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Weekly Survival Real Estate Market Update
This week, after a personal experience with a house fire in a rental property
I own, I want to cover how to secure your retreat from fire when your not living
on site. Although the fire department was on scene and had the fire out within
10 minutes of the 911 call (the property was inside city limits) you can expect
a 15 to 30 minute response time to your unoccupied retreat (in good weather),
and that is if you have an automatic notification
system or if a passerby sees the smoke and flames, and pray
the fire is not during 'open burn season' in
your area, otherwise just consider it a "burn down"! Fire suppression is probably
the most important item next to the secure storage of your supplies and one
of the most overlooked as well. You'll need to budget some extra cash to install
a moderately priced automatic system to guard your valuable supplies.
I'm not too familiar with high end waterless automatic fire suppression systems,
as we simply do not have these in place in our jurisdiction, with the exception
of
several
commercial
buildings
and
they
are
the very simple
pressurized
type
water based systems. [JWR Adds: These typically using a
gas. Older systems often used Halon (an alkane with linked halogens), but that
was considered unfriendly to the environment ("ozone
depleting")
so many of the new systems use HFC-like gasses]. For a retreat though, I would
highly recommend that you do not use a water based suppression
system (in the house), it will simply
create as much if not more damage than the fire will and you will lose your
supplies with the exception of your guns, assuming that they are stored in
a highly rated safe. The keys to a successful fire suppression action inside
your retreat
will be
two-fold:
One,
the fire
will need to be detected early, the waterless system will need to be able to
discharge enough retardant to put the flames out and Two: The local fire department
will need to be paged out to respond while the system is activated.
With a plethora of different waterless suppression agents and systems on the
market the best advice I can give out is to make sure that the system is activated
by a thermal and chemical detection system and that it is completely off the
grid so a power loss will not disable it. If you Scroogle 'waterless
home fire suppression system', you can read all day. The second issue would
be to purchase
a waterless system that uses a compound that can either be easily recharged
or you can purchase the extra retardant/gas/particulate et cetera, and the
equipment to recharge the system without having to have a 'tech' come out and
do it, since post TSHTF it may of course prove futile. The retardant should
also be non-toxic to humans as you'll want to keep it on a manual override
switch once the retreat is activated for any last ditch suppression during
a major siege on the property. Of course, standard fire extinguishers should
be as prevalent as loaded firearms in your retreat once your there and living
full-time, like the American Express card "never be home without it!".
Most of the clients I've met this year through SurvivalRealty.com are
technically savvy enough to build a monitoring system that would notify them
via page or
email
that
there
was
an
issue at their retreat and should be incorporated along with the multitude
of motion sensors and cameras in and around the property for long distance
oversight when your half a country away. Another item of interest would be
to make sure and package all of your supplies inside waterproof bags or containers.
Imagine you either have a water based sprinkler system and/or the firefighters
arrive and dump three thousand gallons of water inside your retreat while fighting
the fire! Although half the home was lost the basement survived and yet was
two feet deep in nasty contaminated water! If none of the supplies were burnt
would they be salvageable if you merely stuck them inside wall lockers and
plastic tubs without first vacuum sealing them in bags? Probably not, they
would all be destroyed. Do you seal your ammo before putting it inside
the .50 cal ammo can(s)? You should. It's not necessary to seal the bag so
tight that it rips when you drop it in the can, just enough to keep water out
if the cans seal is compromised. What about all those wool blankets, BDUs,
toilet paper , medical supplies, et cetera? Yes, that's right, the toilet paper,
keep it dry at all costs, it'll be worth more than bullion should TEOTWAWKI
happen! Every survival item deserves extra protective packaging, even the books
stored for that rainy day on OP/LP duty! You'll thank yourself later!
One last
item would be to have a placard made with Fire Department instructions near
the house, NOT on the house of course. A simple reflective 2'x3' sign near
the driveway/walkway explaining to the responding volunteer firefighters
what type of system you have in place, how to turn it off (especially if you
go
with a water system!) and any other information, like the location of any
hydrants or standpipes on/near the property (yes, they are out here) and your
immediate
contact info. Although completely against all rules of OPSEC you could post
a copy of the floor plan as well (not showing all the secret bunkers of course),
this would be well appreciated and will help if they need to make entry.
As
covered last year in SurvivalBlog you'll still need a good gravity-fed
water suppression system with decent head pressure without a pump to cover
your home
from the outside and to protect from wild land fires as well. That article
is a good read when considering how to handle your retreat firefighting procedures.
To recap, think 1. Waterless suppression 2. Remotely and/ automatically activated
3. Cost effective and available recharging 4. Supplies secure from water
damage. 5. Fire Department instructions near the house
If any readers out there have additional technical comments or experience
that would be helpful for a subsequent comment, please e-mail them, especially
anyone who is a full-time firefighter or that works for a company that manufactures
or sells these waterless suppression systems. - T.S.
