When disaster strikes, having appropriately sized Fire Turnarounds and Turnouts in your driveway system could mean life or death. Not just yours or your family's but the lives of the men and women responding to your needs!
In our last article, Anatomy of a Gravel Driveway, we took a look at how gravel driveways are constructed layer by layer. In this article, we are going to focus on curves, turns, EMS turnouts and turnarounds.
Curves and turns can get too tight. Who would want to come home from a long day and wrestle their steering wheel to do a 3-point turn in order to get to the house? Me neither and neither do EMS and delivery drivers. Also, cranking the wheel on your gravel driveway or your asphalt can shorten the life of your driveway.
Fortunately, the counties have helped us out. Let's study some drawings.
In the above drawing that I received from Will Anderson, the Whatcom County Fire Marshal, we can see that the very minimum outer radius needs to be 40 feet. From that same point, the inner radius - at a minimum - needs to be 25 feet. The larger these radii, the easier it will be to turn.
The drawing also gives us guidelines on grades. As you can see, if the grade is greater than or equal to 12%, we need a 2 1/2 inch compacted top course of Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA). Greater than or equal to 15% slope and you'll need to pour concrete and it needs to have grooves in it to help avoid sliding on snow or ice. We also see that our driveway cannot go beyond 18% slope.
The notes in the above Drawing - 505.E-6 - make a nice segway into Turnarounds. We want the EMS vehicles to get close to our homes, but not too close. Nor do we want them too far away. In the case of a fire, the less hose that needs to be used to put the house out, the better. So, with new construction, Whatcom County wants the center of your turnaround - or center of the EMS vehicle - to be no closer than 50 feet to the structure and no further than 150 feet away.
Depending on your lot, here are some options:
Washington Contractor's License #BLINDHL795D5
WABO Certified in Fluxcore 1/8" to unlimited thickness structural steel. All positions
We carry general liability insurance and a bond to protect our client's investments. Safety is our top priority!
