Effective Strategies to Reduce Injuries that Result from Fires in Buildings - Report Example

Name : xxxxxxxxxxx Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Course : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : Community Safety Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx @2010 Introduction In the multi occupancy high rise buildings, there are so many incidences of fatalities resulting from domestic fires. In these buildings, the number of occupants increases each and every time and the size of the building is increased with the increase in population. With the many operations that take place in these buildings, one must be concerned with over the high spread of heat, poisonous gases, and fire in such a building. Living in such buildings is associated with high hazards to one’s life at whichever time of the day. Most of these are fitted with fire exit on the exterior of the building, which are in poor conditions and re mostly not usable when fire vents through the window preventing the access to the fire escape. Most of these buildings have limited stairwells and where they are present, they are not secured from the impacts of smoke and heat in cases of fire. These are a hindrance to safe flight from the buildings. This report therefore seeks to identify effective strategies that can be applied to reduce injuries that result from fires in such buildings (Fineman 1995). Possible Community Fire Setters People can be motivated to set fire due to various reasons. Some can be out of curiosity; others may be to seek attention and enjoyment. Other motivations may be to hide evidence when there is a crime that has been committed. Some categories of fire setters may include: curiosity fire setters who is most cases are young children between three and six years who may set fire for experimentation. They may not be able to give an explanation for setting such a fire and in most cases they may just desire to watch a flame. Hyperactivity and lack of attention in such children may be the diagnosis for fire setting in children at that age and may understand the consequences of their behaviour after the fire has caused damage. In buildings that are highly populated with families with different ages of children, such fire setters may be very common (Jessor, Graves, Hanson & Jessor 1968). The other category of fire setters may be accidental firesetters. This category may include children below 11 years, teenagers and young adults. This may happen in the course of normal activities where carefulness is not observed. Accidental firesetting may not be intended to cause chaos and may depend on the home environment. Another most common community firesetter are the sociocultural firesetters. These are the people who set fires in the middle of a civil strife and are influenced by the activity of other people and may ser firer to attract their attention on the uprightness of their side. This is mainly done by adults who may do arson to profit themselves for example in insurance fraud (Kolko & Kazdin 1991). Others may be the cognitively impaired firesetters who includes the mentally disturbed persons. Such kind of firesetters may not have history of deviance or legal offences. They may not be aware of their actions and may set fire without any bad intentions. These may also be common where people are living in the highly populated buildings with multiples of families. There are many different characteristics and behaviours that can classify firesetters and their behaviour may differ depending on the individual and the environment. Considering the gender, most of the firesetters have been found to be males. It is therefore very important to consider the various motivations for fire setters before settling in any place. Individual characteristics that may lead to firesetting behaviour include aggression, social skills deficit, deviance and vandalism, and covert anti social behaviours (Forehand et al, 1991). Aggression may be due to anti social behaviours that develop amongst the youths. Firesetting may be practised at the later stages of pattern formation of anti social behaviours. Such anti social behaviours may include stealing, vandalism and lying. In their fully developed stages, the child may develop the habit of firesetting. Children who are having social skill deficits may be having problems in socializing with other people including the peers and the family members. Such people may lack the opportunity to develop socialization skills and their psychosocial stability may not be achieved. This may therefore increase their tendencies to set fire and may adopt other poor behaviours. Deviance is a behaviour that is troublesome and can bother the caregivers. Firesetting may then be a considered as deviance behaviour among the youths. This may also include behaviours that may cause harm unto other people for example physical aggression and vandalism. Covert antisocial behaviour includes disobedience and aggression. Those involved in firesetting may feel obliged to do so due to experiences of neglect, emotional deprivation and abuse. Most firesetters may be having feelings of anger due to abuse or parental neglect and such feelings may be expressed through setting of fires (Canter & Frizan 1998). Fire Safety in Multi-Occupancy High-Rise Buildings Fire safety may be defined as the goals and objectives that are stated in the building code and safety legislation such as fire prevention, fire control and occupant protection. Fire safety management is another aspect in observing fire safety. This means the application of policies, tools, information and standards by the responsible person to the processes of analyzing, evaluating and controlling