China's high-rise building fire in 2010

Abstract : This paper introduces the process of making and revising China's high-rise building fire protection design code , analyzes the characteristics of China's high-rise building fire protection codes and related fire supervision and management regulations , analyzes three typical high-rise building fires since the reform and opening up , and introduces the Chinese government and fire departments to improve Measures taken in the fire safety level of high-rise buildings.

Keywords : high-rise buildings ; laws and regulations ; firefighting

Affected by the global financial crisis, many of the world's large-scale construction projects have been shut down, however, in China's Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and even many medium and small cities, but more and more are being built high-rise buildings. In Shanghai , the Shanghai Center Tower , which is investing 2.2 billion U.S. dollars, is under construction . After completion in 2014 , this 632 m The tall skyscraper will become the tallest building in China. Observers predict that China will build no fewer than 50,000 high-rise buildings in the next 20 years .

Since the reform and opening up, China's rapid economic development, high-rise buildings have sprung up across the country, from individual single building in the development of a modern city in the forest of high-rise buildings, some high-rise buildings has become a symbol of China's emerging cities. According to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security Fire Department statistics, as of the end of 2009, mainland China has a total of about 190 000 high-rise buildings, including about 125 000 residential buildings and nearly 70 000 office buildings, hotels and hospitals and other public buildings, which is a height of 1 699 More than 100 m .

Completed in 2008 Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC) high 492m, covers an area of 381 600 m2, it is the highest Chinese architecture. 2007 August 14, Shanghai World Financial Center occurred inadvertently during construction due to welding work the fire, the fire quickly upward from the 26th floor, spread down both directions, leading to include 83, 52, 50, 26, 18 and 2 Simultaneous combustion of 6 floors. Thanks to scientific and reasonable high-rise building emergency rescue plans, drills and advanced fire-fighting vehicle equipment , the Shanghai Public Security Fire Fighting Team successfully extinguished the fire 71 minutes after the fire.

1 Technical specifications and laws and regulations

With the growing number of large high-rise landmark buildings, the Chinese government, especially the fire department supervision and standardize the preparation of the unit, architects, engineers and technicians of fire safety in high-rise building more and more attention, a lot of research work carried out, and continue to strengthen Fire supervision law enforcement.

December 8, 1982, as GBJ China's first national high-rise building fire code 45-82 "tall buildings for fire protection design (Trial)" (hereinafter referred to as "high regulation") issued, and in June 1983 It will be implemented on the 1st . The Code is divided into 8 chapters : General ; Building Classification and Fire Rating ; General Plane Layout and Plane Arrangement ; Fire and Smoke Prevention Zones and Building Constructions ; Safety Evacuation and Fire Fighting Elevators ; Fire Fighting Water and Fixed Fire Extinguishing Devices ; Prevention, Smoke, and Ventilation , air conditioning ; electrical. According to the specification , "high-rise buildings" can be defined according to the number of floors and heights. For residential buildings , buildings with 10 floors or more are high-rise buildings ; for public buildings , buildings with a height of 24 m or more are high-rise buildings. High-rise industrial buildings and other industrial buildings are not suitable for this specification , but should implement the “Code for Fire Protection of Architectural Design”.

During the drafting of the “High Regulations” , the regulators conducted in-depth studies of high-rise building fires in various countries around the world—including the 792 fires in the city of Sao Paulo, which caused 227 deaths in 1974 , and the United States , which caused 84 deaths in 1980 . Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel Fire. At the same time , it also carried out research and reference on NFPA 101 "Safety of Life" and relevant standards and norms of the former Soviet Union, France, Germany and Japan. The 1982 version of "High Regulations" was an important milestone in the fire safety of high-rise buildings in China . Many of its contents have become the basic principles of fire safety for high-rise buildings in China. The code emphasizes the importance of fire safety in high-rise buildings , introduces advanced concepts of fire safety and fire prevention and control , and highlights various fire safety measures that should be taken during the construction phase of high-rise buildings. 1995, 1999, and 2001 and 2005, the specifications were revised, not only to learn the lessons of high-rise building fire, but also reflects the new fire scientific and technological developments, so as to effectively promote the high-rise building fire safety level upgrade .

One of the most important revisions of the "High Regulations" is the installation requirements for automatic sprinkler systems. The 1982 version of the "High Regulations" only required "important" buildings , such as hospitals, department stores, and high-class hotels , such as the stage, auditorium, exhibition halls, multi-purpose halls, and other public activities, walkways, and warehouses. Automatic fire sprinkler systems are installed , and the 2005 version of the “high regulations” requires that all public high-rise buildings, especially high-rise buildings with recreational facilities, must be fully equipped with automatic sprinkler systems.

While establishing and revising the "High Regulations" and other relevant standards for fire safety standards , China has also strengthened its legislation on fire safety management. October 1, 1984 implementation of the "People's Republic of China Fire Services Ordinance" provides that:. "New, design and construction of the expansion and renovation project, the relevant authorities must implement the provisions of the State Council on the architectural design code for fire protection," according to September 1, 1998 The "Fire Protection Law of the People's Republic of China" implemented daily shall be submitted to the public security fire control agency for review and approval of the fire engineering design drawings and related information of the construction project . Construction shall be carried out only upon approval of the inspection. This provision effectively reduces the fire risk of high-rise buildings. May 1, 2009, the newly revised "People's Republic of China Fire Law", the new "Fire Act" for building fire protection design review carried out a major reform, only large gathering places staff and special construction to be approved by the local fire department , other buildings only need to report to the fire department and receive spot checks. The main purpose of this reform is to emphasize the construction units, design units, the main responsibility for fire safety in construction, project supervision units.

