HIGHLY PROTECTED RISK (HPR) cannot be fully addressed as comprehensive engineering requirements in NFPA, IBC, local codes, state codes, or even within agency policies and procedures, because HPR involves the protection of one of a kind intellectual property and life in specific applications. Let’s define high-risk protection from the lessons of history and how certain aspects of the repetition of history did not seem to gel with archivists, corporate lawyers, or accountants.This may have led to unfortunate events—going back to the supposed Great Library fire in Alexandria, Egypt—in 48 BC.
Let’s also define what highly protected risk involves as well as what “risks” we are protecting. Intermixed will be stories of Professional Systems Engineering and personal fire protection engineering experiences in high-risk protection assignments—from protecting nitrogen-cooled pertussis strains to 85-foot test chambers for space satellite antenna testing and integration. There is history of loss; and this will give you an idea of how highly protected risk establishes as baseline risk modern fire science, environmental protection, and compromise from any number of events.
THE HISTORY OF HIGHLY PROTECTED RISK
There is great debate leaning towards the falsity of the Great Library fire in Alexandria, Egypt. While there was a fire in 48 BC set accidentally by Julius Cesar, it may have been of documents and manuscripts which were stored and possibly even older than the ones in the actual “newer” library. What would often happen is, after hundreds of years of budget cuts, loss of funding, and the changing languages, there was a diminishment of the contents’ “perceived value.” This perceived lack of value theme reoccurs again with other losses.
In 1814, the U.S. Library of Congress was burnt down by the Brits. Three thousand volumes were lost, but in the end, Thomas Jefferson sold 6,487 volumes from his personal library for $23,950. He also catalogued and arranged all of the purchased library, making it twice as valuable by providing “metadata.” This provenance of archive is as important as the archive itself. It establishes baseline value.
IT STARTED IN PHILADELPHIA AND REMAINS SO
Highly protected risk, defined in insurance terms, does not involve human life; it generally wraps around property. In the mid-18th century, Ben Franklin addressed this with the invention of “process and procedures” fire insurance and fire alarm signal coding. Coding allowed fire departments to easily access locations and coordinate paid or volunteer services, while “umbrella” or “Green Tree” insurance provided the risk management upon which protection is based.
While International Risk Insurers (IRI) and FM Global (FM) currently provide corporate insurance guidance of high-risk protection, risk protection was first used as insurance for vessels out at sea. In the 1700’s and 1800’s, the Dutch created an insurance mechanism for this high-risk protection. Ben Franklin adopted this to buildings in colonial Philadelphia.
But it was not until the Apollo 1 loss 50 years ago that fire protection and highly protected risk coalesced into a risk-based subject matter expertise. Accountability and liabilities of risk, focused on business continuity and contingency, encapsulates the engineering and physical management required by protecting contents and facilities to avoid human injury and loss of intellectual property.
IT’S ALWAYS EXPLOSIVE?
With the Apollo 1 crew loss of Grissom, Chaffee, and White in an explosive mixture of pure oxygen, NASA basically reignited highly protected risk fire protection engineering practice on a scale and propulsion which had previously not been understood well or highly developed.
And what was the risk protection plan that could have avoided this loss? Two ways could have been resolved to avoid the explosion. An inerting mixture of 1-2% halon, or the now-accepted oxygen and nitrogen mixture. We now know that oxygen was being fed directly from the Mission Control platform outside the capsule. I am certain there were many engineers who felt that the compromise was too risky, but they were overruled by threat of delays and bean counters. Unfortunately, risk at its worst is when we re all most vulnerable.
And remember, there was no Whistleblower Protection Act for the 400,000 Apollo moon launch designers, engineers, or any workers who may have been threatened with removal from teams.
WHAT ARE YOU PROTECTING?
Risk comes in many forms. While not all-inclusive, you are protecting from:
Water • Fire • Smoke • Wind • Attack • AC/Power Failure • Carbon Monoxide • Particulates • Fungus • Mold • Humidity • Lightning • Earthquake • Environmental Hazards • Projectiles • UV Light • Loss of utilities including redundancy • Sometimes salad dressing (No, that is not a typo) • and cigarettes.
EXAMPLES OF HIGHLY PROTECTED RISK
Here is a sampling of personal past project examples of properties which were protected to directly relate the importance of risk management and fire protection engineering with good facilities planning and construction.
Underground Bank Vaults-A national bank required fire protection and risk management of various negotiables that were valued in the millions. Protected were stock certificates from before the Bolshevik Revolution, quite impressive artistically, but I had no idea why they held them for 100 years. (Was Russia going to fall?)
Storage Facility-The nitrogen-cooled pertussis strains in this facility in Camden, New Jersey housed some of the worlds most important strains for studying pertussis.
Satellite Integration Test Facility-An 85-foot, anechoic chamber bay housed a $350 million satellite during testing for geostationary orbit transmissions needing protection from all hazards.
Laserdisc Master Lab-This master lab produced some of the very first consumer digital video formats on 12-inch silver laser discs. As a master lab, it required mitigation of most risk since it was the first of a series of test facilities that also housed master digital video files for production.
Acres of Computers-Acres of computer facilities were considered highly protected risk and had evaluations necessitating concern for location and most compromises affecting both continuity and contingency.
