Shit's on Fire, Yo! All about NFPA Fire Code and One of My Favorite Red Team Cover Identities

[@DeviantOllam]

Hello to all the lovely Tom Scott newsletter readers joining us here this week. 👋😊👍 I bet you'll find the comments beneath my videos to be a far nicer place than many other KZbin comment sections. 😁💚

[@pdstahl84]

I love when my interests align like this.

[@Churro_Douglas]

👋

[@OutbackCatgirl]

out of curiosity, how many comments slip past the filters that you have to take a flamethrower to? :D

[@DeviantOllam]

@@OutbackCatgirl very very few. and I have a couple helpers, too 😉👍

[@MohammedAlQahtaniMSQ]

Did you say Wasta @31:12?

[@mjbates]

Thanks for always repeating the question of the un-mic'd people. It's so much easier to follow.

[@DeviantOllam]

My pleasure! I try to always do that 100% of the time.

[@error.418]

I second this, it should be the standard and I deeply appreciate it

[@JohlBrown]

something i learned from terrence mckenna talks on psychedelic salon

[@Dopesaur]

God, the energy in the room is goddamn ELECTRIC! People dream (and dread) having this many questions asked about their topic.

[@DeviantOllam]

i was SO happy about all these folk

[@revenevan11]

Seriously, this video was a blast to watch with that audience's energy!

[@EyeMWing]

So many people planning so many heists.

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

Of course the room has electric energy! It's 2024, not 1824!

[@OutbackCatgirl]

love me a room full of spicy brains of indeterminate gender presentation

[@theJoeFagan]

As a code enforcement official and fire code geek, I’m making popcorn… 🍿

[@theJoeFagan]

Excellent presentation! @deviantollam knows the topics better than many of the contractors in the industry today!

[@DeviantOllam]

@@theJoeFagan Thanks so much! I know I got one or two details incorrect so please do post corrections here in the comments

[@grimers3455]

I've been looking forward to this since Deviant announced he'd record and post it!

[@kchortu]

@@theJoeFagan he has too, failure is costly

[@snowingfate6100]

I think the key question is did you burn the popcorn or not, and if so was it for fun

[@hewhohasnoidentity4377]

Came straight from Technology Connections and enjoyed the entire talk. Awesome!

[@HughMessenger]

Can't believe I interrupted watching a 4 hour video about a Star Wars hotel to watch a 2 hour video about fire codes. Another awesome presentation, thank you.

[@Space_Parrot]

Nice, Jenny is the bomb!

[@liam_hurlburt]

and I can't believe that I would know what video you're talking about, except I knew IMMEDIATELY seriously, how much overlap between Dev's audience and Jenny's audience is there?

[@NickRuedig]

Enough! ​@@liam_hurlburt

[@FernandoTakai]

lmao, i love jenny's videos. the star wars hotel is a total banger.

[@ethanblake3551]

@@liam_hurlburt It's the "I love hearing passionate people talk about something interesting to them in long form" audience. That's why i'm here haha

[@fermitupoupon1754]

What kind of trouble can a building owner get into for violating fire code? Well quite a lot over here in NL. I used to rent an apartment from one of the largest estate companies in the country. One day I couldn't exit through the fire exit like I normally did, so I had to walk the 100+ metres to the central hall in order to get out of the building. So I checked the outside, as it turned out the outside of the fire exit has a key hole that my key would open. However it was only half a cylinder in the lock and the inside was just a blind, no way to unlock the door. Turns out residents of the building, including those on the ground floor, could lock the door from the outside with their key and then it couldn't be unlocked from the inside. I called my boss to tell him I'd be a little bit late that day and proceeded to call the fire department. They sent an inspector out to me, we walked the building and it turned out that each of the 14 fire exit doors had this issue and 4 or 5 of them were at that time locked from the outside. Suffice to say the inspector was not impressed. So he did the sensible thing, called some of his colleagues in other municipalities. They discovered that this method of saving a few euros on half of a lock cylinder was pretty much in every building that estate company owned. So the inspector called up the estate company, had them send "someone in charge" over to my building and told them in no uncertain terms that they had 48 hours starting the following morning at 6am to get ALL of those doors sorted and up to code. Failure to do so would be met with a 1500 euro fine per door per day that it wasn't in compliance. It took the estate company close to a month to fix thousands of doors, it cost them close to a million euro in fines. They never replaced the half-cylinder locks, as that'd be too expensive. They just send maintenance crews with axle grinders to cut the deadbolts off. Making the doors self closing, self latching, but no longer lockable.

[@eminatorstudios]

That's honestly really disheartening to hear. The fact that nothing really got fixed makes the fine seem so pointless. Just the cost of doing business.

[@henrikoldcorn]

@@eminatorstudiosHow is that not fixed? The fire exits became compliant. The company got a stern lesson in doing things right the first time.

[@uzlonewolf]

@@henrikoldcorn Here in the U.S., "cut deadbolt off with angle grinder" is not an approved field modification and would void the assembly's listing.

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

​@@uzlonewolfthe door opens, doesn't it?

[@uzlonewolf]

@@thewhitefalcon8539 And where is the documentation stating that it has been tested in the new configuration and will open under conditions found in an emergency? Testing and certification by organizations such as U.L. and TÜV are required for a reason.

