Fire Safety History and Current

Fire Safety History And Current Research

The history of fire safety and prevention is generally associated with the events of the Industrial Revolution. Here, the proliferation of factory working contexts and the dangers of highly mechanized processes of operation would create a waiting disaster.

Though it would not be until far later in the 20th century that the United States would establish an organization with the specific task of ensuring compliance with standards concordant to the needs of human health and safety, the turn of that century would initiate an ongoing intensification of public and governmental conscientiousness toward the need to improve fire safety methods. It would be the need for proper fire-safety administration, and the transpiring of incidents illuminating that need, that would ultimately deliver us to the vastly improved though imperfect standards in circulation a century hence.

With labor exploitation rampant and no centralized authority yet commissioned to address this reality, it would take the terrible events of one of America's greatest labor tragedies in order to incite change to fire safety and overall worker safety standards. Fire was a commonplace hazard to factory work in the urban production centers of the industrial era.

"One of the most notable was the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City in 1911 in which nearly 150 women and young girls died because of locked fire exits and inadequate fire extinguishing systems." (EHS, 1) This would be a lightning-rod not just for the labor movement but, also for the advance in research of fire safety methods. An absence of proper safety standards and procedures, and not the fire itself, would be to blame for the unnecessary deaths produced by the incident. The result would be a necessary governmental recognition that an absence of fire-safety oversight was tantamount to a violation of human rights. Not long after this fire, "the governor of New York appointed the Factory Investigating Commission. Over the next three years, the commission held dozens of hearings, resulting in the passage of the most sweeping set of workplace labor reforms in America." (NPR, 1)

This would provide the background for the eventual adoption of proper fire safety standards, with prevention of fires also becoming a focus of strategic building efforts. To this latter end, in 1970, Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which "established for the first time a nationwide, federal program to protect almost the entire workforce from job-related death, injury and illness." (McLaury, 1) This would prompt the 1971 creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which would be charged with the responsibility of developing a comprehensive plan toward the end of this accomplishment, a means to administering this plan and the tools with which to reinforce the regulatory demands of this plan.

Chief among these newly developed regulatory demands would be the encompassing range of organizational steps to be taken in the name of fire prevention, fire safety and the minimization of human casualties resulting from fire in an occupational setting. This would help to set a template for the improvement of fire safety methods that would transcend occupational contexts and enter into the broader realm of residential and home fire safety. Indeed, among the standards for proper fire-safety administration that are given template here above, regulations exist requiring the adequate provision of sufficient fire exits, clear routes to said exits, the necessary degree of indoor ventilation, an organizational orientation toward fire action and evacuation plans, well maintained facilities and utilities, and ultimately, an ongoing focus on the operational care and procedural control needed to institute fire-preventative practices. Additionally, current standards require that business facilities retain such necessary fire-safety and prevention resources such as an alarm which permeates the entirety of the facility, a set of updated and operational fire-extinguishers for internal fire-fighting when deemed necessary and a proper demarcation of all fire-exits so that employees are able to easily determine the proper course for evacuation. These standards would all be based on the understanding that the methods both of fire detection and fire prevention are a necessary means to saving lives.

In terms of available technology today, there is an indication in our research that methods which are illustrated to be effective in saving lives such as fire sprinklers are not necessarily available in all facilities. To the contrary, many of the older tenement, apartment and other residential buildings in America's cities do not take the time or spend the money to retrofit their facilities to employ this fairly simple and accessible technology. Though not required by law in all commercial buildings with the inception of fire-safety laws, the sprinkler systems which many large-scaled facilities use as a means to fire-suppression are regarded as among the most effective ways to minimize damage and casualty as a result of fire. Functioning in coordination with alarm systems, sprinkler systems are typically activated by smoke and heat, making these a sensible response to the needs created in facilities where the potential for fire dangers is reportedly higher, such as in textile factories or chemical plants. "Over the years, fire sprinklers have become mandatory safety equipment, and are required by building codes to be placed in hospitals, schools, hotels and other public buildings." (Bellis, 1)

Though the fitting of such standard measures can be economically costly, especially for landlords renting out units in a smaller building, the consequences for a failure to adhere to proper fire safety standards can be considerable, with fatality and loss of the structure being the most dire of consequences. Research being conducted in recent years suggests that such technologies are increasingly being improved in their reliability and sensitivity. The connection of fire sprinkler response to smoke or fire detection systems has offered fire safety researchers an opportunity to refine the detection and response capabilities thereby produced.

First and foremost, technology companies have invested energy and innovation into creating smoke detectors that are capable of not just detecting a fire and alerting occupants of its presence, but further, of alerting occupants as to its specific location within the house or residential unit. According to Bosch Corporation (2008), which is responsible for its production, "The new Aspirating Smoke Detector TM features ROOM-IDENT. This feature enables individual identification of up to five rooms and quickly tracks down the source of a fire in four phases, displaying the result both on the unit itself and on the Bosch Modular Fire Panel 5000 Series. The new TM version also features a ten-digit bar graph for monitoring smoke pollution." (BC, 1)

The traditional model of the smoke detector which is simply triggered to unleash an alert when smoke is present in the air is here supplanted by a detector with a visual read-out that provides the individuals in the house or residential facility with information on the size, spread and location of the fire. Upon making an escape from a burning building, this can help to provide crucial information in planning a route and avoiding specific points of danger. This advance can help to save lives and improve the ability of occupants to make intelligent and potentially crucial decisions with little lead time. Such advances also illustrate that there is a primary focus in the fire safety research and development community on the centrality of the smoke detector/alarm as a means to preventing fire related fatality.

