Wednesday, September 24, 2008

COMMON FIRE PROTECTION SYSTEMS

When you go out malling, shopping, or checking-in hotels, wherever you go you'll find a cylindrical red object hanging on the wall, or sometimes you'll see white or red hose near exit doors. Those are fire extinguisher and fire hose installed for fire fighting use. But we are not limited to portable systems. When you look at the ceiling you will find a small object like inverted umbrella with small piece of colored, sometimes red, object.

If you still remember the movie Hollow man there is a scene where somebody shoot an object to let the water come out to see the figure of hollow man. That object is what we call sprinkler. On other luxurious hotels or buildings, these sprinklers are hidden or concealed.

There are many fire protection systems that are installed today to protect people and properties.
As we go along with this blog we will discuss each systems in detail to the best I can. As of now, the following fire protection systems are, what I know, commonly used.

Residential Areas:
A. Sprinkler Systems - in US they have a regulation to provide sprinkler system for residential houses. Of course it depends on how big your house is or how many person and hazard are present.




(upload.wikimedia.org)





(www.reevesplumbing.com)


B. Fire Hydrants - these are located along the roads and should not be blocked such as by parking your car.









www.sccfd.org/hydrants_bluedots.html)





C. Portable Fire Extinguishers - it is recommendable to provide fire extinguishers in our home near our kitchen, bedrooms and living room. And every member of the family should experience and should be trained to operate portable fire extinguishers. Later on I will discuss my recommended fire safety program for our home.

(www.adelaidebackpackersinn.net.au)






(www.utsystem.edu)



D. others - to be added later



Buildings:
A. Sprinkler systems
B. Fire hydrants - located outside the building
C. Portable Fire Extinguishers
D. Dry Chemical Automatic fire extinguishing system -for the building's kitchen rooms
E. Clean Agent Systems - for computer rooms
F. CO2 Fire Extinguishing system - applicable for computer rooms
G. many more- to be added later

Industrial Plants:
A. Industrial plants include small buildings such as control building, electrical building, instrument building, and administration building. May be some large industrial plants will have sleeping quarters and separate building for canteen and laboratory. Therefore, the fire protection system will always depend on the hazard inside the building.

B. Outdoor Hydrants are provided and sometimes with fire hose cabinets that store different portable devices; fire hoses, hose nozzle, etc.

C. Foam Systems are provided if the plant is processing hydrocarbons such as diesel oils, gasoline, etc.

D. Fire Trucks - since most of the industrial plants are located far from municipal fire department the plant should have its own fire trucks and emergency vehicles. But sometimes small industrial plants are located on what government call "Industrial Areas" in which there is a fire department intended for Industrial Areas.

E. Other systems - as of now, I cannot think of systems that I missed. Later, I will add if I find something is missing and worth mentioning.

1 comment:

firepronevada said...

Without a good fire protection system available to provide you with security mechanisms and other safeguards, your building could be left in a very vulnerable position if a fire were to break out unexpectedly.

Fire Protection