5/2/2002 - Common Fire Safety Violations

During its inspection at Washington Square, the EPA requested information about fire department violations. The purpose of this alert is twofold: 1) to alert lab personnel to the fact that the NYC Fire Department is currently on-site (in Manhattan) every Tuesday conducting annual lab inspections, and 2) to help lab personnel avoid common violations.

At the medical center, the four most common violations of NYC fire department regulations are:
- storage of unsecured gas cylinders
- storage of more than 15 gallons of flammable liquids in an unsprinklered lab
- storage of flammable liquids (e.g. isopropyl alcohol) in refrigerators that are not explosion proof
- use of gas cylinders that do not have a current (i.e. within the last 10 years) hydrostatic test date