Necessary Fire Preventive measures in Malls and Retails
Shopping malls are the luxurious and leisure way to get out of the busy and hectic life. But, recently, we have witness number of fire accident cases in commercial complexes, worldwide, that lead to a tragic loss of human life. Although malls and retail stores with high density of crowd are bounded to follow the National Fire Safety Standards and all the required safety measures, Fire is an uninvited guest that should be prevented from the root.
In places like malls and retail stores, where we find number of different brands, including food chains, representing themselves, it is difficult to stop the spread of fire once it erupts. The only defensive measure that can be taken is to prevent it from occurring.
Preventive Measures:
Fire Safe Design Consideration
Designing a safe shopping mall or retail stores takes a lot of challenge. They should be able to use most of the place commercially with attractive designs while maintaining the safety standards. An airport mall design with good ventilation and smoke extraction system enables a safe escape for people during accidents. Having an open environment makes it easy and visible way for fire fighters to evacuate people with less risk of smoke and gas inhalation.
Fire control systems
The most common safety measure is ensuring a fire suppression system installed in the mall. With increase in the capacity of the mall the type of fire control system changes. As the place is issued to different commercial brands including food and restaurant chains, the risk of fire increases and the type of control system that should be used changes with the type. Fire Control system that is installed in the mall should be advanced and be able to restrict the fire as soon as possible minimizing the danger of life. Fire Extinguishers should be installed at every floor and should be accessible to the public.
Fire safety curtains
Shopping malls are often built to bring different brands altogether at a single place. As the places in malls are closely packed, safety measures should be taken to avoid the spread of fire from one shop to other. Fire Safety Curtains are one such preventive measure that slow the spread of fire giving the time for the safety service to come into action. These constraints the damage to a single shop reducing the loss.
Emergency Escape
With the increase in the capacity of mall, the risk of evacuating people increases. It only gets easier when safety is ensured from the core of designing the mall planning different fire escapes and emergency exits all around the mall. People should be able to know where to run when an accident is occurred. The emergency exit should be easily accessible for everyone and properly guided out.