Research Paper on Fire Safety Management in Construction

Introduction

Building construction gets construed as the industry and techniques which entails the assembling of structures with the goal of developing a shelter. It is also an ancient activity which had its origin from the functional need for a controlled environment and the requirement of moderating the effects of climate. The paper, therefore, gets premised on a research discussion about building construction with the inclusion of the various types of buildings, design structures, the application of the building fire codes, the hazards associated with building types and the effects of each type. Further discussion covers the aspect of building collapse and the awareness which the firefighters should maintain on the fire ground.

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There are various types of buildings which are mostly chosen by people based on the design, engineering, construction, and the available management. The argument can, therefore, be based on the residential buildings which may be described by the fire resistive building structure, the noncombustible construction, the wood roof, the ordinary and the heavy timber building. My focus in the paper will delve into the residential types of the buildings which are often chosen by people due to the designs. One of the building types is the single-family home building which offers privacy and space than other types of homes (Wang et al., 2015). It is designed to have both the front and back yards and vast enough for one family. The design may also be made to have a garage. However, the building usually requires much maintenance. It calls for maintenance in plumbing, roofing and the associated building amenities (Ching, 2014). Another building type is also referred to as the Condominium; they exist as single units established in the larger building community. The design is made in such a way to share a wall with other units and in most cases come with the homeowner's associations. It is also designed to provide space for pools, gyms and other amenities. The third building type is the townhouse which exists as a hybrid between a condo and single-family residence; the design is made to have multiple floors where one or two walls are shared. Some also have small yard spaces and the rooftop deck.

In most cases, they are larger than the condo but smaller when compared with a single-family home. The design also does not allow for other shared amenities like the gym and the pool. The other type of building is the multi-family home building type. The type is designed to have a row house style and multiple floors. They also range in size from duplex to a fourplex. In the event, the building design houses more than four units, the name changes to commercial. The building design can also be made to have a separate entrance for every unit while in some events, the door may be shared. One of the distinctions between multi-family home building type and that of the condos is that its unit cannot be purchased individually, one person must be ready to assume the management of the entire building (Davila, Reinhart & Bemis, 2016). The kind of building is ideal for those who would wish to establish investments due to the comfort that comes along and the vast environment provided for the individual owner or family. Even though these building types are noted to exist, they must all be fitted with fire codes for safety to be guaranteed.

Fire codes get construed as the established rules which outlines the minimum requirements in providing prevention against fire and explosions particularly those that may arise from storage, handling, or the use of dangerous materials from other specific hazardous conditions. In most cases, the fire codes compliment those of the building codes. The fire codes are provided based on the building design hence may vary from one building type to another. It is worthwhile to note that the building types provided are residential and must be erected based on the guidelines given by the organs in charge of fire and building codes (Nazir et al., 2015). The person building or designing the building must consider fire safety with the aim of balancing an intricate of measures. This is done to ensure minimal fire risks and safety of the occupants.

Considering that the types of buildings mentioned are residential, their fire codes will be similar. The first concern of the fire codes is on the minimization of the fire risks as provided by the National Fire Protection Association. The codes must, therefore, provide guidelines which aim at detecting and preventing fire. Therefore, the buildings must be designed in a way they can detect and alert the occupants in case of any sign of fire outrage. The buildings must also be designed to provide for enough space to the occupants. It must have the emergency doors which can easily be opened in case of a fire alarm. It must also exist in a manner that the spread of the fire can easily be controlled. This can be achieved if the buildings are fitted with the fire extinguishers which can help in immediate putting out of the fire. These safety measures are usually given to the building designer to ensure that there are no errors and the building is built or erected in line with the provided building and fire codes guidelines. The National Fire Protection Association also provides for the fire codes which prevent chances of fire ignition. It takes into account the challenge of lack of surety about the full fire prevention and advice on the construction and designs which complies with the provided building codes. This is because all the building codes must be reviewed and ensured that they comply with the fire codes. The codes must also be those that can manage the impact of fire. The guideline comes as the second line of defense in the event the ignition procedure was not followed or if followed failed in putting out the fire.

