|
Negotiating a Toxic Escape Route Smoke Evaders Can Buy Time
November, 2007
By Nyla Matuk
What do duct tape, a wet towel, foil wrap, a whistle, a flashlight, bright-coloured cloth, an ink marker, a cotton bed sheet, a washcloth and a plastic pail with a lid have in common? Beyond the typical ingredients for a Red Green Show misadventure, they are part of a list of items that many fire prevention officials suggest occupants have ready at hand as a survival kit in the event of a fire in a high-rise building.
These items might be needed if the occupant is unable to leave an office or residential unit because the fire has reached an advanced stage, and/or he or she is working in a confined space. That ink marker, by the way, would be used to write messages on cloth, on a door or a window.
Despite improved fire safety measures in the design of buildings, building owners, managers and occupants should be aware of measures that can buy time until firefighters can come to the rescue. A supplied airpack or smoke evader that can be deployed in the event of exposure to toxic smoke - the leading cause of injury and fatality from fires - is one available option.
DESIGNED FOR SAFTEY
Concrete's non-combustibility provides high-rise dwellers with a considerable amount of time to escape a burning building. For the areas of a building that are to be used as escape routes, architects typically specify materials based on researched knowledge that they will generate less smoke and are less likely to promote flame spread. Typically, the materials meet a two-hour fire resistance rating imposed by the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada and other research bodies.
Some condominiums have two-way communications between the lobby and each condo unit. Using the system, the building superintendent, firefighters or concierge can advise residents about whether to stay in their units or to evacuate. However, there is no clear policy from the Ontario Fire Marshal on whether to remain in a unit or to evacuate, assuming the fire is not actually occurring in the unit.
DILIGENCE
Supplying occupants with a personal smoke evader may prevent a due diligence lawsuit if a building owner or employer has not prepared a foolproof rescue plan or appointed an appropriately trained workplace rescue team. "The stats that fire marshals base their judgment call upon are predicated upon the assumption that a building occupant's egress is without any kind of breathing apparatus. If an occupant had a smoke evader in hand, he would be at a far lesser risk of smoke asphyxiation," says Bill Gemmell, a manufacturer of smoke evader equipment.
The Canada Labour Code and several provincial codes require employers to establish emergency procedures to be followed in the event of an accident, fire or other emergencies, or if workers are in confined spaces. Employers must provide rescue equipment available for immediate use and preferably stage a needs assessment for potential emergencies.
The omission of such an assessment from an organization's safety program can result in severe liability. Web-enabled tools for developing fire safety plans (see Canadian Property Management September 2007, "Fire Safety Plans Made Simple") are also instrumental in reducing the risk of injury, property damage and building owner/manager liability.
"Ask any firefighter if they'd go anywhere near a fire without bottled air," Gemmell says. "Every second counts, yet they will take that time to don their Scott airpacks, without which they'd be suicidal."
PROTECTING EVACUEES
Even an extra minute of supplied breathable air can make the difference between safe escape and respiratory injury or death from noxious smoke and gas inhalation. Any extra time that is added to a user's escape during the deployment of the airpack itself should be nullified by the survival advantage of having a breathable gas available in the face of carbon monoxide or other dangerous, lung damaging fumes. "It's a kind of seatbelt measure for fires," Gemmell maintains.
In the case of nursing homes, where a firefighter may need to extricate bedridden individuals in frail health, applying an airpack during the process may mean the difference between severe lung damage or death and escaping relatively unharmed. Some airpacks are also equipped to deploy a laminar. This is a smooth plane flow of air, which exhausts through the mask vents and also from the mask/face interface, insulating a user's eyes from smoke.
Nyla Matuk is a writer based in Toronto. For more information about the Lucidair Airpack, see the web site at www.lucidair.ca.
|