Solar panels atop a downtown Columbia condo project.

Columbia Fire Marshal Carmen Floyd

By Justin Fenner
Dateline Carolina

ssolar safety-graphic

When firefighters see a roof with solar panels on it, they don’t necessarily see someone going green. Instead, they see red, as in danger – the danger of limited roof access and that if they are not careful, they could be shocked or electrocuted.

And because building codes don’t govern residential installations of either electricitygenerating photovoltaic panels or solar-thermal ones more commonly used to heat water, fire officials are growing concerned.

Columbia Fire Marshal Carmen Floyd welcomes the city’s growing number of solar panel installations but says firefighters’ lives are endangered without updates to the state building code.

“I certainly believe they are 100 percent safe. It’s the way of the future,” she said. “We just have to make sure that any safety features that are not in place are put in place to protect the firefighters.”

Most panels are installed on roofs.  But “the roof is an important part of firefighting,” Irmo Fire Chief Mike Sonefeld said.

“When we get to a house, we open up the roof and allow all that heat and gasses to escape. It makes our job a lot easier and gives us visibility so we can see if there’s a victim,” he said.

When panels are in the way, firefighters have to find another way to vent buildings, “and if we do that,” Floyd said, “we’re just going to drag the fire through the property. Not good.”

Then there’s the danger of electricity.

“If the sun’s out, they stay energized,” said Cayce fire Lt. Bobby Meetze. “The only way that we could do anything about that is cover them with tarps … And it takes a little while to shut them down.”

Floyd said solar energy systems need a “kill switch” to easily shut off the power.

“Because if not, it’s going to be forever energized and we’re going to have some serious injuries,” Floyd said.

Still, some owners and installers of solar panel systems wonder if the danger is a little overstated.

“There would have to probably be some additional training, but not anything significant from what I understand,” said Ron Sebeczeck, who uses solar-thermal panels at his home to heat water. “I think it’s one of those urban stories, or in this case rural stories, that really keeps people from thinking about photovoltaics.”

Mike Pearson, construction superintendent at The Lofts at Printers Square, a new housing development in Columbia Vista that features rooftop solar panels, said he had never heard of a problem.

“There’s a lot of things that the general public isn’t really aware of, and nobody’s out there pushing it,” Floyd said. “So it’s up to the fire service to say, hey, look, this is new, but you know what? We need to know more about it, and we need to work as a team to make sure that nobody gets hurt.”

In California, with two-thirds of the national market for solar panels, the state fire marshal’s office created guidelines last year covering roof access and visibility for photovoltaic solar panels, said Matt Paiss, a member of the International Firefighters Association and captain at the San Jose Fire Department. Those guidelines have not been adopted by the state yet but are  available on the state fire marshal’s Web site.

In South Carolina, Floyd is working with Building Code Administrator Gary Wiggins to create similar guidelines to regulate photovoltaic panels.

Wiggins said the idea is to guide both the solar panel industry and local officials so that “firefighters can actually maneuver around on the roof without having to either risk their lives by climbing over or on the solar collectors and gain access to the building to be able to fight that fire properly.”

The push to do that is increasingly important as builders respond to calls for greener homes.

“I think people are going to start paying a lot more attention to green because they’re going to need it,” said Judye Clisby, a Realtor selling homes in Irmo’s Ascot subdivision. Her neighborhood offers a street of homes that feature energy efficient appliances and building techniques, including solar panels.

“It’s going to be saving them a lot more money,” Clisby said.

But the money saved by solar panels isn’t worth endangering firefighters, Floyd said.

Links:
How Solar Works (Argand Energy Solutions): http://www.argandenergy.com/www/how-solar-works.html
California state fire marshal’s guidelines:

http://osfm.fire.ca.gov/training/pdf/photovoltaics/solarphotovoltaicguideline.pdf

Firehouse.com forum discussing solar panel dangers: http://www.firehouse.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105422