Fire Safety and Buildings with and without Active and Passive Fire Protection - Coursework Example

Table of contents Background of the study 2 Introduction 3 Statement of the problem 3 Objectives of the studies on community safety 4 Hypothesis for testing 5 Significance of the studies on community safety 6 Comparative analysis on fire safety between buildings with and without active and passive fire protection 6 The root causes of fire incidents 7 Lack of passive and active fire protection 7 Lack of enforcement of fire regulation 7 Lack of fire safety education and fire fighting 8 Economic costs of fire 8 Strategies for community safety 10 Requirements of the building towards fire safety and reduction of fatalities and injuries 12 Strategies towards efficient community safety programs 12 Formulation of short term goals 12 Formulation of medium term goals 13 Formulation of long-term goals 13 Conclusion 14 Bibliography 14 Appendix 16 Table 1: causes of fire and relevant SARA methodology application 16 Figure 1: the 3A model for continuous risk management strategy formulation 17 Figure 2: problem analysis triangle for the community safety 18 Table 2: The SARA methodology 18 Background of the study According to Flores (1983:11-14), the process of reducing fire incidents and eliminating their frequency and consequences requires adoption of SARA methodology (table 1) and 3A model (figure 1). The term SARA is abbreviation for Scanning, Analysis, Response and Assessment. 3A model is abbreviation for Analysis, Assessment and Action oriented model of community fire safety risk management. Wotham (1997:66-71) suggests that the process of scanning an incident is a subset of data and information on fire incident, their frequency, causes and different agency potential to manage the incident. Analysis of an incident takes into account details of the incident, time, date, method of incident control, method of incident prevention and possible future intervention improvement for the incident management. Response of an incident refers to strategies that are appropriate for resolving an incident and requires partnership of different authorities and agencies. Assessment of incident involves evaluation of measures and strategies that can result into efficient response whose consequences should include reduced economic costs of fire, loss of property, damage to the building, pollution to the environment by ensuring ISO 14001:2004 and ISO 14004:2004 series on environment management are satisfied. Assessment of an incident response tools is affected by poor partnership between agencies procedures and lack of skills to implement appropriate response. Introduction Charters (2006:81-86) and Kirby (2003) argue that problem orientated partnership is the key to community fire safety and is a product of input of different incident management agencies. David Langdon consultancy/Arup fire (1996) points out that community fire safety is an effort towards bringing together different agencies like architects, home designers, ambulance services, insurance agencies, community leaders, fire rescue agencies, environment upgrading agencies and local government authorities into seeking sustainable solutions to fire incidents and formulation of the best way forward to fire risk management strategies. According to Audit Commission (1999), community fire safety is modeled to bring about buildings that are fire resistive, buildings equipped with both active and passive fire protection and equip users with fire safety and precaution education. Eisma (1990) proposes that projects on community safety should work towards elimination of outcomes of fire incidents through reduction of economic costs of fire. Mishan (1976) indicate community partnership on safety should ensure buildings constructed meet estimated building life expectancy to warrant active and passive fire protection. Statement of the problem Gambatese, Hinge and Haas (1997:32-49) indicate that many old buildings don’t comply with building regulation and regulatory reform (fire safety) order 2005. They are not installed with automatic water sprinklers and automatic smoke detectors. Lunch (1994) suggests many high-rise buildings lack staged or zoned evacuation. In many premises, fire risk assessment is not carried out and fire alarms are not operational because their batteries are flat or their lenses are covered with dust due to lack of maintenance. Guvanessian and Holinky (1996) argue that many residents don’t understand fire safety and precautions and their building shave no emergency escape plans in the event of an incident. In many households, electrical circuits are characterized by frayed leads and many appliances share the same sockets predisposing risk of electrical overload that leads into overheating of fuse. Gornick (1997:41-42) provides that some residents don’t turn off or unplug cables while in others, fuses used are for appliances with higher power rating and this exposes appliances to risks of power surge. There is also negligence in handling of candles characterized by lack of heat resistant surfaces and candle holders that are stable. The buildings lack exterior ladders, rails and elevators for alternate escape during fire indents. Engineering systems-Barker (1991) argues many residents don’t understand procedures for reporting fire outbreaks to the fire and rescue services or any skills in using fire extinguishers. Kletz (1999:46-69 ) argues that many