Fire at the Windsor Tower Hotel, Madrid, 12th February 2005 - Assignment Example

History is abound with several examples of devastating fire incidents that have resulted in severe losses to life and property, and there has been a consistent flow of innovations in regard to fire prevention measures as complications due to fire incidents become more and more severe in view of technological developments in building structures. With the coming up of skyscrapers and the development of several high rise buildings after the long reign of the Empire Stare Building in New York as being the tallest building in the world was over, the risk of fire has increased a great deal although new techniques for fire fighting have also been developed. Although the number of lives lost due to large fires in buildings has declined due to improvements in fire fighting techniques, but the potential for immense loss to life and property in individual fire incidents has been growing steadily in view of larger number of people in buildings due to their increased size and height. Fire represents the greatest single danger to life and property in such high-rise buildings. We will examine in this paper the case of four dominating buildings in different parts of the world that were engulfed by severe fire and which proved to be a big challenge for fighting personnel to handle. Fire at The Windsor Tower Hotel, Madrid, 12th February 2005 The Windsor Tower Hotel, located in Madrid was a tower with 32 levels and the fire started on the 12th February 2005 at the 21st floor eventually spreading to all floors above the 2nd floor. It was destroyed totally by the fire and there was extensive collapsing of the slabs above the 17th floor. The construction type was concrete reinforced with slabs with the support of internal columns of RC and steel beams. However, the perimeter steel beams above the 17th floor were found to be unprotected. The building was not equipped with sprinklers and there was no passive fire protection (The Windsor Tower Fire). The building did not have sprinklers nor fire protection to steel work since the original structure of the building had complied with Spanish building codes of the 1970s, which did not require such installations. Consequently the gap between the original claddings and slabs of the floor were not fire protected. The fire, which was caused by a short circuit on the 21st floor, had spread to all upper floors within an hour and then spread to the lower building up to the 2nd floor. The fire raged for twenty hours and the entire building was gutted in the fire and a large part of the floor slabs above the 17th floor had given way. The estimated loss due to the fire was Euro 72 million, in addition to the cost of refurbishing and renovating of the entire building. An analysis of the fire incident has revealed several shortcomings in adherence to worldwide building and fire protection regulations, the prominent amongst them being the absence of effective fire fighting measures such as automatic sprinkling systems. A major factor that contributed to the rapid spread of the fire was the designing of the floors of the building in an open style with floor areas of up to 1000 square meters, and which in fact gave further wind to the fire thus causing extensive damage. In the floor openings and façade system there was total failure of the vertical compartment measures, and the simultaneous buckling of the steel columns in perimeters that were unprotected led to the total collapsing of the floor slabs higher than the 17th floor (Jim Arnold, 2005). It is noteworthy that fire protection systems below the 17th floor had been almost completed and that it was due to this reason that these floors did not collapse from the perimeter columns as happened with the higher floors, because the entire fire protection drill had not been carried out in these upper floors. It is also noteworthy that there was no structural collapse because the loads applied were supported by the buckled columns that had been distributed to the reinforced concrete shear walls that were left remaining due to incompletion. It was a relief that the columns, waffle slabs, reinforced concrete central core and the transfer structures retained their strength in such a devastating fire incident. Fortunately it was found that the redundancy and structural integrity of the other portions of the building prevented the entire building from collapsing. Fire at First Interstate Bank, Los Angeles on 4th May 1988 The fire at First Interstate Bank, Los Angeles, which is a 62 level building, occurred on 4th May 1988. The fire broke out on the 12th floor and spread to the above four floors which were completely gutted. The building analysis revealed that its frame was made of structural steel with lightweight concrete slabs on the steel deck that was profiled. The steel work of the entire building had fire protection sprayed although the automatic sprinkler system had not yet been put in service. The building, which is 62 levels and 262 meters in height was the tallest building in Los Angeles when it was built in 1973. Until 1981 it was named UCB (United California Bank) Building and when the bank changed its name to First Interstate Bank, in 1996, the building was named as 707 Wilshire Tower and subsequently renamed as Aon Center in 2003. The building’s frame was made of structural steel with light weight concrete slabs placed on profiled steel decks. The floor of the tower comprised of 