Building construction for the fire service - Research Paper Example

Some of the concerns raised by the people directly charged with the management of the fires included the charge that priorities of costs over safety and suitability increased the level of vulnerability of risk. Such approaches also lowered the level of efficiencies in interventions in cases of fire accidents. Building code language remains a key challenge that affects the development of the most appropriate strategies of combating fires and other kinds of strategies designed to counter the challenges of safety (Karter, 2001).

This problem arises out of the challenge that many of the professionals involved in the strategies lack a common platform on which they can articulate their levels of expertise in reference to particular technical aspects of building code language. Recent developments in the industry have seen bold attempts across the various relevant departments to build the most appropriate strategies for harmonizing the operations within the system. The design and structure of buildings remains a significant contributing factor to the level of challenges encountered by fire fighters.

For instance, construction analysts blame the weaknesses in the support beams in the Twin Towers as one of the factors that contributed to the extensive scale of damage that was witnessed after the terrorist attack. Besides the inclusion of special features for limiting the spread of fires, there have been suggestions to include special bridges between skyscrapers in order to provide increased room for evacuation in the event of the outbreak of fires. Suggestions continue to emerge including the suitable size of buildings with some analysts arguing the case for the reduction and the strengthening of beams in order to absorb the shock of accidents, impacts, or explosions.

The course of development of the building code and standards has featured