The fire codes, therefore, requires the fire extinguishers first to manage the people within the scene and ensure they are not exposed to any danger or the associated risks. Building types are also needed to have the fire alarms which detect fire in every unit that may have caught fire to direct those seeking areas of escape. The windows and the doors must also be large enough to allow a quick exit for those who are trapped inside the building. The building design must also have stairs which can allow easy escape and evacuation. In most cases, the provided residential building types usually have the fire resistant walls and flows which are built to contain the fire to only a specific environment or dwelling without spreading to other areas. They also limit the flammability of the ceiling, and the floor furnishes with the aim of reducing any potential chance of fire growth within the units provided in the building. Lastly, the buildings also have the sprinkler systems which are installed with the primary aim of ensuring control in case of fire or assisting in extinguishing the fire. The mentioned are part of the fire codes which are usually developed in conjunction with the building codes. They ensure that the building is safe from fire and also to allow for easy fire control and extinguishing in the event of a failure in prevention.

In consideration of the argued, it is worthwhile to note that the building constructed has particular effects on the firefighting operation. In case the building is built with close adherence to the fire and building codes, then the firefighters will always have an easy way of navigating the building in case of a fire outbreak. In this section, we will look at the building construction with specific concern to the International Codes of Councils and the National Fire Protection Association. The kind of construction includes Fire Resistive, Ordinary, Noncombustible, Heavy Timber, and the Wood Frame. Each of these building types is made in such a way that the firefighters can have an easy time in case of an alarm. For example, the fire resistive building type is made to accommodate several features which will allow the firefighters to have an easy time in putting out the fire. The floors, walls, columns and the roofs of the building are constructed with the noncombustible materials and reinforced with concrete. They are equally protected by the automatic sprinklers or the blown-on-installations which can easily put out or control fire. The noncombustible building type is equally erected with the use of the same materials as the fire resistive, its only difference is noted on the lack of fire-resistance protector on the structural steel component.

On the part of the ordinary construction, the design may or may not adhere to various fire protection measures but must be in line with the basic fire and building codes. In most scenarios, the firefighters find it difficult putting out the fire in this kind of construction since its materials are highly combustible. The heavy timber has fire cuts which enable the firefighters to have ease in putting out the fire even if the kind of construction is not very effective in case of a fire outbreak (Poustourli, Ward & Zachariadis, 2015). The situation is similar to the wood type kind of construction. The discussed type of constructions also plays a role in describing the specific residential buildings. You may find a situation where a residential building, for example, the single-family-home is constructed with the fire resistive materials. Therefore, they are an extension and a further description of the already imaged types of building constructions from the residential point of view.

Conclusion

Lastly, based on the last chapter of the unit which dealt with collapse, it is notable that building collapse can exist due to the failure of considering both the building and the fire codes which interferes with structural integrity (Zhou, Lin & Abdel, 2016). It may also be brought about by the failure in various aspects of building engineering and designs which causes the building not to stand for the required frame of time. In most cases, most buildings collapse due to fire outbreaks and the firefighters have a role to play to ensure that buildings are guarded against collapsing. The firefighters must ensure that they conduct situational awareness on the incident of a scene from the incident commander to the seasoned veteran to mitigate other associated hazards.

References

Ching, F. D. (2014). Building construction illustrated. John Wiley & Sons.

Davila, C. C., Reinhart, C. F., & Bemis, J. L. (2016). Modeling Boston: A workflow for the efficient generation and maintenance of urban building energy models from existing geospatial datasets. Energy, 117, 237-250.

Nazir, S., Sorensen, L. J., Overgard, K. I., & Manca, D. (2015). Impact of training methods on Distributed Situation Awareness of industrial operators. Safety science, 73, 136-145.

Poustourli, A., Ward, D., & Zachariadis, A. (2015). European Policies and Programs for the Security of Building Constructions. Proceedings of the Construction in the 21st Century-Changing the Field Changing the Field: Recent Developments for the Future of Engineering and Construction (Thessaloniki, Greece), CITC-8, ISBN, 978-0.

Wang, S. H., Wang, W. C., Wang, K. C., & Shih, S. Y. (2015). Applying building information modeling to support fire safety management. Automation in Construction, 59, 158-167.

Zhou, W., Lin, S., & Abdel-Ghaffar, K. (2016, January). Fire codes capable of correcting bursts beyond their guaranteed burst-correcting capabilities. In Information Theory and Applications Workshop (ITA), 2016 (pp. 1-5). IEEE.