N.Y. Labor Law § 279: Fire alarm signal systems and fire drills

§ 279. Fire alarm signal systems and fire drills. 1. Fire alarm signal

systems. Except as may otherwise be provided by the board in its rules,

every factory building over two stories in height in which more than

twenty-five persons are employed above the ground floor shall be

equipped by the owner thereof with a fire alarm signal system having a

sufficient number of signals clearly audible to all occupants of the

building, and so arranged as to permit the sounding of all the alarms

within the building whenever the alarm is sounded in any portion

thereof. Such system shall be maintained in good working order and no

person shall tamper with same or render ineffective any portion thereof

except to repair it. A person discovering a fire shall cause an alarm to

be sounded immediately. The board of standards and appeals in the city

of New York and elsewhere the board may make rules and regulations

relating to the installation of fire alarm signals and prescribing the

number, character and location of the signals and the method and

character of the installation including that of all appliances in

connection therewith.

2. Fire drills. Except as may otherwise be provided by the board in

its rules, in every factory building over two stories in height in which

more than twenty-five persons are employed above the ground floor, a

fire drill shall be conducted at least once a month in which all of the

occupants of the building shall participate simultaneously and which

shall conduct all such occupants to a place of safety. In New York city

the fire commissioner and elsewhere the board shall make rules,

regulations and special orders necessary or suitable to each situation

and to secure the personal co-operation of all the tenants of the

building in a fire drill of all the occupants thereof. Such rules,

regulations and orders may require the posting of the same or an

abstract thereof and may prescribe upon whom shall rest the duty of

carrying them out.

3. Exceptions. Subdivisions one and two of this section shall not

apply to a building in which every square foot of the floor area on all

stories is protected with an automatic sprinkler system having two

adequate sources of water supply and approved by the public authorities

having jurisdiction thereof and in which also the maximum number of

occupants of any one floor does not exceed by more than fifty per centum

the capacity of the exits, as determined by subdivisions one, two, three

and four of section two hundred and seventy-eight. If the commissioner

after investigation determines that the spirit of this chapter is

observed and public safety secured he may permit in place of the

automatic sprinkler system before specified an automatic sprinkler

system having one adequate source of water supply and approved by the

public authorities having jurisdiction thereof.

4. The provisions of this section shall be enforced in the city of New

York by the fire commissioner of said city and elsewhere by the

commissioner.