Hangar Fire at KDWH

Cars, campers, sailboats, RVs all parked next to door. ??

I can take the loss of hangar and plane but what about the neighbor's high end hangar and his jet? Nice to have coverage for that but no one can tell me if we have liability risk for the neighbor.
 
Word is that they had trouble getting water on the fire.

I don't think there were any planes in there.

Crazy. I drove by that hangar last week.
 
WaarrEagle said:
Local news reported last night that there were no planes inside but this article says 1: http://www.chron.com/news/houston-t...-reaches-2-alarm-at-Hooks-Airport-6284671.php

The story I saw indicated that they had trouble finding hydrants so the firefighters ended up pulling water from the waterway.
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Strange. The national fire protection code indicates a fire hydrant should be within 200' (IIRC) of every hangar. We got tied up in that trying to find a location for an EAA hangar. It turned out that pulling water 600' and installing a hydrant was going to raise the cost of the hangar by 1/3 or thereabouts.
 
kyleb said:
Strange. The national fire protection code indicates a fire hydrant should be within 200' (IIRC) of every hangar. We got tied up in that trying to find a location for an EAA hangar. It turned out that pulling water 600' and installing a hydrant was going to raise the cost of the hangar by 1/3 or thereabouts.
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I am going through this now...

Current codes are Hangars need to be sprinkled... The cost of just the sprinkler system exceeds the cost of the hangar itself..:mad2:..

And to add to the pain, since there have been several false triggers when the system went off accidently causing the foam to smother planes in those hangars. And the foam is corrosive and in most cases those planes were totaled. And some were VERY expensive jets.... so now insurance rates for sprinkled hangars are alot higher then if the hangar had NO fire protection...:mad2::mad2:..

You would think smart people would have seen this coming since people DON'T live in hangars, and the whole idea it is save lives , not property....
 
N801BH said:
You would think smart people would have seen this coming since people DON'T live in hangars, and the whole idea it is save lives , not property....
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Actually, that's not really accurate. The sprinklers are to save property. But it is not so straightforward when the building is a hangar.

I was involved in a hangar fire at the Comlux facility at KIND. There was no direct flame impingement of any of the aircraft, but a Global Express, two Challengers and a Lear were totaled due to heat exposure. That's some cash.
 
overdrive148 said:
Hmm... I've not noticed any sprinkler systems in our hangars :idea:
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When were they built?

That matters.

Grandfather clauses do not force owners of older hangars to conform to the newest building and NFPA codes.
 
No idea, well before my time here I'm sure. How old do you think they'd have to be in order to have been grandfathered in?
 
Yet people on this very forum ***** and moan if they have to provide proof of premises liability insurance to their airport authority :wink2: .
 
overdrive148 said:
No idea, well before my time here I'm sure. How old do you think they'd have to be in order to have been grandfathered in?
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I researched this issue for my state, but I don't recall the exact dates for the uniform building code. It also depends on law on your state.

The uniform building code is updated every so often, and is adopted by the various state legislatures. The current version required sprinklers for hangars over a certain size. I don't recall when that went into affect.

The states generally adopt the uniform building code, subject to certain specific changes. Presumably, your state has now adopted the most recent version, but it will depend on when your state legislature adopted the updated version of the uniform building code.
 
I am not being a smart ass but that is a pretty accurate assessment in most cases.

Ther are two new hangars near mine that are sprinklered and had to have a number of other expensive features when they were built. They are only 3-4 years old.
 
I know you weren't being a smartass, I don't know what answer I expected other than the obvious one. lol.

Now that you mention it, there are a couple hangars we don't own on the field and I've actually never been inside them, only seen in them from a distance. I think they may have had some sprinklers although I wasn't looking for them specifically.
 
PPC1052 said:
Actually, that's not really accurate. The sprinklers are to save property. But it is not so straightforward when the building is a hangar.

I was involved in a hangar fire at the Comlux facility at KIND. There was no direct flame impingement of any of the aircraft, but a Global Express, two Challengers and a Lear were totaled due to heat exposure. That's some cash.
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I think this "accidental" event caused 200 million in damage to military heli's..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
 
Arrow115 said:
Word is that they had trouble getting water on the fire.

I don't think there were any planes in there.

