The Fire and the Built Environment - Case Study Example

Word count: 2465 The Fire and the Built Environment The fire related incidents often cause large amount death and injuries to personnel in the United Kingdom. The details of fire related incidents in the countries of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland are analyzed and reported in the article. Based on the article it is understood that the significant amount of accidents related to fire happens in homes and in vehicles. Also, it is reported that rather than the regulatory intervention significant effort need to be given for more of safety awareness and community fire safety units. Also, better design approaches where safety approaches are given a priority shall also be included here. Contents page 1. Introduction 3 2. Methodology 3 3. Discussion on fire incidents across the countries 4 3.1 Review of fire incidents in Scotland region – The highest in UK 6 4. A typical fire incident in U.K. 8 5. Impact of fire on different building systems 8 6. Interventions to control fire in U.K 9 7. The impact of fire on age group 11 8. Summary. 11 9. Recommendations. 12 References 12 1. Introduction Significant amount of fire incidents are said to occur in United Kingdom and most of them often lead to death and injury of the personals. According to the data available on the Fire statistics from U.K., nearly 8 lakh fire related incident are reported by the Fire and Rescue services of which death tolls are reported as 443. Most of the cases are related to the fire incidents at the dwelling place and the higher fatality rate is reported for the people above the age group of 80. Also, sixty one percent of the fire related incidents are found to be accidental. The recently released figures show that the numbers have shown a marginal decrease over the pervious years. The year 2007 showed a reduction of 10 percent of casualty cases from those reported in the year 2006. Thus the importance of fire prevention measures being followed in these building certainly would have resulted in this change. In wake of the increasing fire related casualties in building, a fire safety order was released in the year 2005 which enforces a statutory risk assessment process in all building that have more than five occupants. Undertaking of such as exercise helps to identify the fire hazard in the building units and hence to initiate necessary method to reduce the impact of fire. Besides, the fire risk assessment being undertaken at regular intervals the owners of the building units are forced to undertake necessary modifications in order to ensure safer living conditions of their occupants. 2. Methodology The methodology involves undertaking detailed literature collection from the already published literature both online and in hard print. The secondary information available from the aforementioned sources is used to identify the type of accidents experienced in the countries chosen for the study. Also, the various effective interventions undertaken by different set of people indifferent countries is also considered in preparing the solutions and recommendations. 3. Discussion on fire incidents across the countries The major share of the death from fire is caused by the thick smoke generated. Among the proportion of causes reported those caused by the gas and smoke alone is reported as high as 44 percent. Those caused by burns alone forms 22 percent and the burns and smoke combined forms 19 percent (DCLG, 2007). The fatality rates expressed as deaths per million of population, pmp, has fallen from a high value of 13 pmp during the year 1995 to the lower value of 8 pmp reported in 2006. The gender fatality rate also showed wide variations. In the year 2006 the make fatality rates reported were 11 pmp while that of females were 6 pmp (DCLG< 2006). The non –fatal injuries too shows a decreasing trend with lowest value being reported in the year 2005. The fire incidents could be classified into the fire caused to dwellings, other building, road vehicles and other outdoor fires. The Table 1 gives the details on the above indicated distribution of fire across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The fire related deaths are showing a down ward trend in all the countries in United Kingdom. The year 2005 reported 491 fire related deaths, which is slightly less than the figures reported for the year 2004, 507 (DCLG, 2007). While in the year 1979 the number of deaths from the available record says that 1039 deaths and the number of deaths are showing a downward trend since then. The major cause of dwelling fires were the accidental fires caused from careless handling of fire or hot substance like cigarettes. The primary fire incidence has been decreasing in all the countries. In the primary fire fell by 7 percent, Wales show 10 percent decline and in Scotland and Northern Ireland it fell by 4 and 2 percent respectively. From the table 1 it is understood that the primary fire varies across different regions in a different manner. In Scotland, 47 % of all the primary fires were in dwellings with very low values reported in Northern Ireland , England and Wales. On the other hand, the road vehicle fires was reported very high in Wales , Northern Ireland and England while it remained very low in Scotland (DCLG, 2007). Table 1 Distribution of fire (Source :http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/fire/pdf/320258.pdf) Country Dwellings Other buildings Road vehicles Outdoor fire England 34 20 40 6 Scotland 47 21 21 6 Wales 28 19 47 6 Northern Ireland 32 20 42 6 3.1 – Review of fire incidents in Scotland region – The highest in UK The Scotland is reported to have most of the severe house fires that lead to high level of fatality when compared to any other country in United Kingdom. This have forced the regulatory agencies to undertake large scale awareness creation programmes on the risk factors involved with the fire fatalities and thus forcing them to install domestic