This speaks to one of the primary objectives in going forward for those conducting research in the particular field. An article by Rose-Pehrsson (1999) provides us with an indication that research are currently working to reduce the various obstacles to the effectiveness of smoke detectors such as the frequency of false alarms the effectiveness in the connectivity between the detector and other aspects of a fire safety system. As the article indicates, among researchers and fire safety device innovators, "it is desired to increase detection sensitivity and, more importantly, increase the reliability of the detection system through improved nuisance alarm immunity. Improved reliability is needed such that fire detection systems can automatically control fire suppression systems." (Rose-Pehrsson, 325)

These two objectives are paired for a reason, as one of the key deterrents after the cost of initial installation for the use of sprinklers is that a close connection between smoke detectors and sprinklers can trigger an unwanted fire suppression response when no such suppression is needed. Thus, a false alarm which provokes the fire suppression system could be costly and destructive, with sprinkler water causing extensive damage to structure, electronics and other personal effects. Therefore, current detector research is dedicated to ensuring that detectors are sensitive enough to trigger response and alarms where necessary but also sophisticated enough to be more reliably resistant against accidental triggering. Here, the article by Rose-Pehrsson provides detail on one of the paths being taken to achieving such innovation.

Accordingly, the article describes a type of early detection system in which the typical ability to detect smoke is supplemented by a sensitivity to such criteria as temperature and air quality as well. The research available speaks positively of the opportunities which are available along this path, indicating that "the use of multi-criteria-based detection technology continues to offer the most promising means to achieve both improved sensitivity to real fires and reduced susceptibility to nuisance alarm sources. A multi-signature early warning fire detection system is being developed to provide reliable warning of actual fire conditions in less time with fewer nuisance alarms than can be achieved with commercially available smoke detection systems." (Rose-Pehrsson, 325)

The research conducted on this subject also supports the claim that while there is a value to establishing legal standards requiring the use of smoke detectors in all homes, there is also some effectiveness in the cultural and informational sway inclining private residents to employ this method of detection. As sophisticated technology becomes available for business facilities, public buildings and newer residential apartment buildings, the battery-operated sound-alarm smoke detector remains a standard presence in many American homes. However, it was not until 1985 that the first county in the United States responded to the proven benefits of smoke detector by mandating their usage. Interestingly, the findings yielded would produce a mixed outlook with respect to the effectiveness of or need for such regulatory imposition. According to the research, "Montgomery County, Maryland was the first major jurisdiction to pass a law requiring smoke detectors in all homes. Smoke detector coverage in the county was evaluated five years after the law's implementation and compared to the coverage in neighboring Fairfax County, Virginia, which has no such law. Firefighters visited 651 randomly selected owner-occupied homes and tested each detector. While a similar percentage of homes in Montgomery and Fairfax counties complied with detector codes (42 per cent vs. 44 per cent, respectively), Montgomery County had a significantly lower percentage of homes with no working detectors (17 per cent vs. 30 per cent) and with no detectors at all (6 per cent vs. 16 per cent)." (McLoughlin et al., 858)

These reported findings would suggest that though most residential households already had smoke detectors even without the imposition of legal standards, those subjected to these legal standards were more likely to be aware of the current status of their smoke detector and to take pains to replace batteries, ensure functionality and ensure presence in the necessary strategic locations. Such research on smoke detectors indicates something of a cultural or social penetration, with a difference between the two examined counties standing as statistically significant but not substantial enough to qualify as a dominant social pattern. Indeed, the final observation of the research process indicates that "analyses of 12 years of fire data suggest that as a county approaches complete detector coverage, the risk of residential fire deaths decreases. An essentially unenforced law seems to be obeyed because it conforms to community values." (McLoughlin et al., 858)

One of the reasons that this research is compelling is that is points to an improved degree of effectiveness invoked by greater regulatory oversight concerning the installation of smoke detectors. Considering the correlation between socio-economic status and access to facilities with proper and modern fire safety or fire suppression methods, regulatory conditions requiring the fixture of smoke alarms to all residential facilities could have a beneficial impact. Indeed, Towner et al. (2009) make the point that "people living in deprived areas suffer a disproportionately high level of fires." (Towner et al., 1) the imposition of more pervasive requirements in this area would subject builders, neighborhood and property developers, landlords and realty companies to laws that might protect the less economically fortunate from this type of general and dangerous neglect.

Unfortunately, make of the greatest innovations in smoke detection technology are far from affordable for average builders and for homeowners or renters alike. Researchers throughout the industry describe a number of technological leaps that are can significantly improve the resident's ability to respond quickly and intelligently to a fire situation but are more accessible to larger facilities. An example is the continued application of smart-design detection systems to factories, university halls, hotels and luxury apartments. For instance, the Cerberus PRO-created by Siemens Building Technologies accords with the highest standards in fire safety and fatality prevention but largely applies these technological advances to the fire needs of bigger structures. Here, such devices have proven markedly effective in channeling the most frequently cited ambitions in terms of technological advance. Primarily, this technology meets the aims of the article by Rose-Perhsson et al., which indicates the requirement for detectors which simultaneously reduced the danger of false alarms while heightening the effectivesness fo the relationship between fire detection and fire suppression. According to the informational site describing the emergent technology, the Cerberus PRO "fire detectors also increase safety thanks to their distributed intelligence: important decisions are made on the spot in the detector." (SBC, 1) Particularly, the decision on how to activate various aspects of its fire-suppression approach is made by the detection devices, indicating a perceptiveness to conditions dictating the use of sprinklers, turbines for removing flammable gases from a room and communication with local firefighters and other emergency personnel. Such systems are also armed with various methods of physical detection with smoke detectors reflecting a more nuanced response to various environmental conditions indicating the presence of smoke, fire or a danger related to either.