My, name is Jacob and I am a volunteer firefighter. My department is building a training building out of 40 ft shipping containers. We would like to remove 25 ft of two adjacent walls to create a large room. Our question is what would we have to do for bracing to keep the roof up when we have 2 ft of wet snow and 4 guys up on top. Our thought was 1/4 inch steel channel across the ceiling from the inside from the wall of the container out 25 ft and the down to the floor. Would this be enough? Is it too much? Looking for a qualified structural engineer to answer this question. Thank you
While I applaud any department that wants to increase its training, having a dedicated facility for live fire training opens many doors that one should want to keep closed.
Before even looking at the shipping containers, someone needs to buy a copy of NFPA 1403, Standard on Live Fire Training Evolutions and go through it line by line. The 2012 edition is the most recent. You don’t even need to buy it, you can read it for free on NFPA’s web site. The standard covers every conceivable detail of conducting live fire training. It is very rare in the fire service for someone to go to jail for something, live fire training gone wrong has sent firefighters to prison. Obviously, it has also killed firefighters. Lairdsville, NY, Baltimore, and departments in Florida and Colorado whose names eludes me are the big ones, there are plenty out there.
The behavior of fire inside of a shipping container can be unpredictable. While any fire is unpredictable, instructors do not (or should not) want unpredictability when teaching how to put a fire out. There are enough things to worry about when bringing a new guy or girl into a training fire, whether or not the roof is going to fall in should not be one of those things. There are companies that build burn buildings that look like they are made out of shipping containers, but they are not. Engineers have signed off on the designs, and have staked their livelihood on being right about your building’s ability to withstand repeated fires. Are they more expensive than a couple of shipping containers? Absolutely. There’s a reason for that; fire is a weird phenomenon that does wacky things to structures. You pay for safety one way or another.
Read through 1403 very carefully. If no one on the committee has said the words “fourteen-oh-three” and you’re this far in, someone needs to reevaluate what is going on, you’re headed down a very dangerous road. There is a lot to constructing a live fire training structure, as the previous poster said, you need to invest in an engineer who has done this stuff before.
This section out of 1403 essentially guarantees you’re going to get an engineer involved: 6.2.7* The structural integrity of the live fire training structure shall be evaluated and documented by a licensed professional engineer with live fire training structure experience and expertise, or by another competent professional as determined by the AHJ, at least once every 10 years, or more frequently if determined to be required by the evaluator. (note: the AHJ is the authority having jurisdiction, the person who enforces the standard)
Cut-and-pasted the wrong section above. This is what I was referring to about getting an engineer involved whether you want one or not:
7.2.5.1 If visible structural defects are found, such as cracks, rust, spalls, or warps in structural floors, columns, beams, walls, or metal panels, the building owner shall have a follow-up evaluation conducted by a licensed professional engineer with live fire training structure experience and expertise or by another competent professional as determined by the AHJ. 7.2.6* The structural integrity of the live fire training structure shall be evaluated and documented by a licensed professional engineer with live fire training structure experience and expertise or by another competent professional as determined by the AHJ at least once every 5 years or more frequently if determined to be required by the evaluator.