Fires incident are fourth-largest cause of accidental injury globally. Fires in high-rise buildings and residential complexes are one of the major urban disasters due to the high population density, and high economic value of buildings and land.
How to ensure Fire Safety in urban areas?
With the advent of composite panels and its innovative and evolving designs, it is possible to provide numerous elevations, which earlier were quite impossible. With the global warming issue becoming more realistic and developing countries, including India pledging for reducing carbon footprint, we are now actively looking at ways as to how to make buildings more energy-efficient. Claddings and façades have been at the forefront in this aspect too.
Cladding Materials and Installation Technologies have influence on fire safety of buildings. Building façades should be planned considering the combustion levels of the material, fire retard quality etc. Façade openings and their materials, all need careful planning from the start. All materials used for façade constructions should, without exceptions, be non-combustible and to a specified degree, fire-rated.
Consider the majority of new constructions where the traditional brick walls with small window-to-wall ratios have been replaced by expansive glass, aluminium and stone façades. some of the important aspects of fire-safety are:
•Adequate checks to ensure that only non-combustible materials and fire-retardant materials are used
•Horizontal and vertical fire-stops should be in place to check the propagation of fire within the floors and vertically between floors
•In the case of openable windows, the monolithic toughened glass should be installed. Laminated panes should be avoided as these would be difficult to break if need be during a fire
•All openable windows should be clearly marked with a red triangle, visible from outside.
Fire safety provisions in ultra high-rise buildings should be designed carefully. There more such practices which we can apply for fire safety in buildings.
Click Here to read full article to work out an appropriate fire safety design in high rise building to give adequate public safety.
CO2 fire extinguisher discharges CO2 gas, also known as carbon dioxide.
This is stored in the extinguisher as a liquid, and the gas is created under pressure when the handle of the extinguisher is squeezed.This causes the CO2 gas to emerge at great speed, which is why CO2 fire extinguishers are not recommended for chip pan fires – they could literally blast the flames into surrounding areas.Unlike water and foam extinguishers, CO2 fire extinguishers do not work by cooling the fire and so are ineffective on fires involving flammable solids.Instead, CO2 extinguisher work by replacing the oxygen surrounding the flames with carbon dioxide, meaning the fire can no longer burn.
Precaution: Fire extinguisher refilling and maintenance is necessary once in a year.
