Page 41 - Insurance Times December 2023

and releasing greenhouse gases. Such has been the type fire. The human error type's fires may be children
destructive nature of fire, that it has been acknowledged in playing with matches, rubbish burning, smoking and
many religions like Christianity and Judaism as the wrath of intentional fire. The appliances types' fires are electrical
God. The great Indian epics like Ramayana and appliances, gas appliances, other fuel appliances, presence
Mahabharata depict fires, as 'Lankadahana' and 'Jatugriha' of LPG, acetylene and liquefied gas, solid fuel appliances and
respectively, being the turning point of the narrative. others. The survey and study reveals that human error types
fire are the main causes of fire in the buildings. The modern
2. The Fire Hazards & Incidents - Their materialized society all activities depends on fuel
consumption and energy utilization based, most of the
Impacts: energy utilization processes are fire based. This fire based
Fire is also symbolized as the sufferings of a person in activities has become the main source of fire accident in
Buddhism to depict the destructive nature of the fire. The buildings for most of the time. The third factor of fuel supply
genesis of fire hazards in modern time is closely related to based on the nature, quantity and the arrangement of fire
the Industrial Revolution. Prior to this, the pattern of the load or the combustible materials, which is stored in side of
human settlements was scattered and dispersed. People the building.
used to live in their farms separated from each other by
large fields and so the chances of spreading of the fire were The type of fire and its severity, spread depends on the
remote in case of any fire outbreak. Fire outbreaks, then, thermal behaviour of the combustible materials and the way
was just a concern of individual families. During the industrial it is burning. The quantity of fuel expressed in terms of fire
revolution, people started settling in urban areas in compact load. The fire load is calculated by the sum of calorific value
spaces that increased the risk of fire spreading in case of an of all combustible materials with the volume of the building.
outbreak. In practice, if the volume of the building is high the fire load
is also will be high which gives a huge threatening value.
This changed the perception of fire outbreaks from individual The fire load distribution is continuous in the building; the
concern to a threat for the whole community as a fire in fire will be propagating from one end to the other end of
any house or shop could burn the entire neighborhood. With the fire load. From ancient scriptures to till date fire is the
industrialization, the frequency of fires also started earliest source of energy and good friend of humanity, if it
increasing due to the explosions and outbreaks in the is in controllable limit that is applicable for all purposes, but
factories and mills because of the failure of machinery and if it is exceeds the controllable threshold limit, it will become
equipment. Another type of fire hazards stem from wild fires envious enemy and it will create heavy lives and property
like- forest/jungle fires or bush fires, known differently in losses in our life invariably.
different areas. Forest fires are critical hazards, responsible
for significantly affecting 1% of forests annually, on an Property loss is the direct consumption of combustible
average. About 35 million hectares of forest land in India materials by fire flame, but the loss of lives are occurring
are affected by fires per year, of which 95% have an not only by the fire flame but also by heat, smoke, fumes
anthropogenic origin. and other toxic substances which are released at the time
of fire. The most important aspect in fire incidents is the
Fire or combustion is the process of burning. It is a chemical loss of human lives. The excessive heat during the fire
reaction initiated by presence of heat energy in which a accidents will give different level degree of burning, if the
substance combines with oxygen in the air to get oxidized body gets more than 30% of burning wounds the survival
and the process is accompanied by emission of energy in the possibility will become very less. Generally Smokes are clouds
form of heat, light and sound. We know that the of small particles, bigger size particles are called dust which
continuation of fire needs continuous supply of heat, fuel and is also mixed in the smoke.
oxygen in the affected buildings. Therefore we must
concentrate about these factors. The supply of oxygen is This smoke will affect the vision, making a person to loss his
common and continuous from the atmosphere. sense of direction, creating more discomfort, breathing will
become difficult. It will close all exits and the escape routes.
Fire Accident is an unplanned or unexpected event in the The possibilities of escape from the building may become
building environment. The second factor of, fire causes or impossible. The fumes and the toxic substances are present
sources of ignition in buildings are of two types, the first one in the fire zone are in the form of narcotics and irritants.
is human error type fire, and the second one is appliances The narcotics are carbon dioxide, hydrogen cyanide,

The Insurance Times December 2023 37