Page 28 - Campus Security & Life Safety, January/February 2022

"The risk of storing bulk amounts of flammable liquid— especially in, say, a school storage closet alongside a small mountain of printer paper—is fairly self-evident. However, the unique chemical properties of hand sanitizer add an extra layer of danger."
By Matt Jones
COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a new level of mind- fulness to basic hygiene prac- tices. We’ve all become accus- tomed to washing our hands more frequently, as well as carrying around a bottle of hand sanitizer while we’re on the go. Almost overnight, hand sanitizing stations seem to have popped up everywhere from offices to retail stores to building lobbies to elevators. They’re especially prominent in educational institutions—both K–12 and higher ed—in the name of keeping schools safe, clean and free of infectious diseases.
However, the widespread implementation of hand sanitizing stations requires schools
to keep a bulk supply of hand sanitizing liq- uid available. And finding a safe place to store gallons upon gallons of hand sanitizing fluid is proving to be a logistical nightmare from a fire and life safety inspections per- spective.
“Think about what we went through with COVID last year. We didn’t have, in many cases, hand sanitizer stations throughout the buildings. Now, we do. Where is the storage for that hand sanitizer—the bulk storage for that hand sanitizer? Most of that stuff is a flammable or combustible liquid,” said Ralph Bless, Vice President of Account Management for Telgian Corporation. Bless has more than 37 years of experience in fire protection. His
specialties include water-based and special hazard system design, fire protection engi- neering services, and code consulting and review. Bless has offered his services in indus- tries like government, hospitality, retail, con- venience, multifamily housing, medical and education—both K–12 and higher ed.
“If we’re carrying more flammable or com- bustible liquids inside of a building—wheth- er that be a K–12 or higher education—we now may have too much for what that build- ing was originally built for,” Bless continued. “And you won’t then apply the current codes and standards to address how you would keep it, because it’s a change in occupancy. It’s a change in use of that facility. Now, it
Balancing Fire Safety and COVID Protection
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28 campuslifesecurity.com | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2022