fire smoke detectors. In spite of the best efforts taken to contain the incidence of house fires a comparative research taken in the Lothian and Borders region of Scotland. It is surprising to see that significant change have not taken place when compared to the events reported nearly 10 years before (Jordan, 2004). Another study highlights that fifty percent of the fire accidents related fatalities in Scotland are reported from the Strathclyde region (Sarhadi et al, 2001). The data available with the Glasgow Royal Infirmary was analyzed to understand the number of hospitalization cases with the fire burns and also compare it with the fire related deaths. The period from 1981 to 1993 showed 2771 admissions related to the burns unit and among them nearly 43 percent of the injury was from direct flame. The adults reported the major portion of injured group as nearly 69 % and the elderly and the children equally represented the remaining percentage. As per the Total Body surface Area involvement with fire 73 percent had the reported burn levels less than 15 percent, fifteen percent with the burn level between 16 and 30 and balance having the buns percent above 31 percent (Sarhadi et al, 2001). The research identified the reason for the domestic fires as mostly caused by the improper use of smoking materials. Another reason reported for burn injury was chip pan fires, which was responsible for nearly 8 percent of burns, reported at he hospital. The authors mention a significant reduction in the fire fatalities over the period from 1973 to 1995 as a result of educational measure and also through appropriate legislative intervention (Sarhadi et al, 2001) 4. A typical fire incident in U.K. The most recently reported fire incident in United Kingdom is that reported in east Kent on a three to four terraced building along Northdown Road, Cliftonville, Margate. The damaged part of the building includes shops and the living accommodation and the reports available showed that the fire and rescue team had a very difficult time to reach the required location. Though no serious causality is reported from the site the reason for the same is being investigated also the further damage was prevented by timely intervention by the rescue team (BBC, 2009). Another major fire that boroke in the same moth was at belfst college which strated as a thick smoke emanating from the principals home. The fire is suspected to have started in the area where the restoration and extension works were in progress. No reports of causality was made from this location also though considerable loss in the material and property is estimated by the authorities (OHara, 2009). 5. Impact of fire on different building systems The effect of fire on building depends on the type of the building function. The schools fires exposes very threatening picture as nearly 25 percent of all building fires are reported in schools. It is reported that on an average 3 schools are affected by fire every day in U.K.. And nearly 75 percent of them are attributed to the reasons of arson. Nearly fifty percent of school fires occur during the college hours (West Midlands Fire services Creative services, 2006). The impact of fire on a school building has far reaching effect. As the schools houses large number of human being with majority of them being small children the rescue operations too become very cumbersome. Besides the damage to life and the building, the loss of the document related to the academic processes like study materials, books, administrative documents, students reports and also loss in the academic affects the future functioning of the institution also. In most of he circumstances the fire in the school buildings are mostly caused by arson. The carelessness in taking adequate fire protection measures often lead to accidental fires that ultimately results in large catastrophes. The authorities often find it as a huge task to communicate effectively the impact of arson on the general function of the school. The experience of Chase Technology College at Staffordshire, when the main teaching block of the institution was burned down is worthy to be discussed here. The school was serving the regional community for the last seventy years and formed a very vital part of local landscape. The most of the operations of the school need to be relocated and from a centralized well planned administration into a mobile classrooms often leading to chaos and delays. In additional to the physical damage that happens in any established the monetary loss that happens in any post fire scenario was also reported as enormous. 6. Interventions to control fire in U.K The efforts to control fire in Scotland region is being initiated by The Central Scotland fire and Rescue Services. The figure released by The Central Scotland Fire and Rescue Services show that they have helped Scotland to record the lowest rate of fire related incidents an fatalities since 2003 (CSFRS, n.d.). This result is achieved under the circumstances that the fire related deaths and injures were on a rise in entire Scotland, as illustrated in the earlier paragraphs. The major intervention was made by the Community Safety Team of the Fire Services Division to increase the fire safety aspect at the individual homes. The team conducted nearly 68 percent fire safety checks and thus establishing the homeowners or residents to identify the risks present and to take appropriate measures to reduce or eliminate them. One of the most devastating fire incident reported is near Carbeth in Stirlingshire (CSFRS, n.d.). The fire which reported to have happened in the night had caused significant damage to the chalet with reported death of one person. The reasons for fire have not yet been identified and also the details of the deceased person too remain unknown. With this incident The Central Scotland Fire and Rescue Services have urged the people who own the holiday home , caravan and boats that provide any accommodation to equip the