[@egorman2979]

There was a fire yesterday 6/6/2024 at the Hyatt Place in downtown Knoxville. It originated in a 7th floor elevator maintenance room. It is amazing that because of everything you talk about there were not any injuries. The fire was contained to just that room. 50 years ago, that could have been a devastating fire, now it barely made the local news. The hotel has some smoke damage from where firefighters had to open doors but the multiple systems worked perfectly to allow everyone to get out. You didn't talk about elevators here but that system kicked in and platformed themselves at the lobby with doors open; even with the controls possibly being on fire.

[@x--.]

I love the mundanity of success when it comes to safety. Every rollover someone walks away from, every fire that snuffs out with no lives lost, every ship where the watertight doors make it mere annoyance, every flight where the door blows out and no person does (okay, that one was more luck than not) is a tribute to the will to make things better, sadly, it's usually predicated on the passion of those who have lost loved ones from prior incidents. But those successes are proof that where there is the will, the law mandating it and enforcement, we can save lives.

[@piedpiper1172]

@@x--.The mundanity brings its own form of risk. After all, there is no greater proof that no good deed goes unpunished than the fact that the poor assholes who busted their butts preventing Y2K have been mercilessly mocked about it being “fake” for 24 years.

[@sonadorbroadcastingservice2330]

Hi! I'm a former water-based fire suppression system technician. In regards to water companies shutting off the water, *most* places have a domestic service line and a fire service line, both tapped from the under-street water main. If you don't pay your water bill, the domestic service line gets shut off. Your faucets stop working, your showers stop working, but the fire risers remain in service. There's very few instances in which, unless the huge city main is disrupted, a fire riser will lose water. Even abandoned buildings with sprinklers will have water service to the riser(s) in most cases unless, say, the system is activated by vandals or scrappers and the fire department cuts off the service at the main riser gate (OS&Y) valve. There's of course exceptions to this in rural areas where water isn't provided by a waterworks, or cities and such where age is a consideration, but even in hundred year old buildings on the Hudson, *most* buildings with sprinklers have a water line for people and a water line for fire protection piped separately off the water main or tapped *before* the domestic service meters and shutoff. I don't know anything about the law when it comes to payments or domestic water service and I imagine it varies *wildly* from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but there's a prevailing wind of "I don't care how much they owe you, unless it's impacting the health or ability of others to have safe drinking water, if the building's occupied, you give them water. Sue them if you want the money" and I think that's a good thing. Feel free to ask me anything about sprinkler systems, and if I know the answer I'll be happy to help!

[@DeviantOllam]

That's so cool to learn about, thank you!

[@Whitebird443]

it happened at the building i work at. The pressure in the water main was cut by the city. The city turned the water back on during a saturday afternoon and SURPIRSE! Sprinklers went off in the boiler room, elevators flooded.... A year later there is a company in the building now going through every floor testing pressure.

[@mikekollross8810]

I've worked as a security officer in a large hospital and I'm currently a firefighter Its worth noting that NFPA is not a regulatory body. They do not do enforcement and they do not do fines or criminal charges. The NFPA standards are best practices but are THE standard. Most of the standards are obviously codified into law by the local jurisdiction On the outside of any commercial structure will have an FDC. Fire Department Connection. It allows a fire engine to connect and pump the fire suppression system. The in building system has pumps and water but not the flow that a fire truck can provide direct from a hydrant and pumps etc. can fail but generally the piping will be intact. Its worth noting that fire hydrants are rated by their flow and are color coded. The colors oddly match the order of the sprinkler bulbs. The color of the caps on a fire hydrant let the engineer running the fire truck know what kind of flow they can expect at just a quick glance. Blue is the best. Followed by the traffic light order. Green, then yellow, then Red. A low flow hydrant would require a second engine to connect to a second hydrant and relay pump to the initial engine. A more contemporary fire that resulted in fire code changes would be the the Cocoanut Grove Nightclub fire took place in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1942 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoanut_Grove_fire Hospitals are designed around fire spread. Carpet, wall coverings, garbage cans. Everything is chosen around fire spread. An elderly person is a walker should be ale to outpace a fire in a hospital. Its part of what allows locked egress doors etc. A fire on one wing would not necessarily unlock doors off the unit itself.

[@Yugophoto]

Funfact about an institutional environment I have worked in - a hospital psych unit. Many times individual rooms (specifically the locked rooms) would have individual water/sprinkler shutoffs for that specific room, because people would try to break the sprinkler heads. If someone did, staff could isolate that specific room from the system and prevent the doors from unlocking. Though an alarm would still sound and security would still have to attend the room.

[@DeviantOllam]

wow fascinating... where were the shutoffs? out in the hallway? manual valves or electronic somehow?

[@Yugophoto]

@@DeviantOllam There was a service closet directly next to each of the secured rooms - staff could shut off water, sprinkler, power, and access a cleanout for the drains so all that work could be done without entering the room. The closet contained manual valves. The staff station also included a water shutoff electronic button, but I dont believe that affected the fire sprinklers, just the washroom. When occupied, the rooms had to be constantly monitored by a staff member who would have a key to open those closets.

[@nyandyn]

Police department cell blocks have a similar issue, as matches and lighters are relatively easy to smuggle in. I have worked with a customer that installs Marioff Hi-Fog systems in institutions like these. Instead of traditional sprinkler heads, they have solenoid-controlled valves that pump out mist that is supposed to both reduce water damage and allow creating buffer zones to trap smoke particulate. I wrote a valve control app that runs on a touchscreen computer in the CCTV control room. When a fire detector is triggered, the traditional backup fire alarm system defers the general alarm for a short time while our software commands valves open in affected zones and lets security guards assess the situation. Valves can be both shut and opened remotely and the pump can be stopped in case the valves are stuck open. The final backup shutoff is the manually operated gate valve in the pump room. So, if you ever get too drunk in $EU_COUNTRY, get thrown in the cell and see a fancy sprinkler system, don't try to trigger it. You'll only end up getting wet.

