How to Prevent Building Fire?

No matter how safe you feel in your home or office, there is always a slight risk of fire hazard, especially, when you ignore the basic safety precautions. Fire hazard is one of the most common accidents at homes as well as at offices that can end up in tremendous damages, including, life loss. However, it is still the highly ignored risk, in India, and mostly occur from preventable reasons. The reasons are global warming, negligence of fire safety, uses of poor quality wires etc. etc.

According to the Fire Safety Regulation India, in 2018 – Fire pose a major threat to various occupancies in India. Almost every day some fires are reported by media across the country. These fires not only resulted in the loss of many precious life and injuries to many but also inflicted heavy property loss.
During the last two decades there was a vibrant growth in the construction activities in India, especially in high rise buildings. Because of its peculiar nature, fire in residential buildings, in particular, high rise buildings, become more complex and the salvaging operations become more difficult and sometimes even resulting in many deaths and huge property losses. The rapid modernisation of Indian Industry have made the scenario more complex. Awareness towards fire safety had not been quite forthcoming. This article will focus on the overall scenario on the existing fire safety regulations in India and the effectiveness of these regulations for combating the potential fire hazards.

The design and layout of a building, in conjunction with the materials of construction, play an important role in preventing the spread of fire and smoke and in allowing the safe evacuation of people from the premises.

This topic covers the buildings design aspects of fire safety. Fire risk assessments and fire safety procedures, policies and arrangements are covered in the Fire Safety topic.

Fire extinguishers, alarms, detectors, lighting, signage and automatic suppression systems are covered in the Fire Extinguishers, Detection and Alarm Systems topic.

Employers’ Duties

The practice must:

• provide a safe environment in relation to fire safety for employees and all users of the buildings
• ensure suitable compartmentation (fire separation) of the premises (where appropriate)
• provide suitable fire doors and other fire barriers (if required)
• provide suitable places of safety: protected areas, refuges, etc
• ensure that risk assessments are undertaken to determine the appropriate level of fire safety measures
• identify significant findings of the risk assessment and the details of anyone who might be at risk in case of fire
• ensure the fire integrity of the buildings and provide suitable fire escape routes
• ensure that evacuation times and travel distances are adequate
• ensure that the buildings comply with local fire requirements
• gain professional fire safety advice wherever necessary
• ensure that any modifications do not compromise the fire safety of the premises.
  Employees’ Duties
  Employees must:
  • comply fully with all relevant fire safety, fire prevention and emergency evacuation policies, procedures and protocols
  • ensure that fire doors are not propped open
  • ensure that any maintenance activities do not compromise the fire status of the building
  • report at once any faults to detection systems, extinguishers, alarms or call points.
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