Apparently a fire was discovered at a church in South Bend, Indiana on Sunday, June 19, 2005, and in the initial investigation a "gas can" was found inside. It is still under investigation by local and federal authorities. What draws even greater attention to this incident is the fact that on June 29, 2004 another chapel on the 47-acre grounds was also burned down. That fire had been attributed to "a juvenile act." They did not have insurance to cover either loss.
To further quote another significant piece of the article....
"That's the bad part, " he [Emmick - the monastery administrator] said. "We really haven't recovered from the fire last year with all the collateral damage -- gas lines, electric lines. Now we got this one -- it's a little overwhelming."
So now what is there to discuss about this, or rather theses, incidents? It's in the hands of the police, right? Wrong. Pretend it is you and your organization in this situation, and I'll pretend it's a client. There are a couple of perspectives that this needs to be considered from. Such as the prevention and management of future events, the response to both of these events, and their resolution.
First - It has happened twice so how does the organization prevent it from happening again.
This is not to say that insurance should be sought immediately, since this won't prevent it from happening. However, we will come to the insurance side soon enough. Just how does one prevent an arsonist or fire destruction for that matter?
There are a number of methods and ideas that jump to my mind. Let's start at the beginning... It's all a function of access. How much, how easy and for how long. If this can be managed differently then it may be possible to prevent or to at least mitigate the potential loss. Since problems, or threats, stem from people (with the exception of natural events) we need to focus our efforts on disrupting theirs. We can do by altering the physical environment, increasing the presence of guardians, or with the application of technology. Yes, sprinklers do tend to do wonders when they are installed, but they are expensive to retrofit and this may violate codes dealing with historic sites.
So we shall assume that sprinklers are out of the question. How much time does a determined person required to start an effective fire in or on the remaining buildings? If we do nothing else, how can we reduce this window of opportunity? The arsonist(s) must penetrate the property line, advance to and enter the building, prepare the site (as an arsonist does), and escape while evading detection. By planning the fire the arsonist may be able to further limit the chance that the fire will be detected before it is firmly established when it is discovered. This ensures that no one will actively attack the fire until the fire department has arrived. Pretty dirty thinkin' huh. It's a must for the best protection planning. Thus our only real option is to shorten the amount of time it takes to detect a fire. How can this be done? Some will say start from the inside and work out, while others will go the other way. My advice is to pick a direction, plan it through, and then test it in the other direction.
For convenience we will begin with the outer perimeter or property line. This is 47 acres of land. To visualize it consider that if it were square than it would be roughly 436 meters on each side. That's over four football fields on a side - lots of perimeter. And the diagonal from each corner - using Pythagorean Theorem - is over 600 meters. Lots of turf to cover, right? Well maybe not, given how much the property line includes, it may be worthwhile to find a moremanageable area within to monitor. Either way the question becomes how is it to be monitored. Technology could be applied with motion activated lights, or a portable "motion detecting" alarm sensor. The specifics here aren't the point. Clearly, unless there are volunteers to literally watch over the land throughout the night, every night, technology might be the answer.
Or maybe the line of defense is drawn closer to the buildings or at the buildings themselves. Maybe motion activated sprinklers might be used to annoy an intruder on their way to the building. Motion activated lighting might be used too. However neither of these will necessarily be effective without some form of notification and investigation. So regardless of whether an alarm sensor or other motion activated device is used it is absolutely necessary to investigate their activation. Now, the manpower intensive method, as was used before such technology as was true in ancient Rome, are fire patrols - or vigiles as they were called in Rome. Maybe the buildings are inspected every 15 - 30 minutes. Patrols should then be visible, and noisy, to encourage the intruder to flight rather then fight. This is quite manpower intensive, but it may be the low cost option if there are volunteers willing to assist, or a guard service willing to donate the time to the church. This naturally brings us the interior of the building the installation of smoke detectors. And why stop there when other detection devices may be helpful as well. Such as motion sensors and the like. All of which are available in portable units, meaning not permanently installed, that utilize wireless communications. In some cases, these are designed to communicate over a wireless network connection for easy integration, management and communications with network computer systems.
Now that was entirely too long of a post. We undoubtedly will revisit this topic in the future. If nothing else we will discuss more on fire and arson - how to respond, assist with the investigation and so on. As for the issue of insurance... Many older structures are simply too expensive to insure given there historic qualities and so an organization must accept that risk. But above are few thoughts - and I mean just a few - on how to mitigate that risk. But remember that insurance can't bring it back properly once it's gone. This we will most certainly discuss more in the future.
Until then...
Rob
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