Importance of Fire Safety Campaign - Coursework Example

Community Safety 1. Scanning Overcrowding is a usual hazard present in almost all country and accidents in the home are one of the leading causes of injury worldwide (Landon 2006, p.124). The type of dwelling and its construction are essential determinants of hazard in the indoor environment. If building standards are hopeless or absent predominantly in housing, there are risks of fire, explosion, collapse, accidents and pollution. For instance, poorly designed buildings and fittings or unfinished construction can lead to falls. If housing is made of flammable materials, or cooking fires and stoves are hazardous, the risk of death and injury due to fire are increased. The inferior layout of the room can lead to insufficient space and ventilation for cooking (Landon 2006, p.124). Fire poses a particular serious threat in overpopulated high-rise buildings. Initially, it is difficult for fire fighters swiftly and safely evacuates large populations in buildings. Since elevators do not provide a safe means of exit during a fire, thousands of people may be forced to move down crowded stairs. This is a disheartening problem under the best of conditions, but the dangers are intensified in the noise, smoke darkness, and confusion of a high-rise fire, predominantly for those trying to get away from upper floor. Second, it is hard for fire fighters to reach the upper floors thus to extinguish fire above that point, fire fighters must sometimes climb dozens of flight of stairs, dragging fire hoses and other heavy equipment with them. Third, chimney type stairwells and electrical/plumbing chases allow smoke to travel to floors for above the fire. Fourth, building materials in high-rises constructed in the past forty years pose a further danger, as a fire will frequently produce toxic smoke from thousands of miles of wiring, plastics, fibre floor tiling, furniture, and carpeting. The longer the fire rages, the more poisonous the surroundings become. Ultimately, as a high-rise fire increases, it will actually begin travelling up a building through outer windows, raging from floor to floor (Chicago High Rise Safety Commission 1999, p.4). The origins of high-rise building fires are not very different from the causes of fires in other buildings. In high-rise, electrical distribution system fires rank first in causes of fire-related property damage. In 1998, a study according to Craighead (2003, p.43) reveals structure fires and associated losses of 37 civilian deaths, 60 civilian injuries, and $41.1 million in direct property damage. These statistics verifies previous studies that most high-rise building fires and associated losses occur in apartment buildings. Two of the leading causes of high-rise building fires are electrical problems and arson, with a third major cause being careless workers. Fire originates in tenant spaces 28 percent of the time, usually occurring between 7:00 in the morning and 6:00 in the evening on weekdays when the building is full. Another 21 percent of building fires occur in electrical and mechanical rooms, with a similar proportion of fire starting in common areas and other building areas. Many of the hazards presented by high-rise buildings are not exclusively associated with buildings of one specific period. Because of their size and form, these buildings share some familiar problems. For instance, the occupancy of a particular building changes its problems. Offices, hotels, apartments, homes for the elderly, factories, and showrooms are all different. Some buildings have mixed occupancies and many tenants dwell in more than one floor in a building thus accommodation or access stairway are installed. This is typically done as a modification and is hardly ever enclosed. The effect is that two or more floors become one fire area, totally opposing the theory of floor integrity (Brannigan and Corbett 2007, p.268). 2. Analysis A number of factors linked with fire incidents in high-rise housing include ignition and spread, construction, occupant activities, and fire protection system factors. The occupant behaviour or activities of incendiary fire setting, cooking, and smoking emerged to be the principal causes of housing fires. Potential ignition sources are smoking materials including cigarettes, matches and lighters, candles and incense, cooking equipment and appliances, electric lamps, building services including electrical and gas distribution and utilization equipment, arson and other incendiary or suspicious devices. The fire in an occupied high-rise and the subsequent extension according to Avilo (2002, p.90), could be directly attributed to the negligence and unresponsiveness of the occupant regarding smoking materials in the proximity to a highly combustible items. The lack of understanding on the part of the occupants as to the swiftness at which a fire can spread and what to do in the event of a fire, and the blocking open of the doors in the hallway that lead to heat and smoke extending to the stairwells and upper floors. Cooking is the leading cause of all residential fires and high-rise housing has kitchens and thus is vulnerable to similar types of kitchen fires as residences in general. Such fires commonly result from unattended cooking or from wearing loose-fitting apparel when cooking. Moreover, there are other cooking appliances like hotplates, coffee makers, and hot water immersion heaters that pose an even greater fire risk because they are being fixed in spaces not intended for such usage. In a research conducted on all fires taking place in public sector housing, risk identified were related to the occupant’s way of life while others were evidently the responsibility of the housing managers. Thus, both the housing management and the tenants have a role in achieving fire safety (Stollard and Abrahams 1999, p.115). They must regard their roles