Fires

Every day we are seeing some news on accidents here and there. Many of these seem to be avoidable with their own common sense, while others could have been avoided with supervision and monitoring.

We do not pay attention to the work we are doing. An oversight even momentarily leads to the initiation of events ultimately resulting in accidents with or without injury. 

Some incidents are like, the person wants to complete the allotted work quickly so that either he can do more and get financial benefit, or leave the workplace either for rest or go away for some personal work. These things do happen when time discipline is not followed. Greediness is another reason. In these cases, supervision to ensure SOP compliance as well as to ensure shopfloor attendance for the allotted shift schedule is essential. We should not encourage to do work by circumventing the safe work procedure or standard operating procedure to get more output. These will result in accidents for sure. This can be compared to overspeed driving. 

Similarly, as summer is approaching, already many fire incidents are reported in the media. Many are attributed to short circuits. But, why the factories/buildings should have faulty wiring. Is not the responsibility of the owner who is running the operations, to check and ensure that his property is safe and no interruption takes place because of such incidents. Huge property losses are reported from the fire incidents with the well-known / widely reported reason of short circuit. 

Insurance firms should ensure the compulsory submission of annual audits from recognized agencies by the firms for the renewal of insurance. Any addition of electricity load also shall not be done without certification from the auditing agency. This is required to ensure that the wiring, distribution boards, protection systems and supply systems are suitable to take the proposed loads. 

Local bodies also shall not give additional electricity loads unless such certifications are submitted and are verified by the agency.

A fire incident will not only damage the particular firm due to its fault but also endangers nearby buildings and their occupants. This also puts the lives of firefighters at risk during their work for fire extinguishing.  Thus, local governments and agencies have every right to get audits before permitting additional loads or works.

Easy to blame others for fires in our premises - what about our preparedness?

Today I read in a news paper that fire services reached late to the site of fire by which some property damage already took place. Such reasons we hear or read regularly without thinking what is that we have done to protect our property or persons before expecting others' help.

Did we keep our premises free from hazards?
Whether the house keeping in our site is well maintained?
Whether the shop floors are free from obstructions?
Whether the approach roads are free from mindless parking vehicles?
Whether we adhered minimum requirements of maintaining water storage, fire detection and control system?
Whether the persons in the building / plant are trained in basic fire fighting?
Do we have regular surveillance checks to see that the premises are safe for residing or working?

Instead of keeping our house right i.e free from hazards, we blame late arrival of fire department. For them to reach the place of incident, they have to come through congested roads. We construct our buildings without proper place for vehicle parking and we think public roads are our parking areas. Some of those who have parking space for residents do not allow visitors to park inside the premises. Big notice board will be displayed reading "NO PARKING FOR OUTSIDERS/VISITORS". Then why do allow visitors at all? All such premises and those parking vehicles on public roads should be penalized heavily. This will also be a good source of income for the local authorities. To avoid corruption / bribes, local authorities can share a percentage of such income generated with the employees making efforts to identify such lapses and collecting the amounts.

For most of the fires, short circuit is a stated reason making them electrical fires. But, why such short circuit takes place. The reason is overload, absence of surge protectors, use of poor quality wiring or not replacing the old wiring. It is stated that even in residential buildings, electrical wiring needs replacement after 15 years. Atleast, we should get the electrical systems checked regularly not for anybody else, but for our own safety.

Municipal authorities / factories department should make it compulsory for periodical checking by specifying the period also say once in five years every time after first 15 years of life. Like building inspectors authorized for checking, they should authorize experienced and qualified persons/institutions for such checks without which permissions should be withdrawn and power/water supply / sanitation services.

These data should be digitized so that defaulters can be easily found on the next day of due date and action can be taken.
Data entry of checks should be done by authorized inspectors and for any incidents, such inspectors/agencies should be made responsible.