1626 square meters and the service area contained the lifts and staircases. Glass and aluminum cladding was done on the external part of the building (Jim Arnold 2005). Fire compartmentation was applied only to the central core areas and fire rated walls were not used to separate different units from each other. There were no fire prevention measures provided between the cladding and structure but there was fire protection material sprayed to the steel work. Although automatic fire sprinkler systems were installed in the building they were not put to use till the time of the fire incident. Fire alarm system was installed with single zone combination standpipe systems in each staircase with the water being supplied by water pumps. The fire was said to have arisen due to electrical short circuit on the 12th floor and fire fighting was delayed due to fire alarms being ignored. The fire was put out in four hours since it spread vertically above the 12th floor through openings in floor levels, shafts as also the pressurized staircases. Although four floors were totally burnt by the time the fire was extinguished there was no damage to the main structural frame since it was well sprayed with fire protection on all the steel works. Non-structural damages related to destruction of external cladding of the 12th to 15th floors, which had fallen to the ground. Additionally, the heat due to the fire resulted in the aluminum alloy valves to become non-performing, which resulted in water leakages causing damages to the floors below the 12th floor. The loss to the property was calculated to be about $200 million. The analysis of the fire revealed that the main cause of fire to spread rapidly was the lack of fire fighting means such as ineffective automatic sprinkler systems, delayed reporting of the fire due to ignoring of fire alarms, the large floor area that exceeded 1600 square meters, and the failure of the vertical compartmentation provisions in preventing the floor openings and facades. Moreover, the large floor areas on the effected floors had a lot of inflammable office material without any internal fire extinguishers that caused the fire to spread rapidly. Fortunately, due to the fire extinguishing efforts of the fire brigade on the 15th floor, the fire did not spread to the upper floors. The fire at this building gave a confidence level to the practice of providing fire protection to structural members, which had resulted in no damages being reported to the structure of the building. Airport Terminal Fire, Dusseldorf, Germany on April 11, 1996 There was a devastating fire on April 11 1996 at the airport passenger terminal in Dusseldorf, Germany that killed 18 people, injured 62 and caused loss of over $155 million. The five level building of the airport terminal was packed with people at the time of the fire incident, as it was the only building handling passenger traffic. In the terminal building, passengers claimed their baggage at the ground floor, which also had the facilities of baggage conveyor belts and car rentals. The height of the ground floor roof that rose to the under side of the concrete roof of the upper floor was about 15 feet. There was a three inches unprotected insulation of polystyrene between the roof of the ground floor and the concrete floor of the upper level that was not used as an air handling plenum, which may have included air at a pressure that was different from the atmospheric pressure. The second floor of the terminal building was having airline ticket counters, various shops and restaurants along with seating arrangements. The size of this floor was exactly the same as the ground floor with the height up to the ceiling also being 15 feet. The third floor was the mezzanine floor and contained the VIP areas conference facilities and different administration offices. The fourth floor of the airport building was having a high-end restaurant as also the deck for observation. The fifth floor too was having restaurants in view of the high passenger turn out at all hours. There was a train station below this terminal that catered to the commuting passengers from the city. There was also a vehicle service tunnel below the terminal that was of the full length of the building. A five level garage stood next to the airport terminal on its southern side while the third floors of the terminal building and the parking building were directly connected with vehicle bridges (Airport terminal Fire, 1996). There were many human errors and structural shortcomings that added vent to the fire and were responsible for the large-scale loss to life and property. It was observed that during the welding process in the building at the time of construction, there were no fire watch measures taken and in the suspended ceiling there was no provision for fire walls and traps. There was strong evidence of combustible insulation present in the ceiling voids, which were also not having any smoke detectors or sprinkler systems installed. The alarm system was found to be faulty because although it went of, people were wrongly led into rushing towards the burning areas. The lifts were not immediately put out of service due to which several people came up to the burning floors due to lack of any warning, and when these people came out of the lift, the dense smoke engulfed them and also hindered the beam of light so that the doors did not close again. The routes for escaping were not immediately available and lots of people were trapped