buildings are not insured either because the household members cannot afford the premiums or the building risks assessment and appraisal show the building is too risky to insure leading into imposition of high insurance costs than the worth of the building. Objectives of the studies on community safety a. To evaluate efficiencies of community fire incident management b. To determine effectiveness of community safety programs c. To evaluate potential of fire planning and fire risk management as a function of reducing occurrence, frequency and outcomes of fire incidents d. To carry out assessment of economic costs of fire e. To analyze adoption of SARA methodology in management of fire incidents and 3A model in designing policies, assessment of fire risk management strategies and intervention mechanisms. Hypothesis for testing a. Use of fire resistive materials and compartmentalization reduces horizontal and vertical spread of fire b. Buildings that are equipped with exterior ladders, rails and elevators provide emergency exits for residents and reduce opportunities for fatalities and injuries c. Education programs on fire safety reduces occurrence and frequency of fire incidents d. Carrying out risk assessment provides opportunity for maintenance of fire safety systems and protection systems and show current position of the building and safety of users to fire incidents e. Buildings that are equipped with automated fire alarms, smoke detectors, zoned alarms or staged evacuation and automatic water sprinklers report minimal loses of life, property during outbreak of fire incidents Significance of the studies on community safety The studies will nurture community and agency partnership in fire risk management and reduce their outcome in terms of economic costs through development of building that are fire resistive to reduce horizontal and vertical spread of fire (table 2). The study will facilitate development of education campaigns and education fairs on fire safety and precautions and lead into reduction of fire incidents. The study will lead into improvement of fire risk assessment and adherence of fire safety order 2005 and building regulations leading into installation of passive and active fire protection of the buildings. It will lead into formulation of emergency exit plans and ensure residents have an emergency plan that they have practiced and are aware of (figure 2). The study will lead into training of community on use of fire extinguishers and type of fire extinguishers to use depending on the chemical nature of the fire. The residents will understand safety precautions regarding use of gas and electrical connections and equip residents with knowledge of seeking services of registered personnel when they intend to carry out any gas or electrical alterations or installations. Comparative analysis on fire safety between buildings with and without active and passive fire protection The root causes of fire incidents Lack of passive and active fire protection Baldwin and Thomas (1974) propose that many of buildings lack passive and active fire protection. Due to lack of compartmentalization spread of fire occurs fast. They lack staged fire alarms, and zoned evacuation and fatality rates are high. They lack fire and smoke detectors leading into failure of warning of outbreak of fire. Absence of automatic water sprinklers to quench fire leads into increased spread of fire, destruction of property and increased economic costs of the fire. Lack of enforcement of fire regulation Mishan (1976) suggest that many buildings don’t have updated fire risk assessment. Employees lack fire safety and precaution skills due to lack of ergonomic training on fire safety or occupational health and safety. There is no training on proper use of gas and electrical supplies. Inter-building distance doesn’t comply with building regulation that should control spread of fire between buildings. The buildings lack exterior ladders, rails and elevators to help in evacuation and delivery of supplies like water and oxygen to fire fighters in any floor in a high-rise structure. Lack of fire safety education and fire fighting Shields and Boyce (2000) argue that many users of buildings lack knowledge on fire safety and precautions. They don’t know precautions necessary in handling of candles. Users don’t follow flammable substance handling procedures and leave naked gas flames unattended. Many parents leave their children in the kitchen on own. Many of electrical wires are placed under the carpets where they undergo wear and tear. Many users overload electrical sockets and don’t carry out routing maintenance and inspection checks of the electrical sockets. Many firms don’t carry out fire risk assessment and the building safety position is not known. Many don’t know how to use fire extinguishers and have no practiced emergency plan in place. Economic costs of fire According to Office of the Depute Prime minister (2006), the economic costs of fire are divided into three main categories. These are fire anticipation costs, fire consequence costs and fire response costs. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (2006) provides that the economic costs estimates for the year 2004 were £7.03 billion. