12/09/02 Brodehl to Kukulski/Fire FlowM
Kalispell Fire Department
Randy Brodehl, Fire Chief
Arvin Mower, Assistant Chief/Operations
Jim Stewart. Assistant Chief/Fire Marshal (406) 758-7760 312 First Avenue East Kalispell. Montana, 59901
12/9/2002
Chris Kukulski, City Manager
Re: The Home Depot Fire Flow
Chris,
I spoke with Fire Marshal Jim Stewart and requested an evaluation of the records regarding fire flow
calculations for The Home Depot, in the Mountain View Plaza. He gave me the following information:
"I researched our records for information related to our fire flow requirement at Home Depot but didn't find
any information that we put out during plan review.
Regarding required fire flows from Appdx III -A of the UFC, this building is a 115, 000 sq ft, Type V-N. Fire
flow for this is 8,000 gpm, As you -know, if- an AFESis provided, we can give up to a 75% reduction in
flow. (Historically I have been comfortable with a 50% reduction.)
The building is fully sprinklered which would reduce the flow requirement to2000 - 4000 gpm depending on
how much reduction we allowed. I did find documentation from the fire protection consultant that indicated
TD&H conducted modeling which indicated a flow of 3136 gpm available at 20psi. With this info, the
consultant indicated afire pump was not required. (this was based on a static pressure of 86.8 psi). I also found
a letter from Stan Beard that stated "we expect the line and hydrants will meet the city and fire department
standards far supply and flow ".
We conducted a fire flow test on July 24t1i. Results were: Static 92,Residual 70, flow 2041, which talcs out to
3870 available at 20 psi. That flow puts us close to the 50% reduction figure. It should be noted that these
pressures will be impacted by future construction, and system demand will lower the flow available at 20psi.
It is possible that this was projected by the FP consultant, or TD&H, seeing how they used a static pressure of
86.8 ".
This information indicates the fire flow meets the requirements as established by the Uniform Fire Code. The
code allows the Fire Marshal to reduce the required fire flow if there is a fire sprinkler system. Iu this case, the
fire flow was reduced fifty percent from the required fire flow of 8000 gpm, because The Home Depot is fully
fire sprinklered. The percent that is allowed by the Fire Marshal takes into consideration fire load, types of
storage, distance from the fire station, available fire response, access, etc. Our actual hard calculations show a
fire flow of 3870 gpm. While this is slightly under the fifty percent requirement, it is well within the reduction
allowed by the Uniform Fire Code, and will vary slightly due to water usage at the time of testing.
Please let me know if additional details are needed.
Randy Brodehl, Fire Chie
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"Assisting our community in reducing preventing and mitigating emergencies. "