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High-rising buildings are mushrooming across metro cities like Mumbai. While the trend is changing the cityscape and making it more impressive, it also brings with it its share of challenges, which includes fire breakouts. There has been a spate of fire tragedies in the recent past, each of them laying bare the lacunae in the existing fire evacuation measures and egress.
The city's high-rise buildings present unique challenges during fire breakouts; these include factors like rescue time, distance, access to fire department, and fire control. In the event of a fire breakout, evacuation in these multi-storey buildings is almost entirely via staircases. Take the recent case of the fire breakout in Mumbai’s high-rise buildings; it was evident that there was an urgent need for alternate escape paths. At this point of time, a customised fire evacuation lift is an answer to that alternative escape path in a high-rise!
Perhaps, the question on your mind right now is: If the building already has a fire lift and chute, what difference would a fire evacuation lift make? It will make a huge difference. Let’s look at the challenges that come up when a fire breaks out in a high-rise building.
There have been instances when the internal fire-fighting system has failed, forcing fire-fighters to rely on their own equipment. If a fire breaks out on a higher floor that is not within the reach of the fire department's turntable ladders, external support (from outside the building) to control a raging fire is inaccessible, and rescue operations become difficult. Another major challenge confronting the fire department is the city's traffic congestion due to which it takes a long time to arrive at the fire spot.
A fire evacuation lift is able to tackle all these problems that require instant action, speed and has the ability to rescue a large group of people. The contraption can be handled by anyone and not just by a professional.
According to the data shared by the Mumbai Fire Brigade (MFB), the financial capital has witnessed more than 26,000 fire incidents in the past five years. The report also specifies that 324 fires were reported in the city's high-rises alone, between January 2020 and October 2021 period. All these high-rises lacked an operational fire fighting system. This makes it even more imperative to install a fire evacuation lift as it is a practical step towards preventing major loss of life and property.
With cutting-edge technology in place in a fire evacuation lift, when a fire breaks out in the building, a mass notification is sent to the building's fire safety system team/security team, the lift operator, and the nearest fire brigade office. The lift also enables a two-way communication system, which means anyone standing on any floor can communicate with the operator.
Popular options like the fire chute and fire lift have limited features compared to the fire evacuation lift - be it physically or in terms of services. Evacuation of a larger number of people in quick time is not possible with these equipment.
Apart from exhibiting efficiency of a high level, the fire evacuation lift can also be customised to match the design of an existing or new high-rise building. Its cabin is made of non-combustible materials, where the sides have panels filled with ceramic wool that can withstand fire for up to 2 hours, which is of great help during an emergency evacuation of people trapped in a fire. In the event of a power failure, the lift has a 30-minute battery backup.
All these factors contribute to the reputation of the fire evacuation lift as a vertical fire brigade, and rightly so! All should maintain that every high-rise building needs to install a fire evacuation lift. They also need to adopt a multidisciplinary approach to develop practical interventions to increase the use of fire evacuation lifts as in doing so we’ll be able to save so many lives as well as properties. What better reasons do we need than that to rethink the measures we have taken for fire protection till now and replace them with a more effective one?
