A new life safety concern is growing (literally) in the US. It is the growing and processing of Marijuana in facilities across the country. The required knowledge to outfit one of these facilities is huge, besides being a Fire Alarm expert, Sprinkler, Hazardous Material Handling, Explosive Gasses Expertise, Suppression, HVAC and Mechanical Expertise also required. 

The Marijuana Industry is an expanding one utilizing today’s science to produce useable Marijuana products for both recreational and medicinal purposes. The use of chemicals and gasses to extract the useable components of the Marijuana plant has evolved in a short amount of time and has created new worries for health and fire safety professionals.

I had been doing some research, re-reading the code and looking at what my peers have been writing regarding the steps needed to comply with NFPA 241 "Standard for Safeguarding Construction, Alteration, and Demolition Operations for this Blog when another construction disaster struck… and this was a big one… 

April 15th, 2019. The day that the Cathedral of Notre Dame burned in Paris, France. 

Here I was knee deep in NFPA 241 and boom… And like most folks I was horrified when I heard that this 800+ year old symbol of Paris, an exquisite example of Medieval Gothic Architecture and Religious Icon was in flames...