Search results

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop prototype of the web-based home fire early warning system using Wiznet W5500 Ethernet module. This system protocol helps users in sending information of fire through the internet with the internet of things (IoT) method using Wiznet Ethernet module as communication media to the user.

Design/Methodology/Approach – This paper presents the design of web-based home fire early warning system using Wiznet W5500 Ethernet module. The system prototype is built using flame sensors, MQ-02 smoke sensors, and LM35 temperature sensors as input components. While on the processor side using Arduino Uno microcontroller as sensor data processing. Processed data is sent to the Ethernet module as a web server resulting in a web-based early warning information system with an alarm notification on the browser along with home location status information and sensor data.

Findings – This research produces a prototype of the web-based home fire early warning system using Wiznet W5500 Ethernet module that has been able to provide notification to the security officer housing.

Research Limitations/Implications – In the implementation of measurement, the information system only accesses one house detector or one fire location.

Practical Implications – This research produces a prototype of the web-based home fire early warning system using Wiznet W5500 Ethernet module that has been able to distribute data of temperature, smoke, and fire.

Originality/Value – The development of fire monitoring systems using flame sensors, smoke sensors and integrated temperature sensors in internet-based communication systems of things via the Internet W5500 does not appear to have been published yet.

Public agencies entrusted with fire management in the western U.S. are faced with a decision each time a fire starts: should it be suppressed, or should it be left to burn? In some cases, fires that have not been rapidly staffed and suppressed have later proved very expensive and dangerous to suppress; and in other cases, fires that would never have caused large impacts are suppressed, missing an opportunity to reduce fuel loading and to cycle nutrients. In this chapter, the command structure through which these decisions are made is reviewed in basic terms, and a description is provided of how a fire goes from initial detection to being staffed by firefighters involved in fire suppression. Initial attack resources are discussed with an emphasis on the aerially delivered firefighters who often are responsible for suppressing remote fires. Finally, opportunities to improve the process of making fire suppression decisions are explored, and potential decision-support systems integrating firefighter knowledge with emerging technologies are discussed.

In this chapter, Jared Thomas, a Nukunu person from the Southern Flinders Ranges and a Research Fellow at the South Australian Museum and University of South Australia, reflects on his efforts to enhance the Fire Exhibit within the Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery [AACG], which has not been updated in 20 years. Thomas draws from an international precedent of involving Indigenous communities in museum displays.

The author outlines the limitations of renovations in terms of budget, space, and Indigenous protocols, while considering the potential impact of the proposed Tarrkarri Centre for First Nations Culture. He emphasises the importance of fostering relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples, allowing Indigenous voices to speak for themselves.

Thomas focusses on the Fire Exhibit, discussing its significance in Aboriginal culture, the lack of contextualisation, and the need for improved representation. He proposes short-term actions such as adding QR-code-based text for context, and long-term ambitions like incorporating audio-visual and augmented reality elements. He highlights the importance of Aboriginal fire land management practices, especially in the aftermath of the 2019 Australian bushfires.

Thomas proposes strengthening the exhibit’s connection to foods, medicines, and fixatives that benefit from cultural burning. He envisions collaboration with the Adelaide Botanic Gardens and acknowledges the resource constraints faced by the museum. He concludes by envisioning a template for extending improvements across the museum and fostering better understanding and representation of Aboriginal culture.

This study aims at investigating the effect of bolt hole-making processes on the post-fire behavior of S235 steel plates.

A total of nine steel plates with a single bolt hole are tested. The single bolt holes are fabricated using three different hole-making processes: drilling, waterjet and plasma. Among the nine steel plates, three fabricated specimens are control specimens and are tested at ambient temperature. The six remaining steel plates with a single bolt hole are subjected to a complete heating-cooling cycle and then monotonically loaded until failure. The six fabricated specimens are first heated up to two different temperatures 800 and 925 °C, and then cooled back to the ambient prior to loading.

The results show that after being exposed to post-fire temperatures (800 and 925 °C), the maximum decrease in strength of the S235 steel plate was 6% (at 925 °C), 14% (at 925 °C) and 22% (at 800 °C) when compared to the results of ambient specimens for waterjet, drilled and plasma bolt holes, respectively. For post-fire temperature tests, drilled and waterjet bolt hole-making processes result in having approximately the same load-displacement response, and both have larger strength and ductility than those obtained using plasma cutting.

This study provides preliminary data to guide the steel designers and fabricators in choosing the most suitable hole-making process for fire applications and to quantify the post-fire reduction in capacity of S235 plates.

Research indicates that children’s early experience of fire can influence what and how they learn about fire. In turn, early fire-learning can influence how people come to use it later in life, including whether they engage in maladaptive use, i.e. firesetting. Little is known about the underlying mechanisms of fire-learning, which was the basis for this study. The research question was: “how do adults educate children about fire in the UK/ Ireland”? The purpose of this study was to explore the child fire education process from an adult perspective.

Semi-structured interviews was conducted with 21 fire-educators who had regular contact with children. Data was analysed using abbreviated grounded theory. Steps were taken to ensure reliability and validity, including a Cohen’s Kappa calculation, indicating an agreement level of 0.9 between two raters.

