Fire Watch

A temporary measure intended to ensure continuous and systematic surveillance of a building or portion thereof by one or more qualified individuals for the purposes of identifying and controlling fire hazards, detecting early signs of unwanted fire, raising an alarm of fire and notifying the fire department (International Fire Code 202).

Conditions Requiring Fire Watch

Fire watch, as noted in the adopted edition of the International Fire Code and amendments, may be required under the following circumstances:

• Outage or significant impairment of the fire alarm signaling system
• Outage or significant impairment of the automatic fire suppression system
• Outage or significant impairment of the facility water supply

General Requirements

When required fire protection is out of service or during system impairment (such as repeated nuisance alarms), a building owner or his representative is required by the Fire Marshal to provide a fire watch until the system is repaired.

Personnel used to conduct the fire watch are subject to approval of Mansfield Fire Rescue. A person performing a fire watch must be literate in the English language, ambulatory, and at least 21 years of age. The person performing fire watch duties must have at least one means of telephone communication with the Fire Department, and their sole duty is to perform constant patrols and watch for the occurrence of fire.

The fire department must be notified when a required fire protection system is out of service or when routine maintenance will take the system off line for a period greater than four hours. (International Fire Code 901.7) Building owners or property management have the following responsibilities during an outage:

• Establish, instruct and maintain fire watch personnel
• Notify monitoring company
• Notify the building occupants
• Contact repair company to fix alarm or suppression system(s)
• Notify Mansfield Fire Rescue that the system is not working, and again when repaired at 817-276-4790
• If outside of normal business hours, contact dispatch at non-emergency number 817-473-0211