Post-Earthquake Fire Risk

The reliability of water supplies, electrical,  gas and other infrastructure in event of an earthquake is critical to the prevention of post-earthquake fires.

Vancouver has a secondary salt water supply system covering priority areas of Vancouver for contingency purposes in the event that the primary potable/fire supply is damaged by a seismic event.

The California Building Code requires secondary water supply systems in high buildings; however, there is no provision in Canadian codes- even for seismically active zones.

Charles Scawthorn of SPA Risk in California has been working with insurance organisations in Canada to help facilitate code changes- to mandate secondary water supplies, automatic inertia-activated gas shut-off valves and other measures to prevent catastrophic losses in earthquake- prone areas.

Charles has been working with the City of Vancouver, BC Hydro, Fortis and other agencies to encourage loss prevention/mitigation measures to enable both infrastructure and fire protection system to have sufficient resilience to deal with this risk.

The EGBC Task Group on Water supplies is working with the group to focus on the actual wording of a proposed code change for BC and possibly for NRCC in Ottawa.

Date: April 13, 2021
Time: 12:00PM (Pacific time) (TBC)
Location: On-line (MS Teams)
Cost: No charge
Registration Deadline: End of day April 9, 2021 (Late registrations will not receive the invite to join the meeting. Please register on time.)

The presentation was recorded and can be viewed here