Which is an ideal Fire Fighting System?
We all know in modern premises such as event halls, theatres, hypermarkets and large space areas where lot of people merge for their activities, a prudent fire suppression is a must in case of an emergency. This not only ensure saving of human lives / pets as well as critical data storage systems and valuables like cash, jewels and more.
Oxygen, Heat and Fuel are the three important factors which trigger a fire. So, any fire fighting / fire suppression systems need their focus on any or all of these three elements to contain fire at the soonest.
The most common form of Fire Fighting is the usage of Sprinklers or/and hydrants which take water from the storage tanks and with well-connected steel pipes installed at each floor and in each room to control fire through water mist. But it needs to work in time when there is an accident of fire and any further spread to the property will be curtailed. As a famous quote goes “fireproof is not foolproof”. With any system, fire can be prevented but cannot be totally erased after it occurs. It leaves some sort of damage to the lives or property.
Water Based System
In this category, water is pumped from the storage tank into the pipe network, spanning various areas of the property, be it a small house, a multi storey building or a large warehouse premise. With the sprinklers placed in various points water mist is sprayed to contain fire; this is the very first good step in reducing the fire spread, though various factors come into play. The magnitude of fire varies from a kitchen fire in a small house to a fire accident in a chemical storage facility. Containing fire at the early stage holds the key. In this system if the pumps malfunction, then the very objective of using sprinklers to control fire is lost. Any effective firefighting system, up and ready with frequent maintenance of all the inter linked systems is of paramount importance.
Alternatively, there is an air based Dry System wherein Fire Hydrants are connected in each floor of a building or zones in a wide-spread warehouse / factory. When the Fire Service personnel open this hydrant, air is released and to fill this, the pump sense and pumps water from the tank and it reaches the Fire personnel to spray water into the affected areas. All these need to happen in short time.
FM 200
FM-200 system of Fire Fighting is more practical in the modern world where computer equipment, technology-oriented systems, control rooms, hospitals, Data centres having critical data stored in their premise are exposed to fire in the premises. In case of emergency, water-based spray will not help greatly as the gas-based FM 200 will act swiftly to reduce the impact to the minimal. But this is not generally applied by various local Civil Defence codes though specific projects demand FM 200 on case-to-case basis. This will gain increasing popularity as data storge becomes the demand of the current technological revolution.
Passive Fire Protection
Fire Fighting is as stated with methods to contain active fires; on the other hand, passive fire is containing fire which can escape from an affected zone to an unaffected zone. In passive Fire protection, various putties, intumescent sealants are applied around the pipe penetrations, wall gaps, various gaps around structural elements like steel bars, ducting joints in order to prevent fire from spreading to newer areas; these sealants when exposed to fire create a foamy substance around these gaps so that fire can be prevented for a prolonged time till the Fire Department staff arrive.
Summary
Stringent fire codes and standards are in place around the world. Fire once started can be difficult to contain. Prevention of spreading should be the key factor here. NFPA 11 insist on the low, medium and high expansion foam systems for fire protection. Stricter complain to such international standards will pave the way for fire accidents and protecting valuable lives, properties and critical data storage facilities. A combined strategy of balanced firefighting & fire protection methods will help the property owners and Civil Defence establishments around the world in reducing fire accidents. Additionally using IOT sensors connected to cloud in sending real time status of remote fires in oil fields, big industrial complexes. These sensors when linked to the AI tools can help the safety personnel in such larger facilities to take quick action in fire prevention.