Crazy. I drove by that hangar last week.
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There is a seaplane runway full of water maybe 150 feet away.. Any trouble getting water on it would be because they didn't pull the doors out to be able to attack the fire directly. The area is surrounded by a lot of "resource rich" fire departments that could have done the tanker shuttle thing as well..
 
kyleb said:
Strange. The national fire protection code indicates a fire hydrant should be within 200' (IIRC) of every hangar. We got tied up in that trying to find a location for an EAA hangar. It turned out that pulling water 600' and installing a hydrant was going to raise the cost of the hangar by 1/3 or thereabouts.
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This is in the unincorporated county, not a municipality. Fire codes are suggestions. You pay the insurance based on available fire protection. Fire hydrants are only a small part of the rating system. Spring and Klein Volunteer Fire Departments have a lot of equipment and tankers nearby. The entire region up there mutual aids each other.. Champions, Tomball, Spring, Klein, Cypress Creek, Ponderosa.. they all have a common Fire/EMS dispatch center (except for Tomball, being its own city) and have preassigned alarms 5 boxes deep.
 
N801BH said:
I think this "accidental" event caused 200 million in damage to military heli's..
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The military hangars a bit of a different animal as they are used to do maintenance including de-fueling.
 
weilke said:
The military hangars a bit of a different animal as they are used to do maintenance including de-fueling.
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you are correct.

As I recall, the way the code is written, there are greater requirements when the hangar is a maintenance facility, particularly where there is fuel stored in the hangar, or they work on planes that have not been defueled.
 
N801BH said:
I am going through this now...

Current codes are Hangars need to be sprinkled... The cost of just the sprinkler system exceeds the cost of the hangar itself..:mad2:..
Click to expand...

Would have to be one hell of a sprinkler system to protect against a fire of that intensity...
 
mtuomi said:
Would have to be one hell of a sprinkler system to protect against a fire of that intensity...
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No matter the size of the structure, standard sprinkler systems (NFPA 13) are hydraulically sized to only provide full flow to no more than six or eight heads. If the fire isn't knocked down right away by that amount of water, it's game on.
 
weilke said:
Yet people on this very forum ***** and moan if they have to provide proof of premises liability insurance to their airport authority :wink2: .
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Yeah we should require pilots to carry enough insurance to cover a hangar full of bizjets. You buy insurance to protect yourself not to cover other people. And you cover yourself according to your personal standards of risk, not someone else's.
 
3393RP said:
No matter the size of the structure, standard sprinkler systems (NFPA 13) are hydraulically sized to only provide full flow to no more than six or eight heads. If the fire isn't knocked down right away by that amount of water, it's game on.
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You mean they don't all come on at once when a fire alarm is pulled, like in the movies? ;-)
 
Our original hanger mysteriously went up in flames years ago. The local rumor is that the owner set it off himself. You can still see the old floors and door rails out on the ramp.
 
3393RP said:
No matter the size of the structure, standard sprinkler systems (NFPA 13) are hydraulically sized to only provide full flow to no more than six or eight heads. If the fire isn't knocked down right away by that amount of water, it's game on.
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The pic with the helos is not from a conventional sprinkler system with thermal activated heads. This is a AFF cascade system that requires evacuation of the hangar before it can be set off. All the dispensers discharge foam at the same time.
 
weilke said:
The pic with the helos is not from a conventional sprinkler system with thermal activated heads. This is a AFF cascade system that requires evacuation of the hangar before it can be set off. All the dispensers discharge foam at the same time.
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I'm well aware of that. I am also familiar with deluge, preaction, and gaseous fire protection systems, having worked in the field for decades.

I specifically said 'standard NFPA 13 sprinkler systems'.

Perhaps you should read the subject in the post to which I responded, not one you made up.
 
3393RP said:
I'm well aware of that. I am also familiar with deluge, preaction, and gaseous fire protection systems, having worked in the field for decades.

I specifically said 'standard NFPA 13 sprinkler systems'.

Perhaps you should read the subject in the post to which I responded, not one you made up.
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My bad, it looked like the discussion had moved on to aircraft bathed in foam and heavy maintenance hangars.
 
Interesting deal with that foam. Only sprinkler systems I've ever come into contact with were simple water systems hooked into the mains. A friend installs and works on those, and I wasn't aware that wasn't the standard everywhere. I do know when they go off it's usually some really nasty rusty water though.
 
weilke said:
My bad, it looked like the discussion had moved on to aircraft bathed in foam and heavy maintenance hangars.
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My research is showing nothing but a foam system in large hangars will be allowed any more..... IMHO..
 
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