Electrical Fire
Filed under: Current Affairs, Fire Safety on Monday, December 14th, 2009 by amfine | No Comments
One of the common fire hazards is overloaded electrical system. Among crowded residential areas with houses made of light materials where illegal tapping of electricity is quite common such as use of jumpers, fire is inevitable. The local authorities of the City of Manila is looking into such as possible cause of the big fire that displaced at least 10,000 people and caused three lives, two children and a volunteer firefighter.
The Lame Horse club in the Russian city of Perm caught a blaze last Saturday night due to indoor fireworks display. There are now at least 112 reported deaths with 130 others injured. President Medvedev declared a national day of mourning today, Monday, and demanded lawmakers to impose stricter regulations on fire safety compliance since the said nightclub only had a single entrance/exit door where guests panicked escape causing stampede.
Cebu City has had a single fire incident daily for this past week on the average. The latest of which broke out at a lumberyard in Barangay Bulacao wherein one of the fire trucks was found to have a defective water pump. Previous reports also revealed such poor firefighting conditions in the two biggest villages, namely Barangays Lahug and Labangon. 8 out of 11 fire trucks of the Cebu City Fire Department needed repairs. Replacing broken fire trucks would be a better option and so the City Mayor decided to join an auction of refurbished fire trucks soon.
At least 177 families were left homeless as a huge fire struck a sitio and its two nearby barangays early Wednesday morning which started from the second floor of a certain boarding house in Lapasan, Cagayan de Oro City. Estimated cost of damage was about 10 million pesos with no reported deaths. Last November 2, 17 people died when a boarding house also caught fire due to unattended candle in Bacolod City.
Two provinces in the Visayas islands were struck by fire during the so-called Undas. Aklan fire last November 1 left at least 2,000 people homeless as it razed not less than 400 homes made of light materials. It was said to be the biggest fire in the province since 1995 wherein the said victims were the same people who were affected by typhoon Frank last year.
Ideally, there should be at least one fireman for every 2000 population based on Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) planning standards. But according to a study made by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB), there was a need to increase the number of firemen by about four times to extinguish an average of 26 fires per day from 2001-2005. There was even a decrease of firemen from 9,541 in 2001 to just 9,246 in 2005 despite the increased incidence of fires.
The color red has a wide array of symbolisms. Red is associated with heat, energy and blood in human color psychology. It is commonly used as a symbol for sin, guilt, passion and anger. The association with love and beauty is probably due to the use of red roses. Red is also used as a symbol of courage and sacrifice as observed in flags of many nations. And in China, it is a symbol of fire.
1. Install and Maintain Fire Extinguishers
Fires involving factories fall under the category of industrial fires. It is timely to discuss such type of fire because two separate blasts occurred merely two weeks apart just recently. The first of which took place just before the month of January ended in the province of Cavite. A firecracker factory called Starmaker killed six people initially, then the death toll rose to 11 according to some reports. The cause of the said tragedy came from a spark while factory workers were doing their inventory that even reached up to five-kilometer radius. Thus, injuring several other casualties. Another fire happened two days before Valentines day when a factory of plastic furniture broke in Valenzuela City. The said five-hour blaze of still unknown origin injured two people with no reported deaths at all.