, “based on our company’s expertise, as well as my own knowledge of the school’s layout, I knew we were the best-equipped company to handle the installation. We were a natural fit for the project.”

“FirstVision is going to play a major part in our larger buildings moving forward,” Ferrara said. “We have a building, Schaffer Hall, for which we feel FirstVision would be perfect. It is going have two recital halls, the larger of which will hold up to 300 people. It’s an ideal spot for us to utilize the FirstVision product.” And based on the school’s highly positive reaction to the recently added FirstVision, they’re looking into implementing it university-wide.