Date
6-2025
Degree Name
MS in Fire Protection Engineering
College
College of Engineering
Advisor
Frederick Mowrer and Christopher Pascual
Abstract
This fire protection and life safety analysis evaluates GENESIS Station, a nine-story Type I-B mixed-tenant building located in Daly City, California. The facility includes business, research laboratory, and assembly occupancies. A combination of prescriptive code compliance and performance-based analysis was applied to assess the building’s overall fire safety strategy.
The building utilizes a layered fire protection strategy that combines passive fire resistive construction with active systems. Fire rated construction separate tenant suites, limiting the spread of fire and smoke, defining hazardous materials control areas, and ensuring compliant separation of egress paths.
Active fire protection systems include a fully automatic sprinkler system designed in accordance with NFPA 13, with hazard classifications tailored to each space type. The system is supported by a dedicated fire pump, on-site water storage tank and city supply. A networked fire alarm system provides occupant notification, activates smoke control systems, and integrates with the building management system to initiate emergency protocols.
Smoke control strategies are coordinated with fire compartmentation and tenant boundaries. The systems are designed to maintain pressure differentials between laboratory spaces and adjacent common areas, helping to contain smoke and protect means of egress. Pressurized stairways and lobbies further safeguard vertical exit enclosures. Laboratory spaces are subdivided into hazardous materials control areas that often align with tenant demising walls, enabling increased storage quantities per floor. This is achieved by maintaining code compliance through proper fire rated separations, exhaust or detection systems, and inventory control in accordance with applicable hazardous materials regulations.
Performance-based modeling evaluated worst-case fire conditions, including Design Fire 3, which simulated a high-output fire in Storage Room 9201 using NIST data for polystyrene-filled cardboard boxes. The scenario produced rapid smoke accumulation, reducing visibility in Hallway 9200 to untenable levels within 58 seconds, establishing the Available Safe Egress Time (ASET).
The Required Safe Egress Time (RSET), accounting for detection, notification, pre-movement, and movement, exceeded 500 seconds, primarily due to early visibility loss and delayed occupant response. Even when occupants were rerouted from Stair #1 to Stair #2 and Stair #3, the overall RSET still exceeded the ASET.
To resolve this gap, the most effective recommendation is to upgrade Hallway 9200 to a fully fire-rated corridor. This includes 1-hour rated walls and ceilings, automatic door closers, and smoke-sealed, latching fire doors. Where a full rating is impractical, strategic compartmentation can limit smoke migration. These improvements extend tenable conditions and better align the building’s fire protection strategy with performance-based life safety goals.
https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/fpe_rpt/192
Final Presentation