Occupancies including warehouses, freight terminals, aircraft hangars, parking garages, and barns are classified as:

• A. assembly occupancies.
• B. business occupancies.
• C. storage occupancies.
• D. mercantile occupancies.

Answer: (C)

These spaces are treated as storage occupancies. The defining idea is that the primary purpose of the building is to store goods, vehicles, or equipment, not to host people gathering, sell merchandise, or perform office work. Warehouses, freight terminals, aircraft hangars, parking garages, and barns are all used mainly for storage, so they fit the storage occupancy category under fire code classifications.

Mercantile occupancies are for public retail sales, business occupancies cover offices and similar workspaces, and assembly occupancies are designed for large gatherings of people. While a storage facility might contain offices or showroom areas, the main use remains storage, which is why storage occupancy is the best fit.