Hey everyone it’s Desert, your friendly Fire Arts Committee Chair, here with some updates from the last month (January 2021)!
We’ve been busy heading into 2021 and here are some things I think you’ll all find informative if not down right interesting.
As some of you are aware, a Fire Arts Committee was formed as part of Seattle Flow Arts Collective (SFAC) in 2020. The purpose of the committee is to advocate and facilitate Fire Performance Arts in the greater Seattle area. We are actively working towards the goal of having a regular recurring fire jam, like Spinurn back in the old days.
So far, we have lined up the required insurance policies and researched the city’s application process. At this point we are prepared to start the application process for a Fire Permit. However, earlier this month the Seattle Special Events Committee voted to extend the permit suspension until April 2021 due to the COVID crisis. While we are “burning” to get our local jam restarted, we agree with the decision of the Special Events Committee and are balancing our desire to gather and celebrate our art form against the health and safety of our community. Know that as soon as it’s safe for us to gather, we plan to be ready to go!
If you are curious about the permitting process, feel free to reach out to Desert, the current Chair for the Fire Arts Committee, Desert@SeattleFlowArts.ORG.
For anyone who is interested in applying for a fire permit in the City of Seattle, here are some of the relevant documents:
Seattle Fire Department Permit Application. Code 1102 (Single Event $235)
Seattle Fire Department Permit Application. Code 2511 (12 Month, Multiple Events $620)
Insurance Coverage
Fire Performance Event Notification Form
As you may have read in last month’s BLOG post, the Fire Arts Committee has been working on a Fire Safety Course. We’ve been working to organize our information and experiences, and in so doing realized that the document we were creating for internal use by our certified Fire Safety Instructors would be a great manual to provide to those who attend our class for later reference. This conceptual change to the document means that we will be adding considerably more content than we had initially planned. It’s a lot more work to fully explain something in writing than it is to write a prompt for a knowledgeable instructor to speak on a topic!
As this guide is going to be continually evolving and growing in step with our art form, we would love the opportunity to show you where we are and gather your thoughts and feedback. We plan to present the outline of the Fire Safety Course manual at the SFAC Town Hall on 2/20. We hope you plan to attend!! It’s going to be a great chance to ask us all the questions you’ve been smoldering to get answers to!
When are we going to have fire jams again?
What makes you all the people who get to speak for the fire community?
What kinds of virtual jams are happening?
What are the goals of the SFAC organization?
How do I get involved?
Seattle Fire Code Advisory Board and 2018 Seattle Fire Code
Earlier this month, the Seattle Fire Code Advisory Board (FCAB) voted to adopt a new fire code for the city. FCAB is the committee that recommends changes to existing fire code as well as introduces new code for the city to adopt. In most cases, FCAB uses a national standard as a basis and then modifies that standard as needed to be applicable to Seattle. Some of the SFAC Fire Arts Committee members were able to attend the meeting and listen to the process. FCAB meetings are open to the public, you should check it out sometime! Here is a link to their webpage, with their meeting schedule. The newly adopted “2018 Seattle Fire Code” can be found in the links section below! We can hear you from here: “2018? It’s 2021 so why are they just adopting the 2018 code?!?” In general, the city adopts a new fire code every couple of years and that adoption process takes about two years. Due to COVID, this process was delayed. We have done a quick review of the new code from the perspective of Fire Performance Arts and have found no change to those codes which impact our art form. We encourage anyone who is interested in Fire Performance Art to become familiar with the Seattle Fire Code. In the 2018 Seattle Fire Code our Fire Performance Art still falls under the “Flame Effect Operator” classification. Here are the links to the newly adopted Seattle Fire Code as was as a link to the Cities Fire Code and Safety Documents.
2018 Seattle Fire Code
Seattle Fire Code and Fire Safety-Documents
That’s all I’ve got folks, I hope you found it all as interesting as I do!
Cheers,
Desert
If you have are interested in joining us and helping to advocate for our art form check out our Volunteer Page!As always don’t hesitate to reach out to us with questions, comment or feedback on our Contact page.