Fire Safety: Fire Safety for High-Rise Buildings

With the rapid development of economic construction, the continuous growth of urban population, the increasingly tense urban land resources, and the gradual extension of urban structures to high altitudes, has increased the number of urban high-rise buildings in China. High-rise building structures have complex functions, large construction areas, high heights, large numbers of people, and large amounts of electricity used in fires, so their potential fire hazards cannot be ignored. At present, many problems in the fire safety of high-rise buildings, as well as fire prevention and fire-fighting measures are the focus of fire protection.

1 High-rise building fire characteristics and fire control difficulties

(1) There are many ways to spread fire and the fire is rapid. In high-rise buildings, stairwells, elevator shafts, pipeline wells, cable wells, and exhaust air passages are numerous. When a fire occurs, the chimney effect is easy to generate and becomes a rapid way of spreading the fire. High-rise buildings are greatly affected by wind power. The higher the building, the higher the wind speed, and the faster the fire spreads. In addition, various kinds of electrical equipment such as electrification and automation inside the building increase the possibility of fire caused by short-circuit leakage. In addition, the extensive use of decoration materials ( mostly flammable materials ) is conducive to the occurrence and development of fires, and can produce a large number of toxic and harmful gases, thus harming human health.

(2) People are numerous and dense, and it is difficult to evacuate safely. The high number of high-rise buildings, the time required to evacuate people to the ground is long, and the construction area is large, and the number of people accommodated is large. In the event of a fire, elevators must be stopped and can only be evacuated through stairs. With limited capacity of stairs, there will inevitably be congestion and stampede. Those who are unable to evacuate will most likely be smoldering or burnt to death. The consequences are quite serious. of.

(3) High-rise building fire rescue is difficult. The height of the building is high. The existing fire-fighting vehicles and equipment cannot meet the fire-fighting needs and cannot timely control the fire and cause difficulties in fighting the fire. In particular, the timing of fire extinguishing will be delayed when the fire water supply and the water supply height do not meet the requirements. In the event of a fire, there will be a large amount of smoke and water vapor in the space. At this time, the automatic shut-off of various types of smoke exhaust equipment makes it more difficult to exhaust smoke in the passage. According to statistics, about 70 % to 80 % of people in the fire suffocated due to smoke poisoning.

2 Status and Problems of Fire Safety in High-rise Buildings

2 . 1 Fire design is not standardized

In 1995 , the State promulgated the "Code for the Fire Protection of High-rise Civil Buildings" (GB50045---95) , which provided a standardized guarantee for the fire safety of high-rise buildings. however. The design of fire protection in many high-rise buildings has not attracted the attention of designers. In particular, some old-fashioned building fire protection designs have inherent deficiencies. For example, there are no automatic fire control systems in public passages; lack of fire water sources; and the evacuation of stairwells does not meet the specification requirements; There is a “white space” for refuge floors in buildings of 100m or higher; the high-density construction of modern high-rise buildings is also a construction located in the bustling area of ​​the city. The fire lane or fire protection outdoor operation area is occupied in large quantities; the curtain wall decoration of high-rise buildings can easily be broken to form glass rain under the high temperature of the fire. Impeded the implementation of the rescue and caused casualties.

2 . 2 fire facilities and preventive measures are not in place

In general, the most basic fire-fighting facilities should include fire control rooms with fire alarm control equipment and fire control equipment, indoor fire hydrants, automatic sprinkler devices, safety evacuation systems, smoke extraction systems, and automatic fire shutter systems. At present, there are many problems in China's high-rise building fire-fighting systems, such as incomplete facilities, unqualified facilities, lack of maintenance of fire-fighting systems, and deactivation to varying degrees.