[@DeviantOllam]

@@nyandyn that is truly fascinating and I've never seen that before, indeed!

[@christopherguy1217]

Great fun talk. 😀 Just one accessory if you're carrying a hard hat, wear steel toed boots. There is no place that requires a hard hat that doesn't require steel toed boots.

[@phillyphakename1255]

Non steel toed hiking boots will work in a pinch, but authentic steel toe is better.

[@christopherguy1217]

@@phillyphakename1255 You'll need to sew on the green triangle (or whatever your jurisdiction uses) to identify them as compliant boots. Any place that requires safety footwear is trained to look for the compliance indicators. In the US and Canada that's a green leather triangle.

[@HanzHermannHoppe]

My job requires a hard hat and full length boots but not steel toes.

[@ckbhack]

Not true at all.

[@TheSkiingtuba]

@@christopherguy1217That green triangle is for the Canadian Safety Administration, and isn’t a requirement in all industrial environments in the US.

[@phyphor]

I know you don't need praise but I want to say it anyway: the way you handle questions is admirable. You ensure people don't get missed, try to do it in order where possible, defer to experts in the room, admit you don't know things when you don't. It's all amazing and it's a shame not everyone does it like you.

[@DeviantOllam]

🥹 thank you so much for seeing what I try to put into the vibe when I have a room like this. I really want everyone to feel seen and involved as much as I can

[@junglesairsoftblog6311]

After 25 years as a service engineer I throughly appreciate the power of a polo shirt with a logo, being acompanied can be annoying but if you are really friendly and explain in great depth how a machine works they generally go away in under 5 minutes.

[@kg4gav]

I have an amber light that I got off a truck at a salvage yard. Don't need the cord, just chopped it off and can magnet it to the truck whenever I need to park somewhere unauthorized froa few minutes. Kick on the hazard flashers and go about my business. I already drive a white pickup, and a few magnetic " This vehicle makes frequent stops" or Speed monitored by GPS, a yellow vest on the passenger seat, hardhat and a lunch bag...no one will bother you. The magnetic door signs are good...but if you want to go all out, buy a used Cricut vinyl cutter and make yourself some FakeCo. door decals. They look authentic and remove easy enough if you don't leave them on too long. You can even pre-make them and put them on a rental if needed.

[@coffeegonewrong]

When you hit your big box craft store, looks for PSV ( pressure sensitive vinyl). You don’t have to buy Cricut brand and usually something is on sale. Also, they have 2 varieties usually. One is “Permanent” for vehicles, water bottles, that stuff. The Semi-Permanent is usually for wall decals and things you really need to be able to peel off. This will safe uncomfortable explanations to a rental place later. Tip: also buy the clear transfer vinyl. It’ll save so much time trying to line up the pieces later so long as it lined up in the software. 🙃

[@JohnDlugosz]

@@coffeegonewrong you can also weaken the adhesive using talcum powder. Also, what if you Turtle Wax the truck first? If the decal is not actually stuck to the clearcoat but has a sacrificial layer in between, you should always be able to remove cleanly without harsh solvents.

[@System-zu7np]

​@@JohnDlugosz and if you dont know where to get talcum, baby powder is the same stuff just with perfume added (at least the brands i used)

[@Aleph_Null_Audio]

Tom Scott brought me here. This lecture shows perfectly that an enthusiastic teacher makes any subject interesting!

[@fakjbf3129]

1:02:12 I’ve got a funny anectdote for this, I was working in the back room at a Lowe’s when my manager came over with a forklift and one of the new employees. The employee said “I wasn’t aware that was an emergency exit” and the manager replied “Do you think something like painting a yellow box on the ground would help identify it as such?”. The new guy said yes at which point the manager used the forklift to shift a pallet out from in front of the emergency exit revealing the bright yellow painted box on the ground.

[@DeviantOllam]

hahaha perfect

[@KeiferKurre]

Sent this to some NFPA guys, the NFSA, and some companies in the industry. Thanks Deviant, you're one of the best, seriously.

[@DeviantOllam]

i can't wait to hear what they reply. they'll catch some of my small errors! (like delayed egress... i said 30 seconds or 60 seconds, that's incorrect... 30 is the maximum allowable. 15 seconds is much more common)

[@KeiferKurre]

@@DeviantOllam I play DND with a former NFPA guy, so I'll see him this Friday. Codes dense and has changed a bunch over the years. It's one of those ones where if you're just reading the updates like patch notes, it's not too bad but getting into it is rough.

[@amolloy02]

Wow! The energy in this video is palpable. One of these days I'll make it out to one of these. Don't retire anytime soon!!

[@DeviantOllam]

yeah this was the perfect crowd!

[@MustangBranden]

Diesel engine pumps are connected to an external water source (large tank) designed to run until total destruction if need be. It’s also double redundant (2 starters and 2 battery sources). I used to work on them and they’re badass. Also usually the company that services the generator (Cat Cummins etc) services the fire pump.

[@cwjsmit64]

Canadian Generator mechanic here: That's called Chicago Protocol up here and some places do use it. Unfortunately a lot of places here still have engine protection shutdowns because they're allowed to... Absolutely stupid to me. If that pump is running it's because it HAS to, and in my opinion they should run until they melt or seize if necessary. We have some big holes in life safety legislation up here.

