The NOTIFIER fire alarm system protecting the priceless treasures housed within the California Science Center in Los Angeles, California, has been expanded to cover the Samuel Oschin Space Shuttle Endeavour Display Pavilion – temporary home of the newly retired Space Shuttle Endeavour.

“The space shuttle is a national treasure and protecting it from fire is critical,” said Tony Budrovich, senior vice president of operations for the California Science Center Foundation. “We already had a NOTIFIER NFS2-3030 intelligent fire alarm control panel in the main California Science Center building, which is located very close to the temporary pavilion – and it made sense to connect the sensors, strobes and other equipment in the pavilion to the system in the main building.”

To handle such an extensive upgrade, new fire and electrical rooms were added to the Science Center. The fire alarm system covering these new rooms and the pavilion was designed by Los Angeles-based engineering firm Arup and installed by Cosco Fire Protection of Brea, California.

“Access to the new Pavilion will be through the existing building, so it made sense to extend the existing NOTIFIER system to the new Pavilion,” said Oswaldo “Ozzie” Mercado fire specialist for Arup. “This will keep a level of uniformity throughout the buildings [one system].”

Fire protection for the California Science Center is controlled by the NFS2-3030, NOTIFIER’s largest fire alarm control panel, able to support as many as 3,180 smoke detectors and other addressable initiating devices. Offering one of the largest capacities on the market, with built-in modularity for flexible system designs, the NFS2-3030 is ideal for expansion projects such as this.

Due to the pavilion’s sheet metal walls, electricians installed all wiring in conduit. Copper wire was run through conduit to tie together the NOTIFIER systems in the main Science Center facility and temporary pavilion.

To save on materials and labor, and help Science Center security better monitor and respond to events, the expanded system parts were added to the existing system’s graphic annunciator, located in the main building’s entryway.

“The graphic annunciator had to be modified to include the new building on it,” said Clint Jass, senior sales engineer for Cosco Fire Protection. By doing that, Jass said, “we were able to save on space and getting conduit there.”

The graphic annunciator provides a visual layout of events. Detailed messages about each event are sent from the NOTIFIER system to the graphic annunciator, as well as to an LCD annunciator located in the guard station.

“It enables them to have a 24-hour guard,” commented Jass. “It would indicate in the guard station if anything was going on in the pavilion.”

Another integral part of the Science Center’s original fire alarm is the ONYX Digital Voice Command (DVC), which drives the system’s voice evacuation audio announcements. Tying in and programming new speaker strobes in the Pavilion to the DVC allows authorized personnel to broadcast announcements throughout both facilities or to an individual area. This “zoned” approach allows different messages to be broadcast at the same time in separate areas, and messages can vary depending on the specific circumstances. In addition, a microphone on the DVC panel can be used to address occupants in real-time.

When construction is complete on the Endeavour Space Shuttle’s permanent home, to be named the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, the NFS2-3030 system’s scalable architecture and high capacity will easily accommodate future expansion.