The Fire Service cannot be the first line of defence

Towards the back end of October 2009, I wrote an article titled “Foreign Affairs Fire – a ‘political committee will not provide answers at this stage”. In that article, I criticised the composition of the investigative committee, the short time within which they were asked to report and the investigative steps adopted. I observed then that if proper investigative steps were not taken, no lessons would be learnt and that future occurrences would not be prevented. It is sad to note that my concerns have been borne out with the fire at the residence of the Rawlingses and the latest averted one at the Ministry of Information.

The committee which investigated the Foreign Affairs Fire has reported yet apart from the public declaration that the cause was not due to arson, no other lessons have been shared with the public on how to safely use buildings as far as the risk of fire is concerned. A whole host of commentators on this issue appear to put the assurance of fire safety solely in the hands of the Fire Service. There have been articles in various media, some even calling the Fire Service a ‘coal pot’ service and some deservedly criticising past and present governments for not appropriately equipping the service to discharge its duties.

The criticism of the fire service may or may not be justified but we are ignoring one fact. Fire fighting is a very hazardous occupation and we should not be calling on them certainly not at the rate that fires are currently breaking out in Ghana. The fire incidents reflect more our behaviour rather than the inefficiencies of the Ghana National Fire Service. The service has a role to play alright but if we have to rely on them as the first line of defence then we are all failing on a massive scale.

Ensuring fire safety requires a hierarchy of measures which can be referred to by the acronym: E-R-I-C, which in descending order of effectiveness, stands for:

• ELIMINATE or avoid the fire hazard in the first place;

• REDUCE the risk of fire incidence;

• ISOLATE inventory or items that are highly flammable or highly combustible; and

• Control the growth, spread and duration as well as the effects of the fire.

Fire fighters are only involved in the last set of measures of controlling the growth and effects of the fire when all other preceding measures have failed. I will proceed to explain what is involved in this hierarchy of measures.

1. Elimination or avoidance of the fire hazard

To start a fire requires an ignition source and fuel to sustain the fire. The fuel in this case is anything flammable or combustible stored or kept in a room or in a building including furniture, curtains, clothing, beddings, paper, and in some cases flammable liquid. The more combustible these are and the more of them you have in a room, the more severe the resulting fire. It therefore stands to reason that the safest measure to adopt to prevent fire is to separate the ignition source from the inventory. If there are items stored in a room where there is no ignition source, there is no risk of fire. In the same vein, an ignition source in an empty room poses no great fire risk.

Since this measure is at the top of the hierarchy of measures, it is always difficult to achieve globally but it can be done on a room by room basis. The question to ponder is: if there is a room which is used infrequently, why plug in electrical equipment in that room for say for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year?

2. Reduction in fire risk

Since it is difficult to separate ignition sources from fuels (i.e. the inventory), the next set of measures is to reduce the risk posed by both the ignition source and the items stored in a room (and for that matter in a building).

Some of the measures to be taken to reduce the risk posed by ignition sources (say electricity) include:

• the need to ensure that plugs, sockets and other electrical interfaces are of the required quality and are in good state of repair;

• ensuring that electrical installations are carried out by qualified persons;

• ensuring that sockets are not overloaded with several items plugged in at the same point through extension leads;

• switching off and unplugging electrical items that are not in use, especially when one is going to be away from the room or building for an extended period;

Some of the measures to be taken to reduce the risk posed by room/building contents include:

• ensuring that furniture upholstery, mattresses and surfaces are made of less combustible material;

• storing highly flammable liquids and highly combustible items in their own dedicated outbuildings that do not form an integral part of main buildings;

• limiting the amount of inventory/items kept or stored in one room to limit the fire load;

• getting rid of all junk material that may no longer be needed; and

• Inside each room, keeping the inventory as far away as practicable from the ignition sources (i.e. electrical plugs).

3. Isolation of highly flammable/combustible inventory from main building

There are some inventories which are naturally highly flammable for instance petroleum products. These cannot and should not be kept with other less flammable items. In fact to stay safe, they should not be kept within occupied buildings without special measures. They should ideally be kept in dedicated outhouses with the walls and roofs engineered to prevent the spread of fire from such outhouses.

In the latest averted fire at the Ministry of information, I was surprised to see on GTV news that the store did contain engine oil, lorry tyres, stationery and bales of clothes. In fact this was a recipe for a fire incident. It is thus all the more disappointing that the outgoing minister was rather accusing ‘unseen hands’. The fire was rather caused by ‘seen and known’ hands that decided to store such flammable mixture near an ignition source. Instead of calling in national security, she should rather be calling in the Fire Service to carry out an audit.

4. Control of growth and effects of fire

This set of measures is at the bottom of the hierarchy and involves, among others, some of the following:

• Installation of smoke alarms to warn of and detect fire in a timely manner.

The Press reported that the fire at the Rawlingses was only discovered when one of their daughters woke up to answer the call of nature. This account, if true, suggests that there were no smoke alarms installed at the residence, which would be surprising thing. People are wondering why the residence was totally gutted despite the claim by the fire service that they arrived within four minutes of being summoned. The key is the stage of growth of the fire when it was discovered. If it has reached close to the flashover stage (i.e. when the entire inventory in the originating room is on fire), it would be difficult to control it.

• Suppressing the growth of the fire by installing sprinklers to douse the fire;

• Limiting the spread of smoke by sealing all openings through room boundaries and limiting the spread of the fire by using fireproofed room boundaries (i.e. floors, roofs, walls);

• Providing escape routes with fireproofed boundaries to help occupants escape and to permit access by fire fighters; and of course

• Fire fighting, which involves the use of fire extinguishers if the fire is small and safe to put out; and the fire brigade otherwise.

What I have shown above is that if we are to stay safe from fire defence in depth is required. We would be shirking our responsibility if we heap all the blame on the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), even though I accept that they have to be provided with adequate equipment and training.

In the light of the current spate of fire outbreaks, I am calling on government to task the Fire Service to carry out fire audits on all state facilities. Private companies should also do so. The audit should not be limited to only inspecting that there are fire extinguishers on these buildings but it should be comprehensive to address all the issues raised above. The findings should result in guidelines for building owners, managers and occupants.

Finally the government should carry out public education on a grand scale with adverts on radio/TV and bill boards as well as leafleting. This is where the Information Ministry comes in and not the misguided notion that the ministry is there to defend a particular party in government.

I hope we all learn to use E-R-I-C and stay safe.

Dr Frank Yaw Ohemeng

(Manchester, UK)