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Fire Safety - project to bring awareness and seriousness

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Project number:3185
Opened by:Ravi_D
Opened on:ಶನಿವಾರ, 13 March 2010 - 9:13am
Last modified:ಬುಧವಾರ, 6 October 2010 - 9:36am
Operations:add Case | view all project cases

This project is coming out comments like these (Awareness, Citizen's audit) from Major Kapur, Ravi_D and others on the discussions we had about incidents at Carlton Tower. Remember, it could be the mall you visit, or your office building next, and fire breakout is always one accident away. Accidents are accidents, but it seems that lives were lost - matter is in courts, so this is yet to be established conclusively - at Carlton Tower mostly due to negligence about fire safety norms.

Ravi and Major Kapur have agreed to lead this project, provided at least 2-3 more citizens come forward to run along. things planned could be

  • Meet Fire Safety department, get the safety norms published prominently, online as well as printed.
  • Pick large buildings, high rises, report positive or negative complaince, and do this with support from building ownership or management. Idea is to make everyone aware, and generate enough warning around about negligence.

Try above, or as decided managed by the participants of this project - come join in and shape it.

[Note: Created by Admins on behalf of Ravi_D and Promod Kapur]

 

ಪ್ರತಿಕ್ರಿಯೆಗಳು

sanjayv's picture

National Building Code 2005

 I was reading the National Building Code 2005 (confession: downloaded a bootleg copy from using a torrent).  The context for this research is that in trying to figure out the adequacy of the fire fighting system that our builder finally completed (it was siting half finished) after the Carleton fire.

The NBC is super detailed and really something for experts, but just a cursory reading brings out so many engineering recommendations that could have reduced the magnitude of the Carlton tragedy.  One realizations is that the oft repeated line is true, to have a major disaster, you need multiple things to go wrong.

However, the final few pages on fire safety really caught my attention reg a personal fire instruction card to be given to each occupant. One thing it says in there is:

FOR YOUR OWN PROTECTION YOU SHOULD REPORT TO YOUR FIRE/ DEPUTY FIRE WARDEN

  1. If any exit door/route is obstructed by loose materials, goods, boxes, etc.
  2. If any staircase door, lift lobby door does not close automatically, or does not close completely.
  3. If any push button fire alarm point, or fire extinguisher is obstructed, damaged or apparently out of order.

Just something as simple as this form would probably have alerted somebody to pay attention, maybe?

vaishvittal's picture

Fire safety norms for city high-rises

It has been less than two months since the Carlton Towers fire accident took place. A week after the incident, Commissioner of Police Shankar Bidari issued a notification saying that owners/lease-holders/occupants of such buildings must adhere to a set of rules and regulations, and report the same to the nearest police station by April 15th, 2010. In case the building is not according to the plan sanctioned by the local authority, the Commissioner has set June 30th, 2010, as the deadline to conform to the approved plan.

The order says that these buildings must comply with the guidelines as prescribed in the Karnataka Fire Force Act, 1964; The Karnataka Fire Force Rules, 1971; and the Karnataka Fire Force Regulations, 1971.

Interestingly, these laws mentioned in Bidari's order do not say anything about how the public should follow the fire safety rules. Neither do they have anything on maintaining the fire safety equipment. In fact, fire safety guidelines have also been mentioned in the National Building Code of India. It has specific guidelines on how to regulate construction activities across the country. Ironically, Bidari's order does not say anything about this building code either.

Here's what you need to know about the fire safety norms for high-rise buildings (15 metres and above). This information has been obtained from the office of the Karnataka State Fire and Emergency Services, Bangalore, and has been compiled from the National Building Code (NBC), 2005.

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/1915-fire-safety-norms-high-rise

 

Naveen's picture

@Ravi

I have a hard copy of BDA's revised masterplan 2015 about zoning land use & regulation (68 pages) - this is relevant since it includes buidling byelaws. If needed, it can be used. What help do you need when you say "help with sharing these documents as attachments here?" ?
Naveen's picture

RMP - Same

Ravi - what I have is the same in hard /bound copy. Didn't know it was available in soft form too! The PRO I had met had said that one needs to buy it, probably to earn revenue for BDA :). He never mentioned that it was available on the net.

Ravi_D's picture

Re: @Naveem

Found the RMP softcopy on BDA website. See above post. Is it the same one you have? 

Ravi_D's picture

BDA Master Plan 2015

Zoning Regulations...

See here: http://www.bdabangalore.org/pdfs/Zoning_Regulations_RMP2015.pdf 

Even this calls out NBC to be the standard to follow (Section 9.1).

 

Ravi_D's picture

@Naveen

Replying your post here... 

Thanks for offering us the BDA MasterPlan copy. When I asked for 'help', I was hoping for suggestions to share such things seamlessly here on Praja. Our geeky friends just need to scratch their heads a bit (or they may just need to see this request)...

Will certainly take the master plan. If nothing else works, I'll probably drive to your place one of these days to pick it up.

Ravi_D's picture

Bye-Laws and NBC

Here is a link to Bye-Laws and NBC.

http://drop.io/wixtttd#

Bye-laws are up there already, uploading NBC - it is a large file (90+MB).  

sanjayv's picture

sharing softcopy of NBC

 Can you use a file sharing service like "Dropbox" ?

silkboard's picture

In for an actual audit

I will certainly join once this project gets to an actual citizen's audit of a public/open building.

Ravi_D's picture

A couple more days...

Let us wait a couple more days to see if more wants to join. Thanks to everyone offering help!

sanjayv's picture

I can pitch in

Life is busy nowadays, but I can help a little. 

hemaraj's picture

fire drills

One thing I always notice that though all of us know everthing, we forget at the appropriate time where are the safety measure things.and the exit route.

so the best thing is let every high raised building have  a day in the year allocated for fire safety day,have everything checked , having every body residing compulsarily to participate,teach them where what is there.

how to use the  gadgets, and give mock drill.

this might reduce the impact of fire break out.

hemaraj's picture

would like to join

hi Ravi, I have newly joined the praja, regarding projects im new to this. I will help if iam given a particular task. being a housewife , i sometimes have limitations, with this in mind if some task is assigned i would like to help.
Naveen's picture

Fire Safety - Count me in

Hi Ravi,

What Mjr Kapur mentioned is spot on. There is no point in arguing over who did right or wrong or how bad our enforcement is - these things do happen almost everywhere in the world. The best we can do is to compile easy references for educating people & improving their awareness, & try spread the message around.

I'm willing to assist.

Ravi_D's picture

Join this effort - who's interested?

Pls leave a message here if you'd like to take this forward. 

Basic tasks identified so far:

  • Collate safety standards info (documents, meetings, references)
  • Create a easy to use reference checklist (based on collected info)
  • Identify potential targets for distribution and use, make it available here on Praja
  • Distribute (resulting in a safety audit, if at all permissible)

Comments / Suggestions from participants welcome for the next few days while the team is grouping together!

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