Fire breakouts can be sudden and can damage not only the building and valuable property, but also endanger the lives of the occupants. But with the growing awareness around fire safety, engineers and architects have managed to guarantee maximum possible safety in case of fire accidents.
What are the causes for fire accident?
There are a number of reasons why fires start in buildings, i.e. shortage in electrical circuits, gas (barbecue), smoking, and hot-work. The common causes of façade or cladding fire are generally a fire from external ignition sources such as improperly disposed of garbage, burning charcoal, cigarettes, etc. Other sources include the welding sparks from maintenance works near the combustible cladding or sheesha coal left in the balcony.
How to ensure fire safety in building?
The fire risks can be reduced by implementing a combination of measures including engineering controls such as adopting fire safe designs, adopting fire-safe materials, and adopting fire safe installation, administrative controls such as controlling the ignition sources in and around the building.
The buildings need to be designed to offer an acceptable level of fire safety and minimize the risks. Fire safety design can help to reduce fire spread and contain smoke and property damage. It also means safer buildings for all end users.
For making sure that particular material do not add on to fire, they are classified according to their flame spread rating and smoke development. Products are classified as classes A, B, or C (or Class I, II, and III) according to different institutes such as ASTM or BS or EN. Apart from the products, there are also tests required for a complete wall or façade assembly. The fire-resistance rating is usually expressed in hours and defines how long a product can resist a fire under a certain standard fire test.
There are many more such practices which architect follow for ensuring fire safety in building. Read the article to know.
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.