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (2006) estimates anticipation costs for the year 2004 as £ 2.77 billion. Fire anticipation costs include costs of fire safety equipments, insurance administration costs, capital costs and fire safety related activities that include fire risks inspections at home and labor costs. Anticipation costs also include costs of installing passive and active fire protection in buildings. Passive fire protection includes automatic smoke and heat detectors and fire alarms while active fire protection includes use of automatic water sprinklers and use of fire resistive materials that prevent spread of fire horizontally and vertically. These measures require partnership with other authorities like architects and designers. It leads into increase in building costs as the building has also to be equipped with zoned alarms and setup of different fire staging areas, additional costs of installing elevators, exterior ladders and rails for delivering oxygen supply to fire fighters and making it possible for safe evacuation of building users. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (2006) argues that consequence costs for the year 2004 were estimated as £ 2.52 billion. Fire consequence costs include loses that occur as a result of fire incident. These include damage to the building, destruction of property, loss of lives and injuries. Treatment of burns ands injuries are estimated in terms of healthcare costs and emotional and psychological suffering of survivors and families who lose their bread winners in the fire incident. Estimates of fire consequence costs also include losses incurred by business in terms of production loses, loss of raw materials and finished products and loss of business goodwill. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (2006) puts response costs for 2004 as £ 1.7 billion. Response costs include costs incurred by the fire rescue service in its efforts to attend to fire alarms and calls for emergencies. These costs factor in traffic accidents as fire rescue team and other partners rush to attend to the emergency and environmental costs that include clearing of spilled substances, detoxification of toxic hazards so that they have little harm to the environment, cleanup of the affected area and costs of decontaminating the fire fighters in the event of breathing of toxin or powders that trigger respiratory problem or skin related problems. Strategies for community safety Community fire safety should lead into reduction of emergency fire incidents, their frequency, occurrence and outcomes. Fire outbreak prevention measures should involve measures to educate residents and employees about proper handling of products and flammable substances that can lead into fire outbreak. Household members should be educated on safe use of candles, dangers of overloading electrical sockets, need for use of right fuse for the right appliance and safety in handling gas connection. The residents should be educated on dangers of positioning electrical cables under carpets because this can lead into their wear and predispose risks. There should be installation of automatic water sprinklers and smoke and heat detectors. The buildings should have exterior elevators, ladders and rails to assist in evacuation. Community safety should work towards sustainable risk management and risk planning processes. This should be implemented through partnership with other authorities like the police, ambulance, building design and architects, local government authority, council, the insurance companies and fire brigade departments. This would help in dynamic risk assessment and ensure building regulations are followed. Partnership would ensure fire risk assessment is carried out and insurance companies risk appraisal foster fire risk management. Fire incident planning and emergency plans would ensure in the event of fire incident, staffing and incident command is established timely through deployment of gold level, bronze level and silver level command, subject to size of the building and risk need analysis. Strategic and tactical force would also be easy to plan since all agencies would actively take part without conflict of interest backed by common objectives and related levels of commands. In the event of incident, every response unit would be aware of its duty and scope of responsibility. Community fire safety should work towards ensuring there is a reduced impact of fire incidents to the environment. This should be implemented though adoption of fire fighting techniques that have little impact on the environment. Use of gases that could lead into increase in concentration of greenhouse gases should be replaced. Strategies should be in place to ensure firefighters are not exposed to toxic fumes of combustion of organic and inorganic compounds that affect respiration. Community fire safety as a shared responsibility should conform to regulatory reform (fire safety) order 2005 where every user of the building should understand that fire safety begins with them and how they conduct themselves. Community should have access to fire rescue stations and should be equipped with knowledge through training on fire safety and precautions and use of fire extinguishers. There should be measures to facilitate reduction of economic costs of the fire especially consequence costs through delivery of services that are geared towards reducing fire incidents and their outcomes. Requirements of the building towards fire safety and reduction of fatalities and injuries a. building be fire proof b. roof and floor be made of non-combustible material c. Wrought iron be used