A neural network approach to an integrated intelligent life safety design now protects the unique all-volunteer Elkins Park Fire Company in Cheltenham Township, Pa., just north of the Philadelphia city line. It proudly protects 45,000 people in a primarily residential area of eight square miles.
The company has quite a history. It went big-time in 1913 with the purchase of the first motorized pump in the township. In 1920, a second fire truck was obtained, and the company has continued modernizing and expanding ever since.
The township has five fire companies in all. And the firehouse is a venerable landmark in the township, a three-story brick building built about 1890. The building is valuable, but even more important is the costly modern fire equipment housed there, and life safety aspects in the three-bedroom apartment on the building’s top story, which is rented out to firefighters. As building codes require, the apartment has its own local smoke and heat detectors, which are not connected to the rest of the building.