[@MarcoTedaldi]

​@@cwjsmit64 maybe it might be advisible to make sure that the emergency water supply doesn't become a fire hazard by itself.

[@supersat]

@1:00:40 this reminds me of the Shmoocon 2019 party where the fire alarm went off and hotel security (Hilton, again, heh) wouldn't let people take their drinks outside, which caused back-pressure on people trying to evacuate, leading to a *very* slow evacuation... Something like >10 minutes to get everyone out, while it only took 90 seconds for everyone to get back in once the all-clear was given

[@DeviantOllam]

i remember that. i definitely took my drinks outside, stiff-arming hotel staff in the process. they have absolutely no authority to prevent free movement of people during an emergency situation.

[@wobblysauce]

That was not a good look.

[@aukora129]

I will absolutely never use this information professionally, but it will forever sit in the back of my head from now on as I inspect every door and all fire hardware I see to someday find one egregious enough to contact the AHJ

[@NathanielStauber]

I have an answer to your question about missing bottom rods as a building maintenance technician. They get broken and are too expensive to replace. People running carts into them is most common. Far too many of our doors have received field expedient LBR conversions, with varying degrees of success.

[@dvol]

For anyone who hasn't seen it, it's worth looking up those photos of a room burned to an absolute crisp, and everything outside of the door is fine. We think a door, especially a wooden one, isn't going to do much against a fire. Makes it a bit hard to internalize all the advice about checking for smoke under the door, or not opening the door if the handle is hot. But wooden fire doors are no joke. Doors will save your life. The talk was great fun! But also, it's cool how we're all going to be paying a lot more attention to doors as a fire safety device.

[@wufftwenty-sixteen5567]

Please please please tell that to the fine folk on the second floor of the apartment building I used to live in. They always jammmed the door labelled "FIRE DOOR; KEEP CLOSED" open.

[@jfbeam]

Right. When people tell me my battery box has to be metal, I just point them to the fire rating of oak plywood. (it would take hours for a fire to get through. li-ion battery fires only last minutes. much of what you see in yt videos is the other things it sets of fire... carpet, tires, etc.)

[@lightningdemolition1964]

I watched the whole thing in one go. I wish i had been at that conference. The amazing thing about this is absolutely no ad breaks. I have seen other things like this where they had an unskippablr ad every five minutes. Thank you for valuing my time.

[@amirtitelbaum3145]

When will this guy learn that no one cares if the talk is long, or about "boring stuff". Everything he touches and talks about is gold. JUST FREAKING GO!!! Just talk until the sun comes up!

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

He is real life Ocean's One

[@_AvaGlass]

I was walking through an art museum in St Petersburg, prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There was a bunch of people crowded around a Leonardo da Vinci. I glance over, and there on the wall is the Shits On Fire Yo painting, being completely ignored. It was the highlight of my trip.

[@uis246]

I wish Old Rat sooner goes to Hauge.

[@Saand1338]

Oh hell yeah, two straight hours of conversational style infodump on safety codes. I love how fluid and engaged this whole talk is 😁 Thanks again for making sure it was recorded to be posted online Deviant

[@AKknapper]

Hey Deviant, I've worked at a place that had a sauna. The sauna had an entry area outside of it with a door to close it off from the rest of the hallways, and the engineers didn't do preparation for the heat in that area. The 155 f burst soon after the place was up and running. The building had that sprinkler trigger, and had to replace it with a green one. Thought you might get a kick out of this!

[@jhonbus]

Great talk! I used to be front of house manager in a large museum with a conference centre attached, so I've seen just about every possible way of defeating fire safety provisions anyone has ever come up with. Events staff using a fire exit corridor as a storage closet was a classic, personal favourite was probably when I saw a fire extinguisher missing from its hook, went to look for it and found it propping open a fire door. But the most shocking example was when the museum converted a basement into a brand new flagship gallery (cost in the milliions, fancy architects, etc) and then decided it needed a new gift shop kiosk just outside the gallery entrance. Fine, but then someone (not the architects clearly) OK'd converting the bottom of the stairwell into a stockroom. Apparently nobody realised this was a no-no and I was the first one to express any sort of concern! In the end the "fix" was to designate that stairwell as "not a fire exit" which meant we had to reassess all the building capacity numbers and redo tons of signage, rework our evacuation sweep routes, and on busy days, monitor the visitor numbers in one half of the building to ensure we didn't go over capacity. Absolute nightmare for such a stupid reason. And not even worth it since they ended up closing the gift shop kiosk after the first exhibition because it didn't even take enough money to pay for the retail assistant staffing it.

[@mathnerd314159]

"No exit through the gift shop."

[@VeraTR909]

I'm happy that friendly, open and interesting people like you exist :)

[@DeviantOllam]

i'm happy that this makes you happy 😊

[@MrSmeagolsGhost]

The thing about murals, it's semi common in some institutional environments (think dementia wards) get exemptions to disquse the doors to prevent residents getting fixated on the exits. They get exemptions based on having procedures to assit and flashing lights on the exits.

[@TheTigero]

Deviant is the best presenter of nerdly knowledge. Every single presentation he does is a treat.

[@DeviantOllam]

☺️ thanks for thinking that!

[@SLLabsKamilion]

@@DeviantOllam thanks for being the guy that *literally* represents it on the internet.