seriously because fire kills and harm migrant workers. Many fire fighters were killed and severely injured in high-rise fires due to the complexity and height of the building. Fire and rescue services who are responding to these fires are in great danger thus care should be taken by residents and management to avoid fatalities 3. Response One of the main concern regarding high-rise buildings is the fact that is very hard for fire fighters to fight fires on upper levels because most floors are higher that highest access point of the ladder trucks. Although floors were within reach, it would be a time-consuming process to employ a ladder to evacuate people predominantly on overpopulated high-rise housing buildings. Good high-rise design must make certain the safety of the occupants and therefore must include automatic sprinkler protection, smoke alarms, emergency lighting, standby power, detection systems, and communication systems. The most advantageous protection is the early suppression or control of a fire before it becomes life threatening. However, if containment fails, fire-rated separation from fire and smoke are essential to guarantee life safety. More importantly, strict conformity to codes and standards is significant in high-rise design (Scott 1997, p.102). Methods of enhancing high-rise fire safety are compartmentation, a construction technique in which, during construction, the contractor divides the interior of a building into compartments with abnormally thick walls, which prevent fire from escaping from a compartment for two to four hours. By slowing down the fire, compartmentation decrease fatalities and property damage. Another is the installation of heat-activated automatic sprinklers, which control a fire at its source through the release of distinct quantity of water enough to put out a fire. Other significant fire safety measures include well-located and well-marked exits, smoke and heat detectors, smoke and fire alarms, fire extinguishers, and education regarding fire safety and evacuation. All these fire safety measures are potentially accessible for use in existing buildings with the exception of compartmentation, which must be incorporated into a building’s original design. Sprinklers are considered one of the most efficient resources for controlling a fire and reducing the damage the fire can produce. However, when we look at the well-publicized fires that cause considerable damage, and therefore received the most news media exposure, we find that the buildings did not have sprinklers mounted, or were only partly sprinklered (Devlin 2006, p.118). While most fire deaths occur in smaller, often residential buildings, larger commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings create a potential for many deaths and injuries from a single fire (Bingelli 2003, p.360). High-rise buildings need an excessive length of time to evacuate. Stack effects can be created in high-rise buildings over 23 meters tall. Such building must have their own fire fighting system that is generally an automatic sprinkler system. Automatic sprinkler systems put out developing fires before they have an opportunity to get wild (Bingelli 2003, p.361). In contemporary high-rise buildings, special fire protection requirements such as automatic sprinklers, detection and alarm systems, and compartmentation features associated with fire-resistive construction are reflected in strict laws, codes, and standards. These special requirements, even though they are designed to offer adequate time for dwellers to escape, are not in themselves satisfactory (Craighead 2003, p.44). The life safety of occupants also depends significantly on how prepared they are to respond correctly at the time of an incident. If building management has provided a sound fire life safety program, then a building can be considered well prepared. A sound fire life safety program will assist all building staff and occupants to be in constant state of readiness to react to an emergency, particularly one that involves fire, in a way that will help provide for everyone’s safety. The building will also control the decisions made by the occupants by its escape routes, guidance signs and other installed safety systems. The spread of fire and smoke will have the strongest influence on how the occupants make their decisions thus pre-fire activity is a significant issue (Stellman 1998, p.41). Whenever a person is engage in a familiar activity, for instance eating a meal in a restaurant, the implications for subsequent behaviour are considerable. Individuals may or may not have realized that there is a fire. An understanding of their behaviour must take account of whether they have characterized their situation accurately. When the fire has been defined, the ‘prepare’ stage occurs. The particular type of occupancy is expected to have a huge influence on exactly how this stage develops. How an individual respond during a fire is linked to the responsibility assumed, previous experience, education and personality, the perceived threat of the fire situations, the physical characteristics and means of egress accessible within the structure, and the behaviour of others who are partaking the incident. Exhaustive consultations and studies over 30 years have recognized that occurrence of non-adaptive, or panic, behaviour are atypical events that take place under specific conditions. Most behaviour in fires is resolved by information analysis, consequential in cooperative and humane actions. As the major significance of any fire protection measure is to provide an adequate degree of life safety to inhabitants of a structure, legal requirements applying to fire protection are based on life safety concerns. Property protection features are proposed to reduce physical damage but in numerous cases, these goals are complementary. Where concerns exists with the loss of property, its function or