Outstanding problems of fire safety in residential quarters

According to the statistics of national fire data, the incidence of residential fire and the number of fire deaths are the highest in all kinds of places. The weak links of residents' fire prevention and control are increasingly apparent, and the fire safety situation of residential quarters has become an important link in the regional fire protection system. The fire safety management measures in residential areas have not been fully implemented, and there are many problems such as blocked fire exits, high failure rate of fire facilities, and inaction of property management. Main problems existing in residential quarters

1. The occupation of fire exits generally increases with the number of cars owned by residents increasing year by year. There is a general contradiction between parking spaces and exits in residential areas, and the phenomenon of occupying fire lanes and fire climbing sites is increasing day by day. It can be seen from the changes in the regulations on fire lanes and rescue sites in the code that the actual operation process requires a lot of fire water and a lot of fire engines. If there is no dedicated fire lane and rescue site, it will not meet the needs of fire fighting and rescue. This requirement can be met in design and acceptance from the initial formulation of specifications. However, after the residential building was put into use for a period of time, faced with huge parking demand and weak safety management ability, many lanes, parking spaces and fire-fighting climbing surfaces were openly marked as parking lines and became daily parking spaces. Or in order to pursue the greening rate and beauty, the original fire lane was covered with greening without hard pavement. Fire lanes and rescue operation sites cannot bear the pressure of fire engines in their respective jurisdictions, or amusement facilities are set up to occupy the lanes and save the site. During the peak period of some residential areas, fire-fighting vehicles could not pass at all, which affected the rescue.

2. Fixed fire-fighting facilities in buildings with low intact rate play a vital role in fire early warning control and fire fighting and rescue after the arrival of the fire brigade. However, some residential quarters can't maintain fire-fighting facilities regularly, and there are some phenomena, such as failure of fire-fighting host, failure of alarm system, failure of smoke control facilities, leakage and undervoltage of pipe network, abnormal operation of water pump and so on. What's more, the original fire control room and other equipment rooms were demolished and used for other functions. The commercial and residential parts of some communities or the underground garage and the above-ground residential parts are different management units or users, and the responsible persons such as fire control facilities, pipe network, driveway, evacuation passage and safety exit have not been determined. When encountering problems, they passed the buck to each other. The fire-fighting facilities in these residential areas are in a state of paralysis. Once a fire breaks out, the fire alarm system can't quickly detect the location of the fire and give an alarm in time before the disaster happens. After the squadron in the jurisdiction arrives, it will be unable to carry out normal rescue, which will easily cause heavy property losses and casualties.

3. The ability and quality of property management personnel are not high. Property management personnel and fire control room personnel in some residential quarters have not received professional fire protection training, obtained the qualification certificate of building (structure) firefighters issued by Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, are not familiar with the operation of fire control facilities, and are not clear about the disposal process after the fire, which leads to the inability to properly handle the fire at the first time. Some property companies have not formulated fire safety systems such as daily inspection and patrol, maintenance of fixed facilities, drills and training, and the responsibility for fire safety stays on paper and hangs on the wall. Some real estate developers are out of touch with property. The property company is not clear about the fire-fighting facilities in the community, and will not use them or manage them. For some residents, problems such as preventing fire doors from closing normally, occupying fire lanes, shielding and damaging fire hydrants, illegally charging and parking electric bicycles, and blocking evacuation passages were not stopped in time, and publicity was not in place, leaving habitual illegal problems unchecked and doing nothing. Some property companies are afraid of difficulties, and the fire department has educated and trained them, informed them of their obligations and responsibilities, and even punished them several times and held several coordination meetings, but it is difficult to shirk management, communicate with the owners and be unwilling to perform their duties. The final situation is that the fire department will be punished every time it checks, but the level of fire safety management has not improved, and fire hazards still exist.

4. There are difficulties in the use and management of maintenance funds in residential quarters. Due to the long construction time or poor maintenance of residential quarters, fire-fighting facilities may be paralyzed, and the amount of funds needed for maintenance is too large for property companies to bear. Generally, they apply for the use of maintenance funds. The Measures for the Administration of Residential Special Maintenance Funds stipulates that the application conditions for housing maintenance funds shall be subject to the renovation plan of the owners' committee, and shall be signed and agreed by the owners who account for more than two-thirds of the total construction area and the total number of people within the scope of benefit. There is no denying that there is a set of strict and complete procedures for the application and use of housing maintenance funds. However, due to the heavy work of collecting signatures, it is difficult to coordinate the opinions of the owners and meet the requirement of "two-thirds", which leads to the difficulty in applying for and using the maintenance funds of fire facilities at present. Even if the public security fire department issues a written rectification notice, or even imposes administrative penalties on the property management unit, the fire control facilities and equipment still cannot be updated, maintained and transformed.

Source: Firefighting Today (2020 1 1)