[@DrownedLamp]

Fire saftey while doing dishes, noice. I'm 20 min in and the audience is great. Really shows how valuable inperson shows are.

[@phillyphakename1255]

This might just replace your adult industry talk as my favorite Dev' talk. Adult industry was so great because it was clearly designed for a specific audience. Those were always my favorite essays to write in school, thinking about what to include for the target audience, what wording to use, etc. That talk was a masterclass of the genre. Turns out with this speech that you also have a target audience: nerds. We all get super excited about connecting dots between disparate fields, like security and safety. You rocked the room.

[@ZMacGregor]

Adult industry? Like adult film? Trying to think of how he would consult for that lol

[@phillyphakename1255]

@@ZMacGregor yes. it was a talk about physical and digital safety at a PH run conference. The overlap between people providing film services and people providing in person services is narrowing, you might follow someone on OF then meet with them IRL, maybe at a hotel, maybe at a personal residence. What's the security like? Hey, just so you know, under door tools exist! EXIF data exists on photos, too, so be careful with what data you are leaking for creepers to find you. Dev is all about threat modeling. Adult industry people have threats, and that talk walked through how to think about and respond to them, and he did it in a very empathetic and competent way.

[@stuarttomlinson1819]

​@@ZMacGregorAdult film stars are much more likely than the average person to have some creepy stalker try to break into their house or place of work, and the sets they work at probably aren't that well secured. IIRC Dev's talk focused on ways to prevent creeps from getting places you don't want them.

[@Alex-wi1mx]

​@@ZMacGregorits his "from street to suite" talk, hotel/residential security stuff talk but written with sex workers in mind

[@peraltarockets]

My old condo building learned about triggering an alarm by opening a sprinkler the fun way. One of our neighbors had an upstairs neighbor playing loud EDM into the small hours of the morning. He started pounding on his ceiling with a broomstick, and hit the sprinkler head. Those evacuation alarms are VERY loud.

[@WRWhizard]

HVAC tech here. In our hall way shelves are several aerosol cans of CO provided by (I think) it was April Aire for the purpose of testing their CO detectors. They have been there for years unused but I know they exist. I just checked and they are available at Home Depot too.

[@takeaim420]

I strongly recommend pairing this video with your favorite mid shelf bourbon and Deviant’s video on elevators

[@HaileySchmailey]

This was, without a doubt, your best talk ever.

[@DeviantOllam]

it was certainly the best audience ever =)

[@MikeHarris1984]

Def up there. I love the elevator talk too. Between the elevator and now this, I'll likely re watch many many times. I love going to conferences where the speaker is engaging and draws in the audience. When it's just a dry reading slides one by one, word for word, I just want to fall asleep. Lol

[@HaileySchmailey]

@@MikeHarris1984 from the pit to the penthouse was also my number 1 before this one!

[@SLLabsKamilion]

right up there with Turning one Gun into Five.

[@EyeMWing]

5-over-1's are actually specifically a weird edge case in the fire code - the ground floor is ordinary or noncombustible, and then the upper 5 stories are a combination of engineered wood beam (similar fire performance to timber framed) and normal wood stick construction. Essentially a 5-story apartment building made out of wood, sitting on the roof of a strip mall. They're basically firetraps compared to what you'd expect a 6 floor mixed-use building to be, and exploit the edge cases in the fire and building codes to enable cheaper construction. And they look pretty dang fireproof at ground level.

[@andrewmurschel2608]

Seems like it's literally class5 OVER class1 😊

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

​@@andrewmurschel2608it is also 5 stories over 1 story by coincidence

[@johnhunter5247]

@@thewhitefalcon8539 Pretty sure it's normally 3 over 1 in terms of stories. It annoys me too.

[@A_Casual_NPC]

You said people would be asking a whole bunch of questions, but not that it all would be actuaally amazing questions

[@StuartRedman]

I swear this dude works a crowd so well! I've watched so many of Deev's presentations on "dry" topics and it never feels slow or uninteresting. I can imagine these conversation skills could only help when doing pentesting :)

[@mckaymatts]

Checked into a hotel tonight, saw a door stop wedge holding a rated fire door open, got to apply this knowledge to bore a hotel clerk into fixing it.

[@AuthenticUnicorn]

Fabulous

[@Xvladin]

Have you been checked for autism?

[@elliotagnew9960]

Lol, in the spring, I saw some things that seemed off to me at my university. So I read the NFPA 101 and IFC fire codes and sure enough they were violations. Reported it to our fire and life safety department, fixed same day. I might also be a bit autistic 😅

[@BlackSoap361]

Well this might impede my plan for an Exit Sign Museum.

[@DeviantOllam]

😂

[@drstefankrank]

You just need enough exit doors for your museum.

[@Molon_Labe1776]

Variance?

[@mathnerd314159]

@@drstefankrankCall it "Oops! All exit doors."

[@kdawson020279]

You also can bore people to death with your copy of NFPA 70 (edit: I appended sn E in error, it's just 70) the National Electric Code. I'm an electrician and physical plant mechanic. I work in access controlled facilities. Some are tied to fire suppression, some are not. I also have fail-secure doors that won't open from the outside even in a fire. So, in less modern structures where the old code is grandfathered in, don't assume anything. I work in facilities from the 19th century to today.

[@HOLOGRAPHICpizza]

Sorry to be pedantic but NFPA 70 is the National Electric Code, NFPA 70E is the "Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace". 70 is the code your electrical installation must conform to, while 70E is about safe work practices for keeping electricians safe on the job.