Infrared thermography - use it to know about impending electrical fire in your place

Yesterday (14.12.2012) there was an article in The Hindu, about infrared thermography and its use to detect  heating of electrical systems at the point of electrical cable input joints due to over load, loose contacts, improper wiring, etc. The heat emitted is read by the portable device and temperature is displayed to decide about whether it is within or above the limits. I also heard earlier from my colleagues that wall mounted thermography devices are also available to monitor continuously about critical electrical systems.
As most of the fire mishaps are attributed to electrical short circuit (more than 40%) that led to loss of lives, property damage, use of infrared thermography for electrical safety inspections in residential buildings, shops, public places, etc will help in saving us from the perils of fire.
For a long time, I had this question in mind about knowing the health of electrical wiring in my apartment. Fires in apartments, multi storey buildings endanger human lives of all and one should check about electrical safety aspects in the building.
From my electrician, I found that generally, the wiring lasts for 15-20 years, though industrial wiring lasts for more than 30 years as per information from colleagues in power supply department. However, these are theoretical and based on experience limited to specific conditions.
As the author in his article mentioned, over loading is a reason for electrical fires. Wiring gets deteriorated quickly  under excess loads and the general information about life of electrical cable can't be applied universally. And, it is human tendency to add electrical loads with or without knowledge about electrical safety. At least at home front, it is the lack of knowledge on electrical safety that keeps people to add electrically operated kitchenware, electronics, etc. Tripping of MCBs will not lead to thinking by the residents for reasons, and instead, they just put it back and resume with the work.
And, in factories, it is the greed to prolong till it breaks without understanding or may be underestimating the costs to be incurred in case of fire. It is good that insurance companies are giving a thought to electrical safety audits. In many of my posts in this blog and in my comments in newspaper websites, I stressed upon the role of government agencies, regulators and insurance companies for enforcing electrical safety audit without which heavy premiums, penalties and punishments should be the order of the day. Only then, everybody will become aware of electrical safety and other issues and save themselves from fire mishaps and its consequences.
As mentioned in the article, there is company called CSR Impex Private Limited (C.Vidyasagar Reddy, Ph: 040-65212780, 9440066907)  which is involved in use of this technology for the past ten years to inspect electrical panels of various establishments, especially software companies. (I did not check with the company but as I believe in electrical safety audits to know the healthiness of electrical systems, I thought that I can reproduce this information appeared in the newspaper for use by all).

Summer Fires

This year, it appears summer started in January itself. As the weeks progress, already less crowds are seen on the roads in the afternoon.

Wild vegetation on the roadside, around industrial plants, chemical storages, along the railway tracks, etc is a cause of concern as it becomes dry. In the beginning of this month, there was a news item that a rail compartment parked in a scrap yard caught fire and was totally burnt. The fire was attributed to the waste material stored around the area.

The source of fire can be anything, starting from cigarette butt. Even oil soaked cotton rags, when left as such, or wet grass under sun can be subjected to bacterial action and this results in slow heating of the matter and gradually with increase in day time temperature, it can catch fire.

Few (9-10) years back, there were a series of reports about fires in ammunition depots during summer. The reason attributed at that time was that many of the material are covered under tarpaulin cloth and the heat trapped inside caused increase in temperature and finally lead to fire.

Legislations also say to keep all plant / storage surroundings to be free from combustibles so that even if fire starts, it will not affect plant / storage areas. It is better, if atleast 6 m around these areas is maintained free of wild vegetation, trees, etc by paving the areas so that recurring work of grass cutting, etc can be avoided and no one needs to be reminded for these jobs.

Similarly, if HT wires are going above, the area below should be free from wild vegetation, as any spark can start fire below and this happened at many places. It is a common sight to see growth of creepers around HT towers. These also can catch fire during summer as they become dry.

Public also behave irresponsibly by dumping all the waste around the HT towers, transformers, street light poles. Even if municipal waste bins are available, people throw the matter near the bin, instead of dumping into the bin.

Thought there is talk of 'Behaviour Based Safety Processes (BBSP)', I am unable to think of what we can do to educate the persons, as everybody says that they know the hazard, when we explain them, but keep repeating it. We can compare this attitude with wearing of helmet. The reaction of the persons is, 'Yes, we know that we can break our head without helmet, but, oh, that nasty thing, it irritates'.

What type of movement is required to drive the persons to follow safe practices, without loosing our patience. If anybody sees this article, may kindly suggest.