Fire Safety The incident normally starts as a small fire, which may spread to the entire room of origin. The smoke and heat start filling the room, and the accumulation of the smoke and hot gases will take place near the ceiling level. The smoke and heat will remain confined to that room, if there are no openings in the floors or the walls, below or above the false ceiling. The sprinkler provided in the room at ceiling level will come into operation within a minute as the temperature reaches about 680C.
A glass façade building in Gurugram, with no visible, Openable windows. are visible. Breaking the toughened Glass may be extremely difficult for external intervention, even with ALPs
This smoke and heat may travel to other rooms in the same zone, i.e. rooms which are served by the same Air Handling Units (AHU), even if the AHU is designed to stop through an auto-tripping, on the operation of the automatic fire alarm system. Provision of a fire damper at every entry and return air passage in each room may however keep the smoke and
buildings (hospitals - for the wards, OPD etc.) These may however have other internal arrangements for the utilisation of the available space in the required manner. Buildings in IT Sector The business/ office buildings in IT sector normally have huge floor space, only separated by a few feet high partitions. The large-sized floors are provided with air-conditioning through AC ducts provided in the space above the false ceiling. The buildings are also provided with fire suppression facilities, as required under the law. The people, who are likely to use the fire & life safety arrangements before arrival of fire service will depend on the fact, whether people are on 24x7 working, with or without sleeping risk, or 8 hours working during the day shift only. The Scenario in Case of Fire Fire in a normal building having walled construction:
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WFM | MAY - JUNE 2022
fire confined to the room of origin for a reasonable time depending on many other factors. Effect of the Internal Spread of Smoke The main effect of smoke is the reduction in visibility, difficulty in breathing & panic, etc. for the occupants. Any delay in the beginning of evacuation or commencement of the fire fighting process is likely to make the egress by the occupants as well as entry for the firemen for rescue or fire fighting difficult. Can it be managed externally (without entering the building), or by using portable means of smoke venting? Certainly not. Then what is the solution? It is possible by having builtin facilities for natural or mechanical smoke venting or smoke management facility, which can be used in the event of a fire. Are we taking care of this as of now? Perhaps not. The air-conditioning requirements of a glass façade building are different in terms of the size/volume of the internal compartments. The spread of smoke from a small/ slow fire in a large volume compartment may take more time to reduce the visibility to a difficult level but a fast-spreading fire or delayed action in tackling the incident may result in difficulty for the people in the building as well as firemen responding on to the fire call.
A high-rise building of approx 100 m plus, no visible openable windows on the façade. All super high rise buildings abut directly on the road. No side setback is provided in these buildings. The built-in fire suppression and means of escape are generally well maintained. No encroachment is allowed and no vehicle can even stop no question of parking.
The Present Arrangement We mostly do not have any special facility to manage the smoke and hot gases in the event of a fire, even in the hospital buildings, where the evacuation of the inpatients can be extremely difficult or rather impossible. The openable windows can certainly be useful in certain situations. The provision of the openable windows was not mandatory for the glass façade