fire. Fire safety is defined as an objective to reduce the probability of fire to a person or an adjacent building as a result of the design and the construction of the building in the National Building Code. When a building is being constructed, it is very important to review its design and construction to ensure that it incorporates escape routes and fire assembly equipments. However, most of the building plans consider the security of the property by having double locked gates and this increase the risk of being trapped in the building in cases of fire outbreaks. Fire safety mean should also be considered. Other means that can be applied to help in fire safety is by having equipments that can detect fire, placing fire extinguishing equipments and prevention of fire spread to all parts of a building. Due to the large number of people that each of the high-rise buildings carry, the occupants may change the electricity and gas supplies so that they can have several cooking areas at the same place. This may result in overheating and may cause a short circuit. A short circuit is a condition where there is an abnormal connection having low resistance between two points in a circuit and may result to high current flow that may cause damage. Circuit breakers are usually inserted to protect against short circuits. However, occupants of buildings may get rid of the circuit breaker so that they can have more electricity flowing for them to be able use more electrical appliances. This may also result to overheating of the electrical system, a condition that may result to fire outbreak (Jones, Ribbe & Cunningham 1994). Overloading of the electric system also occurs where too many electrical appliances are being run at the same time or by use of heavy duty appliances. When the electricity that is flowing in a system is more than 50% above the normal, the system gets overloaded. This may not result to instant damage but as the system continues to be overloaded, its extent of damage also increases. Where the overload is not controlled, the wires overheat and may melt down causing fire outbreak. Short circuit can also occur when the wires become loose and get in touch with each other like the case of live wires. The connection results in low resistance and the current may increase more than a hundred times resulting to over current. Causes of Electrical Fires in Multi-Occupancy High-Rise Buildings Occupants of the high rise buildings may be in danger of electrical fires due to the many households living in the building each having their own electrical appliances. Such appliances may result to fire if not properly handled. The major causes of fires from the appliances are moisture that may come into contact with the appliance and the presence of combustible materials that may come into contact with a heat emitting appliance. Appliances such as hot water heaters, dish washers and washings machines may be more prone to moisture contact while heat emitting appliances such as heaters and cloth driers may come into contact with combustible materials. Cloth driers usually have a large element that runs round the back or the front side of the appliance and if any combustible material may come into contact with this element, it may get ignited and result to fire. The element is covered with a non combustible material but in some circumstance, the combustible materials can have their way into the element and cause fire. Dishwashers are also highly prone to moisture contact. They controllers for the dishwashers are located at the top of the door and moisture can reach this part if the inner side of the door leaks. A Te plastic element that lets in the washing detergent may also become brittle and wear out. They may then crack and start leaking. In such a case, when the door opens, the water may reach the controller and cause fire. Dish washers can also cause fire if the element comes into contact with a combustible material during the process of drying. Other appliances may include micro wave ovens and bed heaters (Millin 2005). Fire Protection Systems for High Rise Buildings Due to the limited building land in the urban areas, high rise buildings for residential, hotels and shopping complexes are on increase. Measures should therefore be observed during the construction of such buildings. With the rising science and technology, fire protection systems have been discovered that can safeguard such buildings from fire hazards. Buildings are being installed with underground and overhead storage tanks for Fire Protection Systems. Such systems include the sprinkler systems, which are the most widely used fire extinguishing system. These operate automatically by generating an alarm and extinguishing the fire in case it happens. The sprinkler systems are in different forms including wet sprinkler systems that are filled with pressurized water that it sprays as soon as it opens up. The dry sprinkler system is filled with pressurized water on the primary side and pressurized air on the secondary side. When the air pressure drops, the sprinkler opens and the dry system water flow detection unit opens to allow water to run. The open sprinkler system has open sprinklers that sprays water from all the sprinkler heads and is operated manually. This is mostly used where the ceilings are high (Craighead 2009). Minimising Fire Risks in Multi-Occupancy High-Rise Buildings The Fire Safety Concepts Tree This is an approach that was developed by the National Fire Protection Association for minimising the risks of fire by following the concepts of the Fire Safety Concepts Tree. This applies measures that are aimed at preventing fires, detecting fires, allowing time for people to evacuate the