Fire-Caused Hazards - Essay Example

Running Head: inserts here> Contents Introduction: 2 Factors which are relevant to the individual: 3 Factors relevant to other people: 5 Hazards from Fire 9 Exposure to temperature and gases 10 The initiation development and consequences of many fires are either directly or indirectly related to the actions or omissions of people associated with the incident scene. Discuss the relevant aspects of human behavior and characteristics which may impact on the cause and outcome of a fire and are therefore relevant to the fire investigation. Introduction: Humans have been a victim to hundreds of deaths in the past few centuries owing to fires. If proper action is taken and they are trained to behave in the right way, some of these irrevocable consequences of fires can be avoided. They should be taught how to deal with panicky situations, how to deal with emergency and to how to address their safety in such undesirable circumstances. Life safety is very important and given the context, it means trying to curb down un-necessary exposure to the harmful products due to combustion. There are three basic directions that need to be followed. The first one is to try stopping ignition, the second one is to control the outbreak of fire and the third one is to keep the humans safe from the byproducts of combustion. This can be done keeping in mind the concepts of either of the three of time, distance and shielding. The building up of fire: The smoke and heat don’t develop instantaneously. They develop over time to create a harmful hazardous environment. There are a lot of variables involved and each of these variables varies in different circumstances so the rate at which this happens can’t be exactly predicted. The fire starts of as small and slowly gradually intensifies thus invoking a very hazardous environment in the process. The fire can be detected by either of the 2, through automatic means or by personnel detection. The real focus should be on what stage after ignition and heat buildup has the fire been discovered. It is that stage which will have a major impact on the life safety measures that would be taken up. Factors which are relevant to the individual: It is not necessary that all the occupants at the site of the fire will react to it in the same way. The reaction of two different people will vary. The reaction of a single individual can also vary in different time frames, in different settings. It is not necessary that someone who reacts in a particular way at one point in time will react in exactly the same way three days from now. By reaction, it is meant, how humans react to smoke build up, to the flame, to the burns, to the hue and cry etc. There are some factors that help determine how humans react to fire situations typically. These factors are: 1. Age 2. Size 3. Pre-existing physical condition 4. Respiratory capacity 5. Medication, drugs and alcohol Where age is concerned, the kids and the elderly are less able to cope up with the affects of the fire. They are more likely to fall prey to the hazardous environment surrounding the fire and become a victim to all the fatalities. Statistics have revealed that the kids and elderly have the highest fatality rate. Where size is concerned, obese people are more likely to take in large doses toxic inhalation generated by the fire. As the size increases, so does the toxic intake capacity increases. Thus a large size may not be a very good factor. At the same time, thin sized people may be at a disadvantage in physical settings where there is no conditioning. The pre-existing health state of the individual will also be an important determinant in tackling and surviving in fire. This may include his cardiac conditions, his respiratory conditions, his aerobic conditions, his level of mobility; what is his weight? How flexible is he? Is he skeletal? Is he muscular? Does he carry any diseases with him? If so then what kind of diseases? Smoke inhalation is a major cause of fire related deaths. Thus a person’s respiratory capacity is an important factor for his survivability in such circumstances. Someone who indulges in smoking while have high levels of carbon monoxide in his hemoglobin. This will be critical to his intake of oxygen and his oxygen taking in capacity comes down. There are also chronic diseases like emphysema and asthma which will lower the respiratory capacity of the individual. Flu, pneumonia is certain other acute conditions which determine a person’s respiratory capacity. In each of these above mentioned conditions, survival in the case of fire will be very difficult and critical. An individual’s mental presence at the site of fire is also an important factor in determining his ability to cope up with the disastrous effects of fire. Some who is on drugs and has indulged in excessive intake of alcohol won’t have a very spontaneous mental aptitude at the site of fire- a factor which is very critical to survival. According to some recent estimates, around ten percent of fatalities were a result of alcohol and drugs. Those in this age group of 20-64 are more likely to be impaired then the general crowd. Factors relevant to other people: There are various ways in which people can react to a sudden outbreak of fire. It is a complex pattern of human behaviors under which they react. There are complex patterns involved and are related to a process called the Decision Process of the Individuals. Six basic techniques are used to decide what to be done in an emergency situation. These include: 1. Recognition 2. Definition 3. Evaluation 4. Commitment 5. Re-assesment 6. Validation Recognition process triggers off when an individual finds out clues related to the threat of a fire. The clues can be of variable nature. It may be his gut instinct that something isn’t right or something feels out of place. He has to rely on his intuition in most of these circumstances. The cues would be in most cases ambiguous but would be signaling a severe threat of fire. The threat stays unrecognized until smoke, flame or heat is seen by the naked eye. This is followed by the validation process. The validation process comprises of the efforts undertaken by the individual to figure out how serious the threat cues are. There are questions such as “should the building be evacuated” or “do we smell smoke” etc that begin running in his/her mind. Each of these questions needs to be addressed accordingly. The validation process is followed by the definition process which is attempts by the individual to associate information of the threat to some variable. The individual determines the qualitative nature of the threat. How serous is the threat? How much heat does he feel? Have the burns started cropping up? How big is the magnitude of deprivation? What is the time setting? According to his instinct does he follow a particular course of action? The evaluation process comprises of the cognitive