{"id":5411,"date":"2020-01-07T16:01:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-07T10:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=5411"},"modified":"2020-01-07T16:01:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T10:31:00","slug":"the-reasons-behind-fire-incidents-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/the-reasons-behind-fire-incidents-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"The reasons behind fire incidents: Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper III: Disaster management<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>India saw at least three major fire accidents in 2019.<br \/>\n\u2022 The first, in a four-storey central Delhi hotel in February, killed 17 people.<br \/>\n\u2022 The second, at a coaching centre in Surat in May, killed 22 students.<br \/>\n\u2022 The third broke out in a factory in Delhi and resulted in the death of 43 workers.<br \/>\n\u2022 In the second and third instances, it was found that buildings authorised to be residential complexes were operating as commercial buildings instead.<br \/>\n\u2022 (According to the Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India report of 2015, residential buildings are most prone to fire outbreaks.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Reasons behind the fire accidents:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Despite major fires in the past, flagrant violations of building and fire safety norms continue unabated and fire accidents take place with alarming regularity.<br \/>\n\u2022 It is high time safety is taken seriously and violators are brought to book.<br \/>\n\u2022 Past incidents show that most fire accidents take place due to three major reasons: electrical short circuit and gas cylinder\/stove bursts, human negligence, and ill-formed habits.<br \/>\n\u2022 All three need to be addressed to make buildings safer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What all can we do to reduce fire accidents?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Adherence to National Building Code:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>On the regulatory side, adherence to the National Building Code of 2016 should be made mandatory.<br \/>\n\u2022 This is a detailed set of guidelines for the construction, maintenance and operation of buildings of all kinds (residential, educational, institutional, assembly, mercantile, industrial, business, etc.) and includes a separate and comprehensive chapter on fire and life safety.<br \/>\n\u2022 The National Building Code specifies, for instance, how many exits should be provided in a specific kind of building and where they must be placed.<br \/>\n\u2022 In the case of the Delhi fire, it was not only reported that a residential space was operating as a commercial space, but also that the fire exits in the buildings were blocked, thus trapping people inside.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Assessment through fire safety audit:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>But before all that, the first stage towards a fire-safe building is to construct the building with fire-resistant\/retardant materials and install smoke detection systems and fire alarms.<br \/>\n\u2022 A building\u2019s fire alarm\/detection system should be connected with the city\u2019s fire system. Fire compartmentalization (area\/floor wise) should be made mandatory to restrict the spread of fire through horizontal and vertical spaces.<br \/>\n\u2022 Further, a systematic procedure should be outlined for periodically assessing and monitoring fire risks.<br \/>\n\u2022 While the fire safety audit (FSA) is a good tool to assess fire safety standards of an occupancy, there are no clear provisions in any legislation regarding, say, the scope or periodicity of an FSA.<br \/>\n\u2022 FSAs should thus be made mandatory everywhere.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Authorization of electrical and fire installations:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Once electrical and fire installations are in place, they should be certified by authorised persons and agencies.<br \/>\n\u2022 These will help identify and monitor risks of short circuits due to changes in building use, change in load patterns, etc.<br \/>\n\u2022 Only qualified persons and firms should be authorised to inspect buildings. No-objection certificates should be renewed only after verifying the originally intended use of the building being certified and any change in the building\u2019s pattern.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Increase the number of fire station and services:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In case fires break out despite all this, fire services should always be in place. This too is lacking in India.<br \/>\n\u2022 Data show that fire services are not at all adequate.<br \/>\n\u2022 In 2017, for instance, the Home Ministry told Parliament that in 2012 India had just 2,987 fire stations against the requirement of 8,559.<br \/>\n\u2022 It is hoped that there are more now. It is important to not only increase fire services but also modernize fire fighting departments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Building awareness:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Awareness of fire safety is nearly absent in India.<br \/>\n\u2022 In schools, the curriculum should have a chapter on fire safety. Regular drills should be conducted so that children are prepared to handle such incidents.<br \/>\n\u2022 Communities managing housing and commercial premises need to regularly organise awareness programs with assistance from authorized persons and agencies.<br \/>\n\u2022 These need to be not only on fire safety but also on other disasters such as earthquakes and floods.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Mandatory of infrastructural changes:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We need dedicated access lanes for the quick movement of emergency vehicles.<br \/>\n\u2022 Under the Smart Cities Mission, \u2018smart control rooms\u2019 should be able to guide emergency vehicles through the shortest route and enable coordination among various departments such as police, traffic police, fire, ambulance, and security forces.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Way forward:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A lot of ground has to be covered before India can claim to be a fire-safe country.<br \/>\n\u2022 It is imperative that lessons are learned from the Delhi incident at least now.<br \/>\n\u2022 India can work towards a new goal this decade if everyone cooperates and takes precious lives seriously \u2014 the goal of a \u2018surakshit Bharat\u2019(safe India).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper III: Disaster management Context: India saw at least three major fire accidents in 2019. \u2022 The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-5411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-studies-iii-technology-economic-development-bio-diversity-environment-security-and-disaster-management","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5412,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5411\/revisions\/5412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}