Analysis of Fires, Accidents, and Catastrophes - Case Study Example

Introduction Fire could be considered as the biggest threat that has been affecting the building fabric and people. There have been many buildings that has fallen victim to the havoc of fire. There has been a big fire that had engulfed the 38-floor skyscraper in Philadelphia and the fire occurred in the year 1991.The fire had began from the 22nd floor and had been raging for more than 18 hours. The severity of the fire could be understood by the fact that eight floors has been gutted and it has been estimated that there has been at least dollar 100 million for property loss. The fire was described as the significant fire of the century. There has been breaking of window, the granite being cracked and there has been failure of panel connections. The big surprising thing has been that no part of the building has been collapsed. The First Interstate Bank Fire has been in Los Angeles and the building has been a 62 storied sky scraper and it has been considered as the worst fire in the history of Los Angeles. The fire occurred in the year 1988 May 4 night and extended up to May 5 1988.There has been 64 companies that has been used for extinguishing the fire and the fire had lasted more than 3.5 hours. There has been extensive window damage that has been caused and that had complicated the fire fighting abilities. There has been use of large flames and that had stepped outside the building. There has been use of large quantities of water and that has led to the massive water damage to the floor below the fire and there has been damage of offices from the 12th to the 16th floor and that has been the main reason for causing the damage in form of smoke. There has been an estimation of 200 million dollar loss in property. The floors have been burnt for four hours and there has been no damage to main structural building. The other fire that has hit the major building has been the New York Plaza Fire. The building has been a 50 storied building that has been situated close to the world trade center. There has been a big fire and explosion in the year 1970 and the fire started at 6 pm and burned for more than 6 hours. There has been another fire in the region of tallest sky scraper in Venezuela.That had occurred in the year 2004.The fir has been burning for more than 17 hours and it had spread to the 26 floors and heat from the ifre had prevented the fire fighters to reach the top. There has been heat from the fires that has been reached the upper floors and the smoke had been injured 40 fire fighters. There has been no enforcement of fire codes in Venezuela and that has been blamed for the mal functioning of the water pumps and there has been lack of fire extinguishers inside the building. The building has been empty when the fire has been broken out and there has been no injury to the civilian and nobody was killed. The Windsor Building Fire has occurred in the year 2005 and that occurred in Spain, Madrid. The Windsor fire has been more severe of the fires and the incident has been publicized and the main attraction of the building was that it has been framed in steel reinforced concrete rather than steel. There have been different responses by the structures to the fires. The Beijing Mandarin Oriental Hotel Fire has occurred in the year 2009 and the 520 feet tall sky scraper in Beijing has been that the fire had engulfed at 8 pm in night and the fire had engulfed within twenty minutes. There has been burning of fire for more than three hours and the fire had been extending across all floors for a period of time and the control of the structure has been collapsed. The above mentioned fires have been some of the major fires that have been occurred around the world. The aim of the essay is to analyze any 4 different fires in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for last 25 years. The report would be covering the use of any large- and medium-scale fire and explosion disasters. The report would demonstrate the analytical skills applied to fire-related disasters in the built environment. In England Historic Grand Pier at Weston-super-Mare. The case study There has been dozens of fire fighters who has been used to tackle the blaze that had occurred at North Somerset seaside resort at about 0700 BST. There was no injury to anyone. The fire had started in an area that had contained the deep fat fryers and black smoke has been visible 10 miles away. The flames had destroyed the pier's many serving hatches, bars and games booths leaving the 100 employees facing an uncertain future. Dee Williams, deputy manager of the Grand Atlantic Hotel, which lies 200 yards from the pier, described “the fire as "an inferno" and heard loud bangs which she believed to be fireworks left over from a recent display. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2464422/Weston-super-Mare-Grand-Pier-fire-wreaks-havoc.html) Jacquie Whelan, owner of Sunfold Hotel on Beach Road, said it was a "horrendous" sight, with massive red flames, hundreds of feet in the air, all over the pier”. "[It looked] like a huge bonfire," she said. The blaze ripped through the partly-wooden structure, which was opened in 1904, and sent vast plumes of grey smoke spiraling into the air above the resort in Somerset. The fire had been extinguished using six fire engines and there have been 30 fire fighters that were at the scene. The blaze started from the west tower of the Grade 11 listed pier. The smoke has been seen at 10 miles away. The blaze, that had started before 7 are, and it had destroyed the wooden structure. There has been smoke that had destroyed the Bristol Channel and that has been visible from south Wales. Andrew Horler, Weston's mayor, said the blaze had hit the resort's 104-year-old "heartbeat". "I really, really hope it can be rebuilt - it's pure devastation for the town," he said. "It provides jobs and is a massive tourist attraction. It is the very heartbeat of this town. I really hope someone is able to rebuild it." The case study provides interesting description. An analysis would provide that there has to be a sensitive approach when it comes to fire handling in older buildings when compared with newer buildings. There has to be a high fire and safety management that would be protecting people and building together. This is being done like that to make sure that historical contents are not being destroyed. The common factors that these buildings would be having is that it would be having large scale buildings; flammable priceless contents; large numbers of visitors; and existing structures weak on fire resistance. The Major fires that has hit England has been that York Minster, England in the July 1984 The fires that has been taking place has taken place in the early morning hours at 9 the July 1984 and there has been a wide spread belief that the fire that has been spread like lightning strike. The fire hat has been spread and that has been caused massive damage to the 13th century cathedral and the building took four years to be repaired. The fire brigade had taken the major decision to destroy the South Transept roof and that has been done using pouring tens of thousands of gallons of water onto it. That had helped to save the rest of the Minster as the flames were ready to destroy the tower space and that would have destroyed the whole building.