ACCEPTED STANDARD, BENCHMARK & MITIGATIVE MEASURES FOR ALL OCCUPANCY
This article provides a standard direction for operational processes in managing the event of fire for Insurers and Enterprise Risk Management. The course content used in this module is based on NFPA 101, NFPA 101: Life Safety Code®. Life Safety Code® is the most widely used source for strategies to protect people based on building construction, protection, and occupancy features that minimize the effects of fire and related hazards. Provisions are included for all types of occupancies, with requirements for egress, features of fire protection, sprinkler systems, alarms, emergency lighting, smoke barriers, and special hazard protection.
Life Safety Code® focuses mainly on protection of People, it brings to light the fire problem and the inadequacies of life safety features in buildings. In Nigeria, a lack of consideration for life safety features in building construction, especially exit facilities, Plays a major factor in the magnitude of fire spread, safe evacuation and deaths.
Recent fire outbreaks in Nigeria (The Yaba College of Technology, the Hallmark shopping mall, in Benin City, Edo State, and the Nigerian Breweries factory in Lagos), continues to herald the urgent need to improve workplace safety programs, fire prevention and control strategies and general emergency responsiveness with consideration for life safety. It is common knowledge that most public places and institutions in Nigeria do not place adequate consideration on life safety standards and general safety issues are handled with levity in Nigeria. Lets cast out mind to the carnage witnessed in the Ikorodu plastic factory fire in 2002, where over 40 workers were charred to death. Safety issues are relegated to the background and individuals, organizations and government would invest billions of naira in building construction and building protection without consideration of protection of people. An overview of most public places would immediately reveal prevailing hazards and unsafe conditions and the complete absence of safety consciousness as most persons idea of safety revolves around hanging a few canisters of fire extinguishers along the doorway. Churches, mosques, malls, markets and hotels are operated without making reasonably practicable arrangements for fire prevention, firefighting, escape routes and evacuation plans. The cost of putting in place an effective life safety plan pales into insignificance when juxtaposed with the collateral losses occasioned by fire incidents.
There is a relation to occupancy loading and the number of exits, the exits pathway and the type of lighting that should be provided for such building, all these factors are not taken into consideration by regulatory bodies like the Lagos state safety commission do not check this and people are kept in danger by the laxed state of life safety in Nigeria. Buildings should not be set up without adequate provision for safety of people that are to occupy it.
NFPA 101 main provisions introduces some basic terminology in the classification of occupancies and contents hazards. An ability to properly classify occupancies and hazards is essential in the type of fire protection solution that would be adequate for the occupancy. Chapter 5 establishes minimum requirements for the means of egress for application to all occupancy classifications. It specifically covers the components, number, size, arrangement, lighting, and identification of means of egress. A summary of some goals of NFPA 101 are:
- To provide for adequate safety without dependence on any single safeguard
- To ensure that construction is sufficient to provide structural integrity during a fire while occupants seek safe refuge within the building or egress to the building exterior
- To provide an appropriate degree of life safety considering the size, shape, and nature of the occupancy
- To ensure that the egress paths are clear, unobstructed, and unlocked
- To ensure that the exits and egress routes are clearly marked to provide the necessary cues and avoid confusion
- To provide adequate lighting
- To ensure prompt occupant response by providing warning of fire
- To provide for back-up or redundant egress arrangements
- To ensure suitable enclosure of vertical openings
- To allow for design criteria that exceed the scope of the Code.
NFPAWA focus its EFRM 02 module on the benchmarks as indicated in this standard. On attending NFPAWA EFRM 02 training you will learn in this module the proper classification of occupancy and hazard content, various recommendation and provision for means of egress, features of fire protection, building service and fire equipment, provisions for high rise building and special structures and operating features. To understand more about the Life Safety Code®, kindly visit us info@scspng.com.