The main disadvantage of the "high regulation" is that it is only applicable to newly constructed, reconstructed and expanded high-rise buildings . For existing buildings, there is no "retroactive" requirement for fire protection systems such as refuelling sprinkler systems. At the same time , there is an urgent need to formulate rules or standards for fire safety management of high-rise buildings.

2 high-rise building fire

Although the high-rise building fire statistics before 2000 were not systematic and perfect , several typical high-rise building fires have still been vividly remembered. China attracted wide attention from the first high-rise building fire occurred in April 18, 1985 night, Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province Swan Hotel fire, a fire in the 11th floor. The 14- story frame - shear wall building is 64 m long , 15 m wide , 47 m high , and a building area of 17,814 m2 . The fire caused the death of 10 people , including 6 foreigners, and the cause of the fire was that Americans living in room 1116 smoked in bed after drinking. After being awakened by fire and smoke, he fled the scene . He neither closed the door nor promptly called away the neighbors to escape. The fire quickly spread to the hallway, 23:40, a Japanese guest room across from the fire found that fire lived in room 1123, immediately after the wake escape with several other guests in the same layer. Other guests on the 11th floor were not so lucky, before the fire brigade arrived at the scene, nine guests because he could not stand the fireworks smoked and jumped to his death from the 11th floor. As the fire grew , the Swan Hotel fell into panic and confusion. To at 00:37 on the 19th, Harbin City Fire Brigade was received their first fire alarm --- this time has occurred for over an hour. Alarm Harbin City Fire Brigade quickly dispatched 34 fire engines, 115 firefighters, area of responsibility squadron arrived at the scene after the alarm 6 min, successfully rescued 19 guests, 2:14, the fire was completely extinguished.

The fire investigation revealed a series of causes of the heavy casualties caused by the fire. First of all , because the hotel was designed and constructed prior to the promulgation of the "High Regulations" in 1982 , no automatic sprinkler system was installed . Second , because the partitions between rooms and corridors and between rooms were only masonry to ceiling , the ceilings were The space was completely penetrated horizontally , causing the fire to quickly spread through the air-conditioning system to the corridors and other rooms . Third , the fire safety management of the Swan Hotel was chaotic and there was no organized fire emergency evacuation emergency drill.

2008 January 2, Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has occurred since the founding of New China, the most serious economic losses rise building fire. Dehui International Plaza is a comprehensive building integrating large wholesale markets and office buildings . The fire engulfed Dehui International Plaza and the adjacent Dehui Hotel . It was extinguished after 27 hours of combustion , resulting in a total of three firefighters and Two civilians died . The direct property loss of fire was 300 million yuan.

Dehui International Plaza is a reinforced concrete structure that is connected by several large high-rise buildings of different body sizes and heights. When the fire broke ongoing Phase III construction of the Dorsey International Plaza, in the immediate vicinity of the building built in two rows, with a total area of about 2 000 m2 of temporary shops, the accumulation of large quantities of goods taking up fire exits, a serious impediment during a fire Fire trucks pass. Dorsey hotel is a 18-story reinforced concrete building is connected by a corridor with 8 layers of wholesale Dehui International Plaza II, 7 layer 2, layer 3 Dorsey hotel also has a wholesale market.

20:25, Urumqi City Police Fire Brigade after receiving fire immediately started the high-rise building fire emergency plan to mobilize 18 fire engines and 61 firefighters three fire squadron rushed to the scene. 20 : 30 : After receiving the report , the Urumqi Public Security Fire Brigade Detachment Commander immediately instructed the reinforcements of the 6 fire squadrons , including the 2 special squadrons, to reinforce the reinforcements. 20 : 33 when the station location is at 2 km When the fire squadron of the area outside the jurisdiction reached 8 fire engines and 25 firefighters arrived , the fire scene was in disarray . The flame quickly spread and engulfed some of the corridors of Dehui International Plaza . A large number of people were trapped in the corridor and Dehui Hotel. Due to the high concentration of combustible materials in shopping malls and warehouses , and the large fire load , and the continuous explosion of flammable and explosive materials such as mousse, hairspray, and gas lighter gas cylinders , the fire has been exacerbated , making it more difficult to save fires. Upon arrival, the squadron in the area immediately organized a force to control the fire to save people and successfully evacuated 120 trapped people from the Dehui Hotel .

20 : 49 , Urumqi Public Security Fire Brigade on duty took the lead and set up an on-site command. 20:55, Urumqi City Police Fire Brigade commander after arrival, the rapid progress of the fire and fire fighting assess, at the same time requires firefighters to rescue people trapped, the fire spread to other parts of the water by ladder trucks and artillery water control. To 21:05, the scene has more than 430 firefighters and 84 units of various types of fire vehicles --- including a 54 m Lift trucks , 2 vehicles 40 m Straight arm ladder , 1 car 32 m Platform fire truck , 1 car 20 m Straight arm ladder , 5 units 16 m High jet car, two special Jaguar airport fire engines, two dedicated T3000 airport fire engines, 18 fire engines and heavy-duty foam, 27 heavy tank fire engines, 14 light tank fire engines, eight rescue vehicles, 2 equipment support vehicle, a communications command vehicle, as well as 10 municipal water truck, six bulldozers, dump truck tonnage of 8 NTU and two ambulances.

21:15, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Fire Corps Commander arrived at the scene to determine the "save first, to ensure that key, to control the spread of fire," the fire operational policy, the government launched emergency rescue linkage mechanism to mobilize all available fire fighting and rescue Forces participate in firefighting operations.

While growing field fighting force, but the fire continued to spread,