Every year during Fire Prevention Week (October 9-15 this year), Siemens focuses on increasing public awareness about fire/life safety, helping to spur positive change in fire codes, and supporting first responders. For its 2016 campaign, the company decided to take a creative yet informative approach, highlighting one particular technology — voice communication systems. Through its Building Technologies Division, Siemens worked with Marvel Entertainment to create a comic poster, titled “A Cause for Alarm,” (seen here) that depicts how emergency voice communication systems can help building occupants evacuate structures quickly and efficiently.
As Dave Hopping, president, Siemens Building Technologies Division, North America, noted in a blog post this week: “Our goal is to take a unique approach to engaging our audience on the benefits of advanced technology. Working with Marvel, we were able to take a very serious topic and illustrate how such an important fire safety technology — emergency voice communications — can help save lives and prevent extensive property damage.”
Hopping continues: “Voice communication can be used to deliver not just fire-related messages, but also every day and emergency life safety messages about dangerous weather conditions, threat of unauthorized persons, or other scenarios that require immediate action be taken.”
Siemens highlights that occupants in buildings with emergency voice are three times more likely to evacuate immediately. And, emergency voice communication systems are now available to facilities of all sizes. However, small to mid-size buildings such as retail, dormitories, movie theaters, and religious assembly buildings are not as likely to have installed them. In fact, hotels and mid-rise office buildings that may be as high as five stories are not yet required by code to have emergency voice. However, IBC 2012 does now require K-12 schools to include the technology in their fire alarm systems.
View the Siemens / Marvel Entertainment campaign materials here.
Since 1922, Fire Prevention Week has been observed on the Sunday through Saturday period in which October 9 falls. This week was established to commemorate the Great Chicago Fire, the 1871 event that killed more than 250 people, left 100,000 homeless, destroyed more than 17,400 structures, and burned more than 2,000 acres.
