How Good Is Our Apartment’s Fire Fighting Systems?
Imagine a fire breaks out in your high raise apartment building, your family lives on the twentieth floor. Your neighbours are running out and screaming, it is a total chaos! As the heat and smoke from the fire begins to engulf your home, what will you do? This must be terrifying and worst than a nightmare to imagine! It is very important to check how effective is our building’s fire fighting systems are.
Often when fire fighters who rush to the spot to put down the fire, notice that the hose reels are stuck or no water available in the overhead tank, sometimes both! Having ill-equipped fire fighting systems will not only be a hindrance for the fire fighters, this might even stop them from saving people’s lives during fire accidents. Apartment dwellers have to see that their fire safety measures are given top priority.
It is sad to know that many of us don’t know how to use a fire extinguisher. At schools, we discuss about rocket science but fail to learn how to use a simple fire extinguisher that will save human lives. Remember, fire safety equipments are mandatory for certification of high rise residential and commercial buildings; unfortunately it is hardly subjected to periodic inspections. Emergency evacuations and mock drills are never carried out to educate adults or children. Buildings install fire safety systems just to satisfy the NOC requirement. Later the equipments are removed,.
Now high raise apartments are everywhere in Chennai, residents need to be prepared and take precautions rather being sorry for the mishap. Our city’s Fire and Rescue Services lack proper equipments like sky lifts to reach people in danger, it is up to these apartment associations to approach the authorities concerned and request them to be prepared with all necessary equipments and assist in mock drill – calamities can never be predicted!