contents, an owner may decide to employ measures beyond the required minimum necessary to deal with life safety concerns (Stellman 1998, p.41). “The need for and value of fire safety education can be no clearer than the evidence produced by fires” (Avilo 2002, p.90). Nothing can take the place of an effective fire safety education program for the workers. However, since confusion and sometimes panic at a high-rise fire, instructions in key places, such as elevator lobby areas and stairway doors, may do what the program could not – “give direction when the incident is actually occurring” (Avilo 2002, p.90). Fire safety education is an increasingly value area of public fire protection. It is required to alter the way the general public perceived fire, and to persuade people to proceed in a fire-safe manner. The immigrant workers needs to be enthused and educated in actions that diminish the hazardous effects of a fire, should one take place. Information is best presented in short, appealing messages that require deliberation and that place responsibility for action on the receiver. In general, receivers associate more efficiently to the fire safety message when it is presented in a dramatic context. Cultural and language factors should be considered also, when fire safety messages are prepared for communication throughout the community (Cote 2003, p.318). 4. Assessment Intensifying the significance of and effect of fire safety education are the main goal of most fire departments because it is plainly obvious that it can stop fires before they start. With the increase in fire safety presentation in the past several years and the simultaneous decline in civilian fire fatalities, “the direct correlation between education and safety is evident” (Hashagen 2002, p.241). Following a string of high-rise fires, it became understandable that people did not know if they should leave the building or were safer staying in the apartments. In the United Kingdom in 2004, the majority of fires in dwellings are accidental with 80% but fell by 4% since 2003. The main cause of accidental fire remains the misuse of equipment or appliances. About 17,200 cases recorder in 2004, about the same as in previous year but this figure represents a 14% decrease from a recent high of 20,100 fires in 2000. Cooking appliances are the main source of ignition in accidental dwelling fires with 67% in 2004. These fell by 4% to 27,200, the fourth consecutive annual fall and a total fall of 20% from the peak of 33,900 in 2000. In 2006, there were 491 fire-related deaths in the UK. The highest number recorded was 1,096 deaths in 1979. Through the 1980s and 1990s, there was a general downward trend. The 2006 figure is the lowest since 1959 (Communities and Local Government 2008, p.12). Because of fire safety, awareness programs or fire safety education there is a downward trend in dwelling fires since 1997 –see Figure 1. Comparing statistics from 2004 and 2006 for source of ignition in dwellings, we will notice the substantial reduction in fire incidents –see Figure 2. The reduction in fire incidents is mainly due to the communities and local government objectives to decrease the level of damage, injury and death caused by fires by working intimately with the fire and rescue service and supporting its ongoing modernisation. They are providing a guide to drive the service in taking a wider role, focusing more on fire prevention and protecting the public from a range of risks. This is also in support for the key national safety campaign seeking to build up a lasting national fire safety strategy based on three main themes, prevention, detection, and escape. Community fire safety and the prevention of fire and incidents through community participation, education, research and awareness-raising all play central roles in helping to realize national goals. Fire safety campaign is a promotional campaign meant for the general public which contains helpful information on how to avert, sense and escape from fire. It features key fire safety messages and materials, including specialised resources for teachers, fire fighters, people with disabilities, and property owners and tenants. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, a responsible person must carry out a fire safety risk assessment, put into practice, and maintain a fire management plan. These include people in charge of business premises, an employer or self-employed with business premises, responsible for a part of a dwelling where that part is exclusively used for business purposes, and a contractor with a degree of control over any premises (Communities and Local Government 2008, p.1). 5. Bibliography Avillo Anthony. 2002. Fireground Strategies: Fire Engineering. PennWell Books, U.S. Binggeli Corky. 2003. Building Systems for Interior Designers. John Wiley and Sons, U.S. Communities and Local Government, 2008, Fire Statistics United Kingdom 2006, Communities and Local Government, U.K. Cote Arthur E. 2003. Organizing for Fire and Rescue Services: A Special Edition of the Fire Protection Handbook. Jones & Bartlett Publishers, Canada Craighead Geoff. 2003. High-rise Security and Fire Life Safety. Butterworth-Heinemann,, U.S. Devlin Edward S.2006. Crisis Management Planning and Execution. CRC Press, U.S. Hashagen Paul. 2002. Fire Department City of New York: The Bravest; An Illustrated History 1865-2002. Turner Publishing Company, U.S. Landon Megan. 2006. Environment, Health and Sustainable Development. McGraw-Hill International, Poland Scott James G.1997. Architectural Building Codes: A Graphic Reference. Wiley-Interscience, U.S. Stellman Jeanne Mager. 1998. Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health and Safety. International Labour Organization, U.S. Stollard Paul and Abrahams John. 1999. Fire from First Principles: A Design Guide to Building Fire Safety. Published by Taylor & Francis, U.K. Read More