YES SALAD DRESSING
A large part of risk is based on experience and probabilities. One may apply statistical analyses and find there to be minimal risk while others may look around and find obvious risk, aside from mathematical and tabular calculations; but these particular losses may be the perfect coincidence of strange events, which may have been predicted, if not warned.
Universal Studios in the early 2000s provided local New Jersey storage of what are called master audiotape recordings in a warehouse owned by one of the executives for BMG Studios, which was a multi-tenant facility with food preparation performed above the archival storage.
BMG, now one of the largest holders of intellectual music property, lost thousands and thousands of master tapes by a flood of bottled salad dressing that came crashing through the ceiling on this New Jersey site. But experience doesn’t last long, and the pain of the loss of many artists original material was apparently lost on the executives, insurers, and a long list of those who were held responsible for virtually irreplaceable, monumental recordings. It happened a second time (only bigger), again, by next door neighbors.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY-ITS FLUID DEFINITION
It is a challenge to define ownership of intellectual property, harder yet to define stewardship. By example, let’s change the way art is made by an artist, say Van Gogh. What if Van Gogh were provided the canvas, the oils, the paints, brushes, light, air, space, food, bedding all for free in a signed contract? Who then owns the painting? Does Van Gogh only get one royalty check?
So, we question whether the artist owns the art on the canvas with everything else provided by others. What about a recording studio when the artist signs with a label for a fee while all services will be paid by the label, hiring the studio while the studio works for hire and is paid by the label. In this case, the studio label owns the intellectual property since they provided all the equipment, heat, light, tape, microphones, etc.
Unlike today where home recording, independent release, artist ownership, and all licensing and rights are reserved, that was not the case with those archives under the control of BMG and Universal Studios.
While the artist maintains authorship of their own work, the label/studio owns the master audiotape recordings and assumes all risk with their royalties often being miniscule. This is precisely why artists had to tour to make a living. But what is that risk? Are studios then bound to preserve this archive? Are they the official forever stewards? And for how long and under what conditions? Remember how Alexandrias works became less important.
UNIVERSAL STUDIOS EXPLODES WHILE NOTRE DAME TAKES A CIGARETTE BREAK
In the mid 2000s, BMG and Universal Studios combined into a behemoth of audio/video recording media, archives, and intellectual property that they maintained. These master recordings included oddities such as wax cylinders, steel cylinders, vinyl pressings, metal mother plates, and master tapes with 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 tracks. Even duplicate tapes made at the original sessions were stored with the originals. How clever was that?
In fact, masters numbered in the hundreds of thousands at Universal Studios on the back lot of the infamous Universal Studios Theme Park. You heard me. The Universal Studios Theme Park where explosions, accidents, fires (yes fires, five of them) occurred before the sixth and final fire.
There was absolutely no demising of the properties between the theme park and the back lot. No containment. No roof fire protection. No emergency removal procedures. No contingencies.
I guess you know what happened. Of course, there was a small fire that ended up becoming a very large fire which consumed between 100,000 and 200,000 master recordings. There is no count because no one could even count the number since the archiving, protection, and duty of stewardship to protect the intellectual property was not only compromised but delinquent, negligent, and without question, so low on the priority list that its funding was nearly cut to zero.
Here’s what was lost. All the Motown master recordings, Chess Records recordings, all Chuck Berrys recordings, Patsy Clines recordings, many of Frank Sinatras recordings, and thousands more, including folk, rag, blues, country, bluegrass, rock, pop, and jazz. A recent lawsuit was filed against BMG with its investor partner Universal Studios (yes, that Universal Studios with the theme park in Los Angeles) for $100,000,000 due to the loss of intellectual property.
NOTRE DAME
When I first heard of the Notre Dame fire, I emailed one of my Society of Fire Protection Engineer friends within hours and bet that it was smoking that started the fire at Notre Dame. It was my first instinct. My belief is that cigarettes may have contributed to the fire, it was an (unofficially) accepted and unpermitted practice to smoke on the scaffolding and put your butts out right on the scaffolding.
Now, you might wonder, how could we possibly know this? Because in the forensic fire investigation, they found many cigarette butts, even after the huge conflagration. The mitigation of the risk for Notre Dame may be easier said than done, but better signaling and communication, better coordination and less bureaucracy as well as distributed standpipe and environmentally friendly suppression could have prevented this now trillion-dollar rebuild.
We recently learned no one took into account the tons of lead used in the historic roof structure that sintered into frangible blown particulate of both sizeable and tiny elements perfect for inhalation and ingestion by neighboring residents, dogs, cats, and kids.
Having been to both Universal Studios and Notre Dame twice, I’ve taken lots of pictures that bring back wonderful memories. However, I am at a loss as to how after 40 years of my providing increased levels of high risk protection of property and life, these losses can still occur under seemingly strict stewardship.
But in the end, isn’t it always funding which compromises judiciousness?
IT TAKES LEADERSHIP
Experienced leaders need to challenge machinations that are resistant to change, countering significant inertia to move forward without resolving safety concerns. When monetary considerations are placed over raw risk, such complacency compromises the heart of HPR consulting and engineering practice.