units with very sensitive fire alarms to ensure necessary precautions of fire. It was common belief that that strong regulations has strong influence in controlling the fire related accidents to considerable levels. But the experience of the impact on changing the prevailing legislation on fireworks in Northern Ireland reveals the extend of injury has no relationship with the nature of legislation. The sale of fireworks in Northern Ireland under a controlled regime and in the year 1996 the legislation was relaxed in line with the prevailing policies in the other regions of United Kingdom (Fogarty and Gorden, 1999). The impact of the change in the legislation in Northern Ireland was carried out based on the analysis of extend of fire injury cases reported for 2 years in the hospitals. The data collected during the period of two years after the legislation was brought into force was compared with the information available three years before the change in law. The change in mean number of patients admitted per 100,000 with blast injuries across the two periods did not show any significant differences. Even the nature of injuries reported like burn injury, hand injury etc too showed a similar characteristic pattern and hence the impact of legislation to reduce he fire related injury cannot be considered as very significant (Forarty and Gorden, 1999). In most of the cases the reduction in injures are based on the effective extension works undertaken by the concerned authorities. The liberalized of law was expected to result in the large scale increase in the fire related injuries but the results obtained from the research activity shows high level of awareness on the fires safety. But the long term effect on the safety norms in sales need to be assessed before making any valid conclusions on this. 7. The impact of fire on age group The research studies have been undertaken on the quantifying the mortality rate, especially in the elderly age group, across a ten year period from Northern Ireland (Khadim et al, 2009). The study also aimed in comparing this information with those available from United Kingdom for different regions. The data collected included the age, burn size, cause of the injury due to thermal effects, the outcome of the injury like survived and recovered, survived with handicap and death. The mean age of the patients were 76.7 and maximum burn size treated was found as 65 %. Nearly ten patients were affected with the smoke inhalation. Major share of patients had previous incidents of treatments for severe health problems like cardiovascular disorders. Better health care and treatment protocols like excision and grafting of burned regions were adopted. The results obtained revealed that even in the case of elderly people higher rate of survival could be observed than the expected. Thus it is inferred that better medical attention like early admission to Intenive Care Units and in needed cases early surgery could result in higher recovery rates (Khadim et al, 2009). 8. Concluding Remarks. The detailed analysis of fire related incident in all the four regions of U.K. showed vide disparities. The figures and reasons reported for different regions shows the specific attention required in each location considering the local issues and demographic profile in those places. Rather than the strengthening the rescue team, it is necessary to spread the effect of community fire service activity to increase the public awareness on the fire and the issues related with handling of fire. Also, attention required for specific age group is highlighted along with the need for a framework to handle fire in different building units using school as an example. 9. Recommendations. The recommendations are proposed considering the safety requirement in all the building units under use and those would be constructed in future. As the building being constructed have very complex designs and use advanced building materials, the suitability of conventional fire safety regulations need to be verified. Also, the design of different building units could be undertaken by considering the concept of time to escape (Hall, 2004). The research results highlight that providing proper Available Safe Egress Time (ASET) and Required safe Egress Time (RSET) in building unit could save large number of lives when contacted with fire. Thus the design approaches like performance based engineering design might be feasible in large and complex building systems. References Articlebase (2009), Fire statistics in UK [Online] Available at [Accessed on 2 December 2009] BBC (2009), Building damaged in major fire [Online] [Accessed on 1 December 2009] CSFRS (n.d.) Fatal Fire in Holiday Chalet (16/11/07)[Online] [Accessed on 2 December 2009] DCLG (2007), The fire statistics, United Kingdom, 2005 [Online] available at [Accessed on 4 December 2009] Fogarty, B.J. and Gorden, D.J. (1999) Firework related injury and legislation: the epidemiology of firework injuries and the effect of legislation in Northern Ireland, Burns, 25(1), pp 53-56. Hall, J.R. (2004), How Many People Can Be Saved from Home Fires if Given More Time to Escape?, Fire Technology, 40(2), pp 117-126. Jordan, L.B, Squires, T.J. and Busuttil, A (1999) Incidence trends in house fire fatalities in eastern Scotland , Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine,6(4), pp 233 - 237. Khadim, M.F., Rashid, A., Fogarty, B. and and Khan, K. (2009) Mortality estimates in the elderly burn patients: The Northern Ireland experience, Burns, 35(1), pp 107-113. OHara, V. (2009), Major fire damages the belfast college [Online] [Accessed on 2 December 2009] Sarhadi, N.S., Reid, W.H., Murray, G.D., and Williamson, J, Flame burn admissions and fire fatalities in Scotland with particular reference to the Strathclyde (Glasgow) region, and their prevention , Burns, 27(7), pp 731-738. West midland s fire service creative services (2006), Keep your school in business [Online] [Accessed on 2 December 2009] Read More