Solar Power and Its Impact on Fire Protection
The National Association of State Fire Marshalls has formed an initiative to bridge the safety gap between conventional fire prevention practices, building codes, and fire suppression techniques including the use of renewable energy sources, such as solar power. They have released a report titled Fire Fighter Safety and Emergency Response for Solar Power Systems and which is available from their website.
“…The goal of this report is to assemble and disseminate best practice information for fire fighters and fireground incident commanders to assist in their decision making process for handling fire incidents in buildings equipped with solar power systems or in the systems themselves. Specifically, this study focuses on structural fire fighting in buildings and structures involving solar power systems utilizing solar panels that generate thermal and/or electrical energy, with a particular focus on solar photovoltaic panels used for electric power generation.”