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Each year, an estimated 15,000 high rise structure fires cause 60 civilian deaths, over 900 injuries, and more than $250 million in property loss. Preventative methods were addressed at the second Firesafe conference held in Dubai
High rise fires are the most injurious. Being inherently more difficult for the fire service to tackle, they cause more damage than any other structural fire.
Last month, hundreds of families and individuals were forced to evacuate a 46-storey tower in Abu Dhabi following a fire as a result of an electrical fault.
With the number of residential and commercial high rise towers in the Middle East, precautions taken by FMs can make a significant difference when it comes to fire prevention.
“Commercially the FM needs to ensure the reliability and effectiveness of fire prevention and protection in order to sustain and develop businesses,” said Nabeel Ali, chief fire and safety compliance officer, ENOC.
WSP ME offers a fire consultancy service, providing independent advice on the most appropriate fire safety measures including fire safety management procedures and preventative systems, relative to the risk.
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“It should be the responsibility of the FM companies to ensure regular fire risk assessments are conducted and fire safety management policies and procedures are developed for each premises,” he said. “[This] will identify potential hazards so these can be mitigated to a reasonable level.”
Though it may seem obvious, water is proving a highly efficient and environmentally friendly way to fight fires when opposed to gas alternatives. At the second fire safe event held at the Habtoor Grand in Dubai, Tyco described Watermist as one of its mose effective products yet.
“It’s becoming more and more popular, the market in the Europe, Middle East and Africa is in somewhere in the order of $300m,” said Alan Elder, Sales Manager, Tyco, EMEA.
Watermist works using a reduced droplet size. When a droplet of water vaporises, it expands some 1600 times. Because heat absorption is a function of surface area and not volume, smaller droplets mean more surface area and therefore faster heat absorption.
The science
When we look at fire extinguishing system mechanisms, the inert gases work by removing the oxygen level in the enclosure typically to a concentration of less than 12% - inert gases used at this concentration are safe for humans.
“The chemical systems used heat removal as their extinguishing mechanisms. Earlier chemical agents like Halon 1301 have very high chemical interaction with the flames.
Halon 1301’s principal extinguishing mechanism is a chemical whereas the new generation products work by heat removal,” advised Elder. “Watermist systems use both heat extraction and oxygen displacement.”
Watermist is actually defined as a water spray in which 90% of the water droplets are less than 1mm in diameter, thus using much less water for maximum effect, a clear environmental benefit, said Elder.
“We’re actually getting more from less in respect of the water available. It works principally by absorption of heat and the creation of steam,” advised Elder “We do get the dilution of flammable vapours and the cooling of a few as well.
Small droplets have sufficient momentum to penetrate the fire so the design of the system is important to ensure we get the water to the flame and it does absorb heat from the fire and surroundings to smother flames.”
Good things come in small packages
For every litre of water, a surface area of around 2m2 is covered. If this is taken down by a scale of ten, the reactive surface goes up to 20m2 for the same litre of water. If broken down further to ten microbes, a reactive surface of around 200m2 is covered.
Elder said according to tests, the evaporation time was much reduced depending on the size of the droplets. The smaller the droplets, the faster that water turned to steam and started to take effect
“[But] one of the problems we’ve got is if it makes the droplets too small, you don’t get the discharge velocity you need to take the droplets to the flame.
“We need that momentum and so proper delivery and risk based analysis is necessary. It’s not good enough to say we’ll create billions of droplets of ten microbes and hope for the best – you may not get extinguishing under those circumstances. The whole design of the system is important in ensuring that delivery.”
He also said that it was important to remember the watermist systems were not a replacement for gas systems and they were designed to work with already existing systems and procedures.
“We’re saying it’s complementary. There may be some occasions for overlap, different opinions for different parts of the world.”
But, it’s not just in high-rise towers where fire is a risk. In the waste management industry, there is an average of 8400 landfill fires reported each year, reveals a a study for the United States Fire Administration National Fire Data Centre.
Following a fire which broke out at Bee’ah’s old transfer station, a decision was made to review the fire systems. The company recently looked into launching a thermal imager system which sends out warnings to the security command centre on detection of high temparatures.
“This has never been used as a method of proactive incident prevention on any landfill in the world,” said Mohammed Ahmed Abdul Aziz, group health, security, safety and environment manager.
The man behind the machine
Regardless of the safety device put in place, Elder said what was most important was the attitude of the person responsible for fire safety in the building. He found responses to the threat of fire safety varied from company to company, but urged that FM’s continually reviewed their fire protection measures.
“In some cases it’s taken very seriously, in others perhaps not as seriously as it should be. [I’d advise that you] review the fire protection measures you have.
“Speak to a specialist or expert in the area to guide you [and advise] whether those protection measures you’ve got are adequate or whether they need to be enhanced,” he said.
All organisations and buildings need to have a sustainable fire prevention system in place said Nabeel Ali.
“[This means] an adequately designed system based on industry standards and local regulations that is appropriate with the facility and its business operations.
“Secondly fire protection arrangements should be maintained, tested and certified for the compliance with the industry standards & local regulations.
“Thirdly if there are any changes made to the facility or the business the design and arrangements needs to be revisited to evaluate if the fire prevention and protection system is still adequate.”
Davies supported this, adding that detection and fire fighting systems should be provided and regularly maintained, while Abdul Aziz agreed, concluding FM companies had to be seen to protect their workforces to succeed.
“Our job is to lead environmental change. If we aren’t credible of being safe for our people, we will not be viewed credible for our society and business within waste management practices.”
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