[@kdawson020279]

@@HOLOGRAPHICpizza My bad. I have been doing continuing ed on arc flash prevention, risk assessment, LOTO, and PPE. I have 70E on the brain. Also haven't been sleeping great and some of my gaffes are the product of insomnia. You are correct.

[@seansmith5970]

As someone who couldn't make it this year, thank you for putting this up.

[@DeviantOllam]

You're most welcome!

[@MegaFPVFlyer]

Thank you for acknowledging that a lot of the people who enjoy these sorts of talks are some flavor of Neurospicy. I feel seen here, lol

[@Crftbt]

Your phone footage is SO much better than the conference footage.

[@eldias5387]

The podcast "Make No Law" (Can't recommend enough, only a few episodes, does great storytelling around major 1A law cases) has an episode talking about the trope of "Fire in a crowded theater". As a lead in to your Theater Fire segment it would be cool to see a slide talking about the trope before going in to how horrifyingly real theater fires were in the early 1900s. In the discussion on fire sprinklers your slide showed varying size gas bubbles in the liquid. "Ordinary Structures" had the smallest. It would be interesting to see how big of a gas pocket higher temp bulbs have! Also, definitely don't hang clothes in them. My brother-in-law did that flooded his second storey apt's bathroom pretty badly. I'm disappointed Group H wasn't "Hotels, Motels, Holiday Inns" huge missed opportunity. Holy shit I miss Mitch. I drank more as the talk went on (definitely not noticeable in critique length). I loved it. Thanks for continuing to share your knowledge and expertise freely Deviant. You rock.

[@DeviantOllam]

Quite the most outstanding comment of this length that I've read in a while! Have an internet award! 🏆 For real, though, you really were hanging on to every detail and that's really cool! I've never seen the ultra high sprinkler bulbs, myself... Sure would like to! (Also, your Rapper's Delight reference there gave me a huge smile!)

[@ryano.5149]

Remember folks, it's only illegal to yell "fire" in a crowded theater if there IS NO FIRE. If there actually IS a fire in a crowded theater, it may be considered the appropriate course of action depending on the situation!

[@arir43]

I'm glad I got to see this in person, and at my first con. This is my favorite talk of Deviant's (your's?) so far, up there with and above the elevator talk and Through the Eyes of a Thief. Like many people, the door inspection was easily my favorite part and was a great way to engage us (the audience). The badges afterwards were also great fun, so thanks for doing to work to set that up (and not getting brought down by the curse of live demos). TL:DR; Really awesome talk, and it definitely contributed to making my first con an awesome one. Thank you.

[@DeviantOllam]

thank you so very very much

[@RobotCrafter1]

Oh yes, I love me some fire code. Past few years have been studying electrical technology, love it.

[@DeviantOllam]

👨‍🚒🚒👩‍🚒🧯

[@CodeZero4090]

Also @deviant, in my experience if you experience a water loss on a charged wet pipe system IT WILL trigger a "Low-pressure" alarm on the newer systems and on older systems it generally does trigger a full alarm activation. Thanks

[@DeviantOllam]

yes, an alarm activation... but it can't cause a release from the sprinkler heads

[@jfbeam]

@@DeviantOllam It can if it's a deluge type. (personally never seen such) I've seen just such an activation due to an ice storm power outage. It was overflowing the stand pipe turning the parking lot into a skating rink. While I was in the building (telco), I didn't have access to dismiss the alarm. (facilities moron has to get there to do that.) I did climb the 9 flights of stairs to confirm there was no fire on the 9th floor. (there were no secondary alarms, so relatively safe to venture up there.)

[@F3ST3Rfilms]

Absolutely ELECTRIC crowd for such a dry talk. Only Deev is capable of such things. Genuinely excited for the paint drying (and whisky tasting) seminar. With a bonus story about how deev broke into a building by pretending to test for proper latex content in wall paint ((Non occupancy spaces may be litigated differently)ask your AHJ) "Mister security guard, I would love to leave like you want me to, but these walls FAR exceed the max permissible DEEViation for latex content!" (Edit: misspelled "me")

[@AuthenticUnicorn]

Okay... your comment made me giggle.

[@bstrickler]

Commercial aircraft also sometimes will have water fire extinguishers as well as the Halon. If you see a gray fire extinguisher, that's a water based extinguisher.

[@danfedynyshyn]

I can say from experience, loss of water pressure/supply due to shutoff in response to a main break can/will set off the alarms on the standpipe. A small business I used to work for had exactly this happen. The owner who lived down the street got a call around 4/5am from the fire alarm company letting him know that either the water was disconnected or the sprinklers were going off. This resulted in a 50-something year old man running, in sweatpants and a t-shirt down a Boston street in winter.

[@TheAechBomb]

don't industrial extinguishers usually have pressurized systems with check valves to prevent backflow? water stagnates in these systems, I wouldn't want any of that feeding back into my drinking water

[@Jszar]

@@TheAechBombIt might depend on how old the fire suppression system is. Boston has some of the oldest still-in-use buildings in the U.S., so there’s a lot of places where stuff’s been grandfathered in past multiple code changes.

[@MrAlbinocreeper]

​@TheAechBomb yes, but even installed new, they are allowed to lose some pressure over time.

[@jamcdonald120]

0:10 you put an 8 hour talk on youtube with a bunch of stories, I WILL WATCH IT.