without having any idea of where to rush for safety. There was no provision to stop the ventilation in the building, which further caused the fire to spread rapidly and the sprinkler system was used partially due to which the fire was not extinguished fully and started again from areas not sprinkled. Surprisingly the fire brigade was called 27 minutes after the fire alarm went of. Unfortunately only the western side of the building was equipped with sprinkling system while the fire occurred in the eastern wing. The water pipes provided in the staircases for such eventualities were also not connected to the municipal water supply, which adversely affected fire fighting measures. Smoke detectors were not effectively installed in all areas of the building due to which some areas under fire were discovered after much damage had been done. The sliding doors in the building were powered and once there was no power, these doors would not open which hampered rescue measures. Hence it is evident that the airport terminal building at Dusseldorf was not constructed proactively and all building and fire regulations were not fully complied with. Fire at Milton Keynes Shopping Center, Buckinghamshire, UK, on 17th January, 1989 The famous Milton Keynes Shopping Center at Buckinghamshire was engulfed with a fire at 2 17 am on 17th January, 1989, that caused extensive damages to the property and injured several people grievously. The cause of the fire was said to be ignition of the fur coats in a shop that was possibly done by arsonists. The shopping center was a three level complex that had the various plant rooms on the roof top. There were 140 small and medium shops in the complex along with seven departmental stores and the total covered area was 127500 square meters. The building was steel framed and had protected steel in the shops that were enclosed by glazed walls. There were fire shutters on the shop frontages and the internal walls made of thermal were 20 cm thick. The building material was such that it was to be resistant to fire for two hours. The roof was made of felt on fiber board and had metal decking covered on it (Case Studies of Fires in Retail Buildings). From the fire prevention point of view there were fire sprinklers installed, but they were of the dry pipe system and there were no smoke detectors. The fire commenced from the fur coat section of a departmental store and soon spread rapidly via the open staircase and engulfed the entire ground and first floors. A sprinkler system based on dry pipe technique was installed but it was not very effective although smoke venting and extraction were installed. The shopping center was well equipped with smoke detectors and fire alarm systems and the moment the alarm went off, the fire brigade was informed and fire-fighting operations began. Since there was low air pressure in the sprinkler system, it did not work well for both the fire effected floors and the system had to be boosted by the municipal booster pumps to assist in fire fighting. Later the smoke detection system became inoperative since it required manual operation after a certain stage, thus indicating that automatic systems had not been installed in the building. It took three and a half hours for the fire brigade to control the fire, which had already caused extensive damage by then. Conclusion From our examination of the four fire incidents it is clear that efforts should be made so that the means of escape in the building should not be adversely effected by smoke and heat from the fire. The structure of the building should be able to survive the brunt of the heat caused by the fire so that the building collapse is prevented. The fire should be dealt with in a way so that it remains contained within the compartment of its origin and fire-fighting interventions can be carried out safely. The designing of the building should make fire an integral part of the process and should include fire strategy, structural and environmental designs in sync with each other. The performance against time is the only means to measure the efficiency of a building from the fire solutions point of view. The building ought to have redundancy and diversity in its design that includes active and passive fire protection systems that withstand the fire exposure circumstances that they may be exposed to. Fortunately research and development have enabled performance based structural fire engineering systems to be used in the construction industry (Young Wong, Accessed on 23.10.08). Bibliography Airport Terminal Fire, Düsseldorf, Germany.April 11, 1996, http://www.iklimnet.com/hotelfires/dussairportfire.html, Accessed on 19.10.08 Case Studies of Fires in Retail Buildings, FCRC Project 6, Fire Safety Systems forI-ow-Rise, Sprinklered Shopping Centres, Fire Code Reform Research Program House and Building Fires, http://www.pema.state.pa.us/pema/cwp/view.asp?A=566&Q=254831, Accessed on 23.10.08 Jim Arnold, Large Building Fires and Subsequent Code Changes, April, 2005, Department of Development Services, Las Vegas The Windsor Tower Fire, Madrid, http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/project/research/structures/strucfire/CaseStudy/HistoricFires/BuildingFires/default.htm, Accessed on 20.10.08 Young Wong, Neal Butterworth, Desk Study – High Rise Office Building in London, http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/project/research/structures/strucfire/CaseStudy/Others/default.htm, Accessed on 23.10.08 Read More