for framing the building to increase tensile strength to prevent collapse before evacuation is complete d. Fire fighting equipment be placed on different floors to facilitate different staging areas e. Water sprinklers and stairways be separated from the floor areas f. Exterior access ladders to upper floors should be available g. The doors be operable from inside and remain open for emergency exit h. Compartmentalization be possible to restrict spread of fire i. There should be rails on the exterior with potential of elevator compatibility for evacuation and delivery of oxygen to fire fighters Strategies towards efficient community safety programs Formulation of short term goals The short term goals are objectives that should be realized in the immediate future to effect community fire safety. These goals towards nurturing community safety should include effecting measures that involve educating employees and residents on fire safety and safe electrical and gas network practices, compliance with regulatory reform order 2005 and handling hazardous chemicals. The buildings should be fitted with fire alarms, smoke and heat detectors and zoned alarms if they are high-rise structures. Installation of exterior elevators, rails and ladders should also be carried out to effect emergency evacuation. The users of the premise should practice emergency plans and have emergency exit plans in the event of an incident. Use of media an education resource should be used to inform members of public on fire safety and precautions. Formulation of medium term goals The medium-term goals should work towards ensuring the premise is safe for the purpose certified under the building control services. The premise should have emergency plans, comply with quality management practices as laid down by ISO 9000 standards and employees should have adequate ergonomic training on occupational health and safety with respect to work places. Formulation of long-term goals The long-term goals should incorporate partnership working of different agencies and authorities in incident management. There should be measures to ensure there are common terms, positions and each agency plays its responsibilities. Agency partnership would ensure enforcement of fire regulations and fire safety education is implemented through community participation. Conclusion Community fire safety should be implemented through partnership of different agencies and authorities. This should lead into construction of building that allow for no spread of fire either horizontally or vertically by using materials that are fire resistive and non-combustible on floors and walls. The buildings should be equipped with sufficient active and passive fire protection. Education of resident and users should be geared towards making them aware of fire safety and precautions in order to minimize occurrence of fire incidents. The fire rescue services should carry out home inspections to ensure they comply with fire safety and precautions measures. They should also ensure the users are educated on use of fire extinguishers and elimination of instances and opportunities that can lead into outbreak of fire. The local authorities in charge of building regulations should ensure buildings comply with building regulation act and satisfy the regulatory reform (fire safety) order 2005. Formulation of short-term, medium-term and long-term goals should be made. Bibliography Audit in Commission (1999), 'Safety in numbers': A thematic inspection on community safety Charters, D. (2006). A study of fire risk perfomance parameters. fire science technology , Vol. 25, pp. 81-86. Davis Langdon Consultancy/Arup Fire. (1996). Quantifying the Cost of meeting buiulding regulation-Fire safety requirement in new building. Watson, England: Building Research Establishnment Limited. Eisma, T. (1990, June). Manufacturers develop safety gear for work comfort. style and acceptance occupational health and safety , pp. 48-50. Engineering systems-Barker,R. (1991, December). safe explosion in the home. health and safety at work , pp. 38-39. Flores, A. (1983). Safety in Design: An Ethical viewpoint. CEP. Gambatese, J., Hinge, J. and Haas, C. (1997). Tool to Design for construction worker safety. Journal of architectural Engineering , Vol. 3, pg. 32-49. Gornick, T. (1997). Making lasting Connections. Appliance , Vol. 3, pg. 41-42. Guvanessian, H. a. (1996). Designers Handbook to Eurocode 1: part 1-Basis of design. London: Thomas Telford. Kirby, S. J. (2003). Improving effectiveness of community safety partnership. Community safety journal. vol. 2 iss. 1 Lunch, M. (1994, March). "Safe places" laws may entrap designers. Building design and Construction , pp. 29. Mishan, E. (1976). Cost benefit and Analysis (new and expanded edition). New York: Praeger Publishers-A division of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, CBS,Inc. Office of the deputy prime minister. (2006, April). The economic cost of fire: Estimates for 2004. Shields, T. and Boyce, K.E. (2000). A study of evacuation from large retail stores. fire safety journal , Vol. 35 (iss.1), pg. 25-49. Wortham, S. (1997, july). Safe Design Improves your bottomline. Safety and health , pg. 66-71. Appendix Table 1: causes of fire and relevant SARA methodology application Figure 1: the 3A model for continuous risk management strategy formulation Figure 2: problem analysis triangle for the community safety Table 2: The SARA methodology Read More