[@gabeeg]

I was clicking around for instant gratification on a Saturday afternoon...amazed I spent 2hours riveted the entire time. Well done!

[@Drunk-Mosquitos]

I didn't even notice the time stamp. I saw Dev had a new video and it was about fire code - I just clicked it.

[@JohnDoe-fk6id]

Just FYI, Halon was almost entirely replaced with Halotron (at least in motorsports environment), which is less shitty for the environment.

[@coffeegonewrong]

A common one for telecom and datacenter goes by the trade name SAPPHIRE, it’s meant to be non-conductive and low cleanup. Also supposedly only mildly toxic until heated. When it encounters fire it’s best to clear the area but you can survive accidental discharges. ( this anecdote was from an fire system installer about his own personal experiences)

[@jfbeam]

All the motorsports I'm aware of use AFFF. (non-PFOA/S that shit's been banned for decades.) It's still water based, so not a great idea around powered systems. (eg. data center.)

[@jacobstory8895]

I learned today that I want to be a code enforcement official. I enjoyed this way too much.

[@kaapporaivio]

35:24 The blue ones are used in Finland in public saunas!

[@DeviantOllam]

that is amazing and i'd love photos if possible! (with everyone wearing clothes, please, haha)

[@ErdTirdMans]

@@DeviantOllam What if they consented to having their jibblies photographed? Free jibblies!

[@kaapporaivio]

Yeah lol I seem to get banned for trying to post a link to a product page

[@DeviantOllam]

@@kaapporaivio oh KZbin blocks external links sometimes. I can Google it if you have a name or something

[@kaapporaivio]

At least esaunashop has one (although I've never heard of them before), try "sprinklers for sauna"

[@Heinz-p1m]

Awesome talk and wonderful you included all those questions! Excellent as always, Deviant.

[@aziztcf]

if hacker cons keep fucking up av what chance the general population has..

[@WoodenPlankGames]

In their defence, the cons are usually in pre existing structures using systems they did not configure.

[@Alexalas1]

Literally minutes after hearing you talk about the Iroquois Theatre I see it listed in my Fire Officer text book while studying.

[@civilbeard]

I can't believe I just watched a 2-hour powerpoint presentation and liked it. Great video!

[@Bigrignohio]

I work for an engineering firm. It is AMAZING what a hardhat and clipboard does to get you access. And some engineering companies are lazy. They put the door power supplies above the lay-in ceiling above the UNSECURE side. Mag locks, cut power. Electric strikes, a quick jumper to the low voltage power supply to open. All you need is a screwdriver, a bit of wire, and something to stand on. And there are a lot of ladders in the typical building.

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

Sounds like something an intruder wouldn't have time to do.

[@VictoriousGardenosaurus]

And a four foot ladder makes you look the part of maintenance

[@Bigrignohio]

@@thewhitefalcon8539 What intruder? "I am here to do a take-off for the proposed renovation.". And they step aside.

[@ethanchapman1776]

I love all the little privacy redaction details. Delivering to Your Mom at 50:50 got me good

[@dbackscott]

Another cover story you might want to try / research is an environmental engineering technician conducting a Phase 1 Environmental Site Assessment.

[@mu11668B]

As a cybersec personnel, this talk is full of pristine hacker energy and I love it!

[@peterannabel]

Our lady of the angels fire was another terrible one in Chicago that led to better code around fire doors and stairwells.

[@matthewmiller6068]

First time I learned about pressure/flow alarms on fire systems was at work, the county water system had a problem resulting in pressure loss and there was some kind of "back-flow" from the fire suppression system setting the alarms off. I'm told back when the building was constructed there were also issues with pressure changes at the top of the hour a huge number meetings ended and most of the toilets were being flushed at the same time caused enough of a pressure change to set the fire alarms off. Apparently they had to put in some kind of additional check valves or pressure tanks to help it absorb sudden changes.

[@user-yb7im5ku2c]

On the matter of vehicle cleanliness - no matter how dirty we field guys got, we were always expected to keep our work trucks (aka our “rolling billboards”) clean and presentable, especially if they were newer. The public may not see us working, but they sure as hell see the trucks.

[@dgwdgw]

1. My building is testing fire alarms while your premiere runs, coincidentally. 2. I learned that the countdown sequence you picked wasn't custom-made by the music label I thought made it for their concert premieres 😮

[@jessicav2031]

Have done some work on electronics for K-12 lockdown systems. There is indeed a heck of a lot of tension between codes and active-sh***** procedures. Strangely, a lot of variances are issued right after an "event" happens nearby. And a lot of places have standard procedure now for teachers to initially ignore fire alarms until they get confirmation. What could possibly go wrong?

[@PurpleXVI]

I can't believe this doesn't have more likes, this is one of the most fascinating videos I've ever watched.

[@EyeKnowRaff]

The former firefighter/paramedic and current security enjoyer in me very much enjoyed this presentation.

[@RossRadford]

Little-known fact. Per the NEC, you are allowed to wire a fire suppression pump and fire alarm systems directly from the supply side of the electrical system. That means no breaker. Fire pumps still need to have a service disconnect somewhere, but the point is, on fire pump systems if you turn off all the breakers, the pump and alarms may still have power.

[@DoesNotComphoot]

"Not about all the puppygirls out there." Deviant, holy fucking shit.

[@grant5227]

Id love to see a talk where you have nothing prepared and just let the audience ask questions that remind you of good stories for 3 hours.