2 . 3 Fire safety management system is not sound

The current high-rise buildings are mostly shared or multi-property buildings, resulting in the unclear responsibilities of various units in the management of fire safety. As a result, the responsibility for the management and maintenance of fire-fighting facilities is not in place, and there are various fire-fighting facilities in the building. Its management and application also need to have a certain amount of professional basic knowledge, and often there are problems in the fire safety management personnel are not equipped, coupled with the lack of fire emergency plans, so the imperfections of the fire safety management system should be obtained Fully valued.

2 . 4 The quality of fire safety management personnel needs to be improved

Fire safety knowledge of high-rise building fire safety management personnel and facility maintenance personnel is generally not high. To a large extent, there are problems such as non-standard business, inexperience, weak sense of responsibility, absenteeism, and weak fire safety awareness.

2 . 5 lack of awareness of public fire safety

In the social life, the public lacks awareness of the catastrophic consequences of fire accidents, and there is no awareness of fire safety in everyday work and life. Such as changing the use of the structure of the room but the fire facilities did not keep up; the use of fire-resistant and non-flammable materials was not fully considered in the selection of the decoration materials; insufficient attention was paid to the safe use of electricity and gas; the basic knowledge of fire safety, self-rescue escape Common sense is also relatively lacking.

3 High-rise building fire safety measures

(1) The fire protection design is reasonable and the facilities are complete. The fire protection design of high-rise buildings shall be conducted in strict accordance with the relevant national fire protection design specifications. The overall layout of the building and the fire zoning shall be rationally arranged, and the smoke evacuation design and safety evacuation system settings shall be strengthened, and various types and functions of fire-fighting facilities shall be equipped, and intelligence shall be developed. a fire alarm and automatic fire extinguishing system to form an intelligent fire monitoring and fire fighting system. The system can comprehensively consider the scale of the building, fire load, danger, accident consequence, and evacuation and suppression according to the characteristics and requirements of the object to be protected. The degree of difficulty, to determine the appropriate fire protection design and facilities supporting programs.

(2) Formulate high-rise building fire emergency plans. According to the characteristics of different high-rise buildings, including the height of the building, the number of floors, the building structure and access, the materials and fire resistance of the building, the possible ways and intensity of fire propagation, etc. Fire extinguishing power, the rescue of trapped people, and the passage or method of transporting valuable materials. Outside the high-rise buildings, emergency plans should also be made for the rescue of the fire field, such as the way for firefighters to ascend and rescue, the clearing of fire-fighting vehicle access, and ensuring the operation site.

(3) Establish and improve fire safety management system. First, the fire safety responsibilities of all unit departments should be clarified, the maintenance and maintenance system for fire protection facilities should be established, and fire prevention inspections should be carried out. The relevant departments should carry out regular inspections of fire safety systems of various buildings, including various types of fire protection facilities, and supervise the implementation of fire prevention measures to eliminate Fire hazards. At the same time, improve the post responsibility system and strengthen the training of management personnel, enhance their awareness of job responsibilities, improve the level of fire protection knowledge and practical ability to ensure the normal and reasonable use of fire facilities.

(4) Improve the fire safety regulations and legal system. In the implementation of fire safety work, various laws and regulations must be further improved, and at the same time, the supervision of fire safety must be strengthened. All relevant state agencies should improve various types of fire design codes as soon as possible, formulate new management rules and regulations, and use laws and regulations as work implementation. The protection must be strengthened at the same time, and the firefighting Ding Cheng design, construction, and acceptance review system should be strictly enforced.

(5) Strengthen the popularization of fire safety knowledge and the development of safety awareness. The relevant social groups or fire departments shall publicize fire prevention knowledge to high-rise building users and managers and the general public in different forms and in a targeted manner. In particular, self-help knowledge, raising people's safety awareness, fire awareness, but also for regular fire accident drills, training the public evacuation, escape and use of fire fighting facilities. On the one hand, the public is ideologically aware of the serious consequences of fire accidents and increases the vigilance against fires; on the other hand, it also cultivates the public’s ability to defend against fire and implement self-rescue.

The information in this article comes from the Internet and was reorganized and edited by China Rescue Equipment Network.