and psychological activities which are necessary for an individual to react to threat. The ability to cope with stress and survival under pressure are critical in the way he would react against these dire circumstances. It will include the decision of what course of action to take. Should he run? Should he stay back to fight the fight. The time associated with this decision and its execution is very less and in most cases reduced to a few seconds. The mechanisms that an individual will adopt to start the behavioral activity he thinks would be needed after his evaluations constitute the commitment part. Re-assessment is the most important and most stressed out phase for the individual. This is because the last process just failed and he has to quickly re-evaluate. As he will hit through successive failures, frustration will keep growing and the likelihood of injury and risk also starts shooting up. It is at this point, that decisions are made in haste and are irrational. An individual’s reaction is not just his own in a fire setting. It can be impeded or accelerated or supported by the reaction of many other people who are associated with him in the event of a fire. There are various other actions that affect the way people react to fire. Some of these are Avoidance, commitment, affiliation and role. Avoidance: A person’s psychological point of view can also help relieve him of stress associated with these unpleasant situations. There is a sense of denial that prevails during the early stages of fire that sets him rolling. He is indignant and tries to deny the signals and the cues that he gets. They try to avoid the fire and treat it as a “false alarm”. Commitment: Sometimes negligence on the part of the people can also be a disclaiming factor. They may hear fire signals but continue working on any important project they may have been engaged with before the alarm, leisure activities or personal projects. They keep working irrespective of the dangerous warnings. Sometimes people will wrap up what they are doing first and then erode the danger area even when the alarm has been sounded. Sometimes people will ignore the warning first hand and enter the building undeterred as if nothing went wrong. People are big socialists. An individual not act for himself. In most cases, evacuation on the site is done unanimously. People would leave the work place together, whether they know the other occupants of the condiment or not. The speed of evacuation is dependent of the speed of the slowest occupant of that place. Parents won’t leave without their kids while co-workers tend to leave with each other. At the same time, a person’s role is also an important factor in deterring how he will react to the situation. Someone who is new to the building would obviously take more time to react for example, a visitor. In this case the visitor is more likely to turn and seek help from a more authoritative dependent such as a supervisor, security personnel or fire fighter for information. This helps them determine what follows next in the emergency.(IFSTA;1997;n.p) Hazards from Fire The critical time is impacted by three variables. These include 1. Elevated environmental temperatures. 2. Toxic conditions 3. Pre-existing or the then psycho-physiological attributes of the occupants. Elevated environmental temperatures can wreck havoc in the human skin and can cause burns. Toxic conditions are dependent on the kind of by products that are produced due to combustion while pre-existing and physiological attributes of the components are related to the occupants who are witnessing the on-going fire outbreak. For instance the age or the physical setting of the place. The most crucial time interval for safety of individuals is the time after the discovery of the fire and its critical stage. It is in this stage that most measures have to be undertaken for the safety of humans. Important steps have to be taken in this interval for this is the only time in which action is conceivable. The action can vary. It can be automatic extinguishing the fire of evacuating the confinement of the fire, along with any occupants present there. There is a direct relation between the time of discovery of fire and the time available to take action. The sooner the fire is discovered, more time will be available to take action. The affects of the hazards can be nullified if pro-active actions are taken. The hazards don’t necessarily have to grow at the same rate as the fire. For instance an automatic suppression system or a detection system can slow down its rate. A fire situation can produce different kind of hazards. The conditions that have major impact are: a) Temperature b) Heat flux and burn injuries c) Smoke obscuration d) Oxygen depletion e) Exposure to fire gases Exposure to temperature and gases The effects of temperature change with the length of exposure time. Other factors such as humidity and breathability also have an important impact. Severe discomfort can crop up when temperature is as low as 122 degrees Fahrenheit while temperatures above 150 degrees Fahrenheit are considered to be suffocating. Temperatures above 212 degrees foresheet can trigger death. (NFPA:1997;n.p) Burn injuries and heat flux: This is a measure of the amount of heat that is available which can be transferred to the human skin. Some 2500 kilo watts of heat per 3 minutes can be born without severe pain and this marks the upper limit. This is equal to holding an individual’s hand over a 100 watt bulb for as long as 3 minutes. The higher the temperature, more are the chances of burn injury taking place. Smoke obscuration: Smoke curbs a lot of things. They impair visibility, cause irritation and toxicity due to inhalation and arouse fear. All of these directly impact a person’s ability to escape. Normal oxygen in the atmosphere is close to 21% but when this percentage drops different physiological effects take over and harness a person’s ability to cope up with the threat. There are a lot of gases in the atmosphere whose optimum levels have to be kept in control to prevent undesirable situations from arising. Rising carbon monoxide levels in the hemoglobin are not a good sign. Exposure to carbon monoxide for a very long period of time may not be a good sigh and can prove to be fatal. It has been observed that carbon monoxide is the reason behind most of fire related deaths. They reduce the ability of an individual to acquire oxygen and survive in the short run Bibliography: NFPA (1997). NFPA Fire Protection HandBook. N/A: NFPA. Cotee and Bugbee (1976). Principles of fire protection. NFPA : NFPA. (1997). Fire and Life Safety Educator. 2nd ed. IEFTA: IEFTA. Peter. (2009). Fire safety. Available: www.firesafety.gov. Last accessed 19th Jan 2010. NFPA (1997) NFPA-Fire Safety Available: www.nfpa.org. Last accessed 19th Jan 2010-01-19 IFSTA (1998 IFSTA-Fire Protection Available: www.ifsta.org Last accessed: 19th Jan 2010 Read More