Physical Security

Fire - Stages and Protective Measures

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Fire is one of the elements of nature which is required for Survival but also plays an important factor in destruction. The amount of destruction caused by one of the elements of nature is unimaginable and can cost trillions of dollars of damage across the world along with loss of countless lives. For example, the State of California had record set of wildfires in 2018 which set both the forests and homes ablaze and costed the state between 10 to 12 billion us dollars. This is just a small fraction of the representation of destruction fire can cause.

Fire spreads in four stages.

Incipient: Incipient also called trigger is when a fire is ignited due to combustion of fuel along with oxygen and the chemical reaction that happens is fire. The ignition can be a small source but can trigger a chain of uncontrollable reactions. At this stage the fire can be controlled or exhausted by taking necessary measures.

Growth: Fire requires oxygen to stay alive and combustive materials to spread. Lack of any one of the above factors can reduce the spread  of fire. But if the conditions are met, fire can go into an uncontrollable state and stay alive until one of the factors, availability of oxygen or combustive material is exhausted. At this stage fire is strong enough to cause damage to both property and people. The risk of exhausting this fire is low depending on the factors. The risk of damage grows rapidly along with the fire growth.

Fully Developed:  At this stage the fire is in a fully developed phase and is consuming both the oxygen and the combustive materials at a rapid rate. The temperatures will reach around 800 to 1000 degrees causing large damage to both infrastructure and life. Extinguishing fire at this stage takes lots of chemicals and manpower and sometimes might take days to exhaust the fire.

Decay: Decay is the stage at which the available fuel or combustible materials and oxygen is consumed, and the availability becomes limited for the fire to stay alive. Considering a fire in an apartment or a ventilation shaft the availability of oxygen might become limited once the available oxygen is consumed. At this stage the fire can be put out easily, but the risk of damaged structure collapsing is quite high and also the chances of inhaling the left over gases from the fire along with possible electric wires in open is high.

Protective Measures: a. Effectively using fire retardant materials while building structures is the first step to reduce the risk of fires. Using electronic detective mechanisms to detect fire and smoke. c. Setting up proper ventilation shafts which will close the source of oxygen when fire is detected. Educating people about the risk of fires and how to identify, inform and put out fires when possible.

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