Four core themes were identified: the fire narrative, enabling growth, risk management, and communication, from which the fire-learning process model (F-LPM) was formed.

The main limitation is the nature of the sample, in that it was diverse and self-selecting.

The findings are discussed, including how they offer support for social learning theory (SLT) perspectives on fire-learning.

The social construction of fire (i.e. the way fire is viewed by society as a whole in the UK/ Ireland) is discussed in depth, and cultural variability is highlighted. Suggestions are made for how the societal view of fire and, consequently, how adults convey this to young people, could be better balanced.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in the UK/ Ireland to consider how adults educate young people about fire from a concurrent perspective. This is important given that research indicates early experiences of fire can impact how people later go on to use it (including maladaptive use in the form of firesetting).

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically affected the fire service: stay-at-home orders and potential exposure hazards disrupted standard fire service operations and incident patterns. The ability to predict incident volume during such disruptions is crucial for dynamic and efficient staff allocation planning. This work proposes a model to quantify the relationship between the increase in “residential mobility” (i.e. time spent at home) due to COVID-19 and fire and emergency medical services (EMS) call volume at the onset of the pandemic (February – May 2020). Understanding this relationship is beneficial should mobility disruptions of this scale occur again.

The analysis was run on 56 fire departments that subscribe to the National Fire Operations Reporting System (NFORS). This platform enables fire departments to report and visualize operational data. The model consists of a Bayesian hierarchical model. Text comments reported by first responders were also analyzed to provide additional context for the types of incidents that drive the model’s results.

Overall, a 1% increase in residential mobility (i.e. time spent at home) was associated with a 1.43% and 0.46% drop in EMS and fire call volume, respectively. Around 89% and 21% of departments had a significant decrease in EMS and fire call volume, respectively, as time spent at home increased.

A few papers have investigated the impact of COVID-19 on fire incidents in a few locations, but none have covered an extensive number of fire departments. Additionally, no studies have investigated the relationship between mobility and fire department call volumes.

In fire safety engineering, the ISO standard fire often represents fire action. Nevertheless, it is often not clear how conservative the ISO standard fire is when compared to natural fires. Thus, numerical research on fires in office buildings was conducted. To assess the severity of the ISO standard fire, the author proposes a simple approach basing on the heat release rate. For two regarded office rooms, artificial heat release curves were established and used as input in the zone model ‘Ozone’. These heat release curves were adjusted in order to match gas temperatures defined by the ISO standard fire. Integration of these curves allows for determining the total energy released by the fire. If this energy is related to the compartment area, it becomes possible to compare the ISO standard fire to natural fires. Results from the limited investigations show that the ISO standard fire becomes more conservative for longer fire duration and that it is quite realistic for offices with moderate opening factors and fire durations of 60 min at most. Contrary, the ISO standard fire tends to be very conservative for offices with higher opening factors.

Looks at the importance of management in fire safety and the range of issues it covers. Covers organisation, procedures, structural provisions, maintenance, staff training, external contractors and tenants. Concludes that all provisions for fire safety ultimately depend on the quality of management.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the challenges faced by occupants and fire fighters during evacuation and rescue operations in high‐rise buildings.

The paper has analysed the published literature for the purpose of identifying and examining the factors that make high‐rise buildings a high‐risk type of facility to fire and the common avenues of fire spread in high‐rise buildings. The paper then investigates a number of evacuation strategies in high‐rise buildings and the set of human factors affecting high‐rise evacuations. It also discusses the challenges that building occupants and fire departments face during a fire emergency.

The paper has established that high‐rise buildings are a high‐risk type of facility in fire emergencies due to a combination of three risk factors. The characteristics of the occupants to consider when designing the means of escape were identified, and the challenges faced by fire fighters during rescue operation in high‐rise fires were classified under five main categories.

The paper provides for an exchange of knowledge, thus facilitating a better comprehension of the roles of designers, building services engineers, facility managers and professionals in safety in the provision and maintenance of safety systems in high‐rise buildings.

In the last few years a number of industrial catastrophes in the Cypriot manufacturing sector have taken place, resulting in losses of millions of Euro and disrupting the industrial production for days and, in a few cases, weeks and months. In the absence of official (or unofficial) statistics regarding the fire preparedness of small and medium enterprises in terms of policy, training and equipment, the purpose of this paper is to gather information and opinions about the current safety situation in the Cypriot manufacturing sector.

Results from a nationwide survey in Nicosia are presented in this paper. A closed questionnaire concentrating on industrial (manufacturing) premises affected and non‐affected by a previous fire incident was devised and used in a weighted sample of companies. An open questionnaire was employed for interviewing the managers of fire‐stricken companies. Four industrial areas in Nicosia are under investigation in this study and results are presented.

The findings of this paper suggest that although, in general, the safety situation is at a relatively good level, there is room for improvement.

This paper discusses the beliefs of the safety managers in relation to safety in their premises and attempts to create a comparison between their opinion and the existing safety cultures in the Cypriot manufacturing sector.