[@DeviantOllam]

I could do that. Like an Evening with Kevin Smith

[@supersat]

1:01:45 the issue with "emergency exit only" is that from Google Maps, it looks like there's a bus stop that serves that lower entrance

[@AuthenticUnicorn]

OooOo this is interesting information!

[@KaneYork]

Proper signage would be "EXIT TO LOWER LEVEL + BUSES" then? It's still an exit but you have good wayfinding. Maybe even "⤵️ parking lot" too

[@ncrshane1919]

Awesome talk as always. A little anecdote in reference to the section around 50 mins with fake service vehicles. I know a guy who got lost and ended up in a "secure" area at Pratt & Whitney, he had a silver Jeep with a Whelen light bar on the roof he used for roadside assistance. He made a wrong turn and security waved him right through a security checkpoint. He was trying to find the way out and started seeing "Restricted Area" signage... He was helping block traffic at a wreck with that same vehicle one time and cops put a guy in his back seat thinking it was a patrol car. He had a net behind the front seats to hang stuff on and they apparently thought it was a cage. Never underestimate what you can get away with when you drive a plain vehicle with emergency lights.

[@crimiusXIII]

I will never not click on "Shit's on Fire, Yo!"

[@anilykabarry4380]

As a fellow neurospicy, that was one of the most interesting talks I've seen in a long time! I'd been interested in this kind of stuff but I realize just how little I know! And it's only making me want to learn more. Stay safe, and carry on!

[@Stormmo-wn5ve]

This was so fun to listen to. I thought I'll watch a couple minutes only, but stuck around for the whole thing

[@DeviantOllam]

hah, my talks can be like that, lol

[@Frustratedfool]

The Victoria Hall disaster(Sunderland UK) occurred on 16 June 1883 when a rush to get a free toy resulted in a the crush because the fire doors opened inwards. 183 children were killed in the crush due to asphyxiation. This changed building designs so that all fire exits opened outwards so a rush to the exit didn’t block the doors from opening.

[@DeviantOllam]

what an awful tragedy. i'm so glad to learn that you folk also adopted building code (and seemingly a little sooner than we did across the pond, in fact!)

[@Keilsyar]

This talk was fantastic in person and nearly as good via video. Well done and thank you!

[@DeviantOllam]

So glad you got a lot out of it! 😁👍

[@nyandyn]

I'm not a red team guy, just a software dev who has to do on-site gigs thanks to too much domain specific knowledge... and I almost always end up social engineering myself in because customers cannot be arsed to give us proper permits despite asking us to visit them.

[@Fulmir-]

Two things... One, regarding the 5 over 1 thing. You clearly need to be introduced to "Well There's Your Problem", a podcast about engineering disasters. With slides. Two, motion for all future Deviant Ollam talks to be at the end of the conference!

[@DeviantOllam]

I have that episode downloaded!

[@MichaelGatti]

Brilliant talk. Didn't expect to hang on every word of a talk about fire codes but here I am 2 hours later!

[@DavidProbinsky]

An absolute pleasure to watch this talk. So much valuable information, while at the same time super entertaining. Thank you for sharing with us, and hope you keep them coming. Stay safe! ❤

[@doodledibob]

This is absolutely beautiful work! Thank you for making this topic so fun and approachable. Definitely going to start reading more about this topic

[@PreloadedMind]

Inside the sprinkler head build is glycal with a colorant. And there is a small amount of air that allows for a specific amount of expansion before breaking the bulb.

[@Sycraft]

Regarding the metal fusible link for fire sprinklers: We actually DO have these in use in our building. The name stamped on them is "Rasco". Building was constructed in the 1980s and as far as I know they are all original, never needed replacement. I don't know what the advantages/differences are or why they were chosen.

[@weirdmindofesh]

Something I noticed and then found the source on Lori's blog, the photo showing the burned fire door, the smoke damage isn't rising from the door gap but from above the door frame itself. The door and frame hadn't failed, but the firewall itself was failing!

[@beers1892]

The orange caps are part of the device packaging prior to installation, they are frequently left in fire control rooms/panels for maintenance to cover smoke/heat detectors to prevent accidental activation or damage. as for the sprinkler covers those are a quality control seals that denote the temperature rating and is removed after installation so an older or damaged head is not used.

[@WilliamHaisch]

Technology Connections sent me! 😊

[@ianyboo]

Same, and not knowing anything going in I keep wondering what is going on with all of the "infiltrate this place and look like you belong" parts of this talk. I'm super entertained but also a little concerned lol

[@Gantradies]

i absolutely LOVE how eager both you, and the audience are to talk here- the whole talk sofar, like everything ive seen you do has an incredibly wholesome vibe with how happy you've been to engage with the audience

[@moonasha]

good talk but damn there's too many goofy questions that interrupt the flow, I feel like we never really got into the weeds, you'd get to a slide and it would just be kind of derailed. Hopefully there's a second edition of this talk at a bigger venue with Q&A only at the end, really interesting subject

[@tench745]

I work in a theatre and we have both a deluge system instead of a fire curtain (which accidentally triggered during an inspection once) and the metal-tab style sprinkler heads.

[@ButtonJockey]

24:20ish. There are a handful of sprinkler triggers. There is one that is two pieces of metal soldered together, they each are hooked to a spring loaded piece. When the solder melts they spring apart and that releases the plug in the aperture. They are not common. Also, the glass bulbs are color coded for how high of heat gets them to burst. So you can have higher tolerances in areas that are hot at baseline.

[@ButtonJockey]

Oh, the glass colors came up a few minutes later. 😂