FIRE PREVENTION IN MARTIN COUNTY PART 4

Before reading this post please review the previous posts on Fire Prevention in Martin County by clicking on Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

All of Martin County should fear a fire of catastrophic proportions generated by a 120 ft Cell Tower at Sailfish Marina.

Plans for the tower call for the hollow tower-base to be constructed a few feet away from one of the two large in-and-out dry-stack boat storage buildings at the marina. The second building is less than 50 feet away. The electronic equipment for the tower will actually be housed inside one of the storage buildings. This building is part of the tower project.

A request to the County for extant building records revealed that the County could not find or no longer has a copy of the original permit for the building. It is thought that the storage building was built about 1971. It has been damaged several times over the years by hurricanes and hail storms. Some repairs were made via building permit, some were not, so there is not a complete history of the buildings.

The buildings house some 200 boats with their engines and fuel tanks, stacked on racks that are up to 3-high. A conservative estimate would put 20,000 gals. of fuel stored on those boats.  There is no automatic fire suppression system in the buildings as required by the Florida State fire code.

Nine years ago the marina owner acknowledged that automatic fire suppression was lacking and made a written commitment to Fire Prevention Chief  Pasqualone to install the system "in the next 2-3 years". To date that has not been accomplished.

When the County performed its fire review of  the tower application, the reviewer said that only a 10 lb fire extinguisher and a Knox Box was required. When some of the intervenors met with the County reviewers for the application, they were told that this was a mistake and the fire extinguisher requirement was changed to 40 lb. Here is the intended purpose of a fire extinguisher (wiki:)

A fire extinguisher is an active fire protection device used to extinguish or control small fires, often in emergency situations. It is not intended for use on an out-of-control fire, such as one which has reached the ceiling, endangers the user (i.e., no escape route, smoke, explosion hazard, etc.), or otherwise requires the expertise of a fire department. Typically, a fire extinguisher consists of a hand-held cylindrical pressure vessel containing an agent which can be discharged to extinguish a fire.

Martin County residents, do you think this is sufficient fire protection for a 120 ft. cell tower and a boat storage building housing perhaps 20,000 gals. of fuel?

Why was this application permitted to go forward when the installation of an automatic fire suppression system in the boat storage building intended to house all the electronics for the tower is an outstanding deficiency in the County's records?

Fire fighting equipment can approach the marina from both directions of St. Lucie Blvd., but a fire at the tower itself, or a fire in the electronic equipment inside the building, could only be accessed by going through the boat storage building. Boats stored on trailers and posts block access to the proposed tower site. Why was this application permitted to go forward when the only access for a fire truck to get to a fire is through the boat storage building which has no automatic fire suppression and stores 20,000 gals of fuel?

A catastrophic fire in the boat storage buildings would not only the require the evacuation of nearby residents but perhaps people enjoying Sandsprit Park. In order to exit Sandsprit Park people would be required to actually drive towards the fire to flee it!

Building this tower at this location is a risk that no one can afford to take.