( http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/july/9/newsid_3857000/3857779.stm) Hampton Court Palace, England in March 1986 There has been complete destruction of building of Hampton Court Palace, Henry VIII's and this was beautiful riverside retreat near London .There has been problems of replacing the building and Grinling Gibbons carvings, painted ceilings and the canopy of William III's throne .( http://www.original.rolandcollection.com/rolandcollection/section/35/494.htm) Uppark House, England in Aug. 1989 The fire had devasted the building in the year 1989 and the building has been destroyed fire that had been caused by a workman's blowtorch .The fire had happened in the early morning hours. The Windsor Castle (UK) was damaged in a fire in the year 1992 and the fire had been caused by a curtain that has been ignited by a wall mounted spotlight and that has been causing the fire. Howard and Kara-Zaitri (1999,p.364) has described that fire safety management can be defined as “the application by a manager of policy, standards, tools, information and practices to the task of analysing, evaluating and controlling fire safety”. A view supported by Pickard (1994, p.8) who stated that “a fire safety strategy for a specific building needs management policies and procedures to ensure the effective operation of the strategy” and it should be on an ongoing basis where fire safety systems need to be regularly checked and maintained. The fire may be caused suddenly and that would mean that the building occupant would be having limited time to react. The fire if not controlled would be causing lot of damages like it could result in death and injury of people when they have been forced to inhale smokes and gases. There would be death due to destruction of buildings and there would be death that would be caused by destruction of tangible property. The building would be caused to close down fully and that could affect the future income of the building. There has to be proper steps that has to be done to stop the fire from spreading Every building should be legally compiles with fire certificates and that should be obtained every building should have staff that should be complied with proper fire prevention methods. There has to be a fire safety manager and there has to be fire prevention committee that would be meeting to prevent fire on very building including the heritage building. There has to be signage that has been done on fire safety and procedures and that should be sufficient and properly located. Every building has to be inspected to make sure that no obstacle at all times to fire exits, hose reel, evacuation routes, .Every fire prevention system should be done periodically to prevent the fire being spread and there has to be comprehensive fire action plan. The fire prevention exercise should be done periodically. There has to be use of consultant that has to be used for assessing the fire prevention. There has to be use of fire drills that has to be organized over six month intervals and that has to be under the supervision of local fire brigade and there has to be staff that should be undergoing fire safety training annually. There has to be staff that knows the staff would know to minimizing fire risks and how to react in event of fire. There has to be insurance for buildings that has to be covering the fire prevention and fire expense. There has to be a team that has to be trained for salvaging the contents of heritage building and that has to be done using cooperation with local fire brigade. There has to be steps that would be implementing the safe storage of architectural, photographic and other information should be put in place. The main qualities that has been used for determining the fire safety measure in heritage building has been that 1.the age of the structure ,construction type and uniqueness 2) the location of the site and accessibility of the site. 3) There has been distance of travel to exit and the size and height of the structure would be the most important. The quality of the finish of the building and that has been type of building contents. The main things that has to be noted for when looking at heritage buildings would be that existing structures would be weak on fire resistance and there would be combustible materials like usage of timber and other wood materials. There would be fire prevention and protection systems that would be passive fire protection .There would be concerns like the poor fire safety awareness among the building owners, managers, staff and public and there has been low standard of management, housekeeping and maintenance. There have been few heritage buildings located at busiest area and that would be creating problems for fire brigade if fire occurs. There would be concerns of existing electrical wiring that would not be upgraded or replaced accordingly. They would be using old electrical wiring that would cause faulty electrical system to short circuit mode and that would be causing the problem. There should be proper storage for many flammable artifacts or heritage collections such as old books, manuscripts, traditional costumes and antique furniture in heritage building. The heritage building would be normally having number of visitors and that would be open daily to public. There has to be danger from renovation works and that would mean possible danger from nature factors like lightning, overheating and there has been danger of careless and arson. The main important things that has to be done when prevention of fire would be that prevention, preparation, response and recovery. Reference Spadaccini, D.(1998). Building Fire Safety. The SafetyLine Institute.http://www.safetyline.wa.gov.au/institute/level1/course10/lecture27/l27_01.asp. (accessed 16 November 2009) Howard, D.J. and Kara-Zaitri, C. (1999). Fire Safety Management at Passenger Terminals. Journal.: Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 8, No.5, pp. 362-369. Pickard, R.(1994). Fire Safety and Protection in Historic Buildings in England and Ireland- Part II.Journal: Structural Survey, Vol. 12 No. 3, 1993/4, pp. 8 -10. 1984: York Minster ablaze,viewed and retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/july/9/newsid_3857000/3857779.stm The Restoration of Hampton Court Palace,viewed and retrived from http://www.original.rolandcollection.com/rolandcollection/section/35/494.htm Richard Savill and Graham Tibbetts ,2008,Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier fire wreaks havoc,viewed and retireved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2464422/Weston-super-Mare-Grand-Pier-fire-wreaks-havoc.html Read More