facility, minimising the rate of spread of the fire and facilitating fire extinguishing. The two fundamental principles in the Fire Safety Concepts Tree are preventing of fire ignition and managing the impacts of fire. I) Preventing fire ignition This is the most important goal in observing fire safety. It is however not possible to assure complete fire prevention but the chances of fire occurrence can be reduced. This can be done by observing the building codes during the construction process and when designing the building. The other means of preventing occurrence can be by ensuring that the operations that take place in the building are incompliance with the regulations stated in the fire codes. The two codes apply to all buildings regardless of the construction materials that are used in the building. There are certain features that are indicated in the codes that are meant for reduction of the risks for fire ignition. For example, installation of electrical systems should be done according to the referenced national electrical codes to minimize fire ignition from the electrical sources. The major factors that could be considered to ensure that fire cannot start in a building should relate to the operations that will be taking place in a building. The fire regulation states the fire safety requirements during the use of the building. For example, in Canada, fire code number nine is the representation for local fire regulations while in the use the local provisions are referenced in code number eleven in the NFPA’s fire prevention code. An example of fire code prevention measure is the requirement for separate keeping of the combustible materials form heat generating appliances (Jain 2001). II) Managing fire impacts This is the second line of defence if fire ignition takes place. Managing the impacts of the fire can be done by managing the people who are exposed to the fire and managing the fire itself. Managing the people exposed to fire involves moving them out of the building and away for the fire before it harms them. Most of the fatalities are caused by the smoke so it is important to draw people away from it by exiting them out of the building. Building codes require that buildings should limit the exposure of people to fire by facilitating adequate escape routes. The fire safety measures in such a case include fire alarms systems to alert people in cases of fire, doors and windows to allow people escape and allow in fire fighters during fire incidence, exits space such as corroders to allow safe evacuation of people (Bangash & Bangash 2006). Managing the fire involves taking measures that reduces the spread of the fire and its severity. In a multi-occupancy high-rise building, safety features include fire resistant walls and floor materials that can hold fire at one point. These will also allow people some more time for escape during fire attack, they reduces the flammability of the wall, floor and ceilings so that fire does not grow rapidly. These feature sin a building ensure that people do not suffer more injuries or loss in case of fire attack and are also able to escape. Other agencies that work towards fire safety in the community include the national Firewise Communities in the United States, a multi-agency that works to reach beyond the fire services by involving community leaders, home owners and planners in protecting people and wild life from risks of wildland fires. The other one is U.S Fire Association that aims at ensuring fire safe nation, the Fire Protection Association in Australia and U.K that provides information and services that promote life protection of the nationals, the environment and people’s and national assets. The National Fire Protection Authority in Canada also gives information regarding fire protection and management at both national and community level. Conclusion Fire safety is a very important concept to be observed at all levels sand in all places. This is because there have been many cases of death resulting from fires that would have not occurred if the safety measures had been observed. With the rising population and limited land, high rise buildings will continue to be built and to be occupied. The only solution for ensuring people’s safety is by observing the building codes and the fire safety codes. Bibliography Jessor, R., Graves, T., Hanson, C., & Jessor, S., 1968, Society, personality, and deviant behavior: A study of a tri-ethnic community. Rinehart and Winston, New York. Forehand, R., et al, 1991, Juvenile fire setting: A unique syndrome or an advanced level of anti-social behaviour? Behaviour Research and Therapy, 29, 125-128. Kolko, D., & Kazdin, A., 1991, Motives of fire setters: Fire setting characteristics and psychological correlates. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 32, 535-550. Canter, H., & Frizan, K., 1998, Differentiating Arsonists. A model of fire setting and characteristics, Journal of Legal and Criminal Psychology, 3, 73-96, 1998. Jones, R., Ribbe, D., & Cunningham, P., 1994, Psychological correlates of fire disaster among children and adolescents. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 7, 117-122. Fineman, K., 1995, A model for qualitative analysis of child and adult deviant behaviour, American Journal of Forensic Psychology, 1, 31-60. Craighead, G., 2009, High-Rise Security and Fire Life Safety, Butterworth-Heinemann, Boston. Bangash, M., & Bangash, T., 2006, Explosion-resistant buildings: design, analysis, and case studies, Springer, New York. Jain, V., 2001, fire safety in building, Cengage Learning, London. Millin, R., 2005, Electrical Wiring Residential: Based on the 2005 National Electric Code, Cengage Learning, London. Read More