A fire escape is a special type of emergency exit, usually installed outside the building or sometimes inside but separate from the main area of ââthe building. It provides a method of escaping in the event of a fire or other emergency that makes the stairs inside the building inaccessible. Fire escape is most commonly found in multi-storey residential buildings, such as apartment buildings. At one time, they were a very important aspect of fire safety for all new construction in urban areas; recently, however, they have fallen out of common usage. This is due to an increase in building codes that combine fire detectors, sophisticated firefighting equipment, which includes better communications and fire truck ladder trails, and more importantly fire sprinklers. International building codes and other authoritative institutions have included fire sprinklers into multi-storey buildings under 15 floors and not just skyscrapers.
The firefighters consist of a number of horizontal platforms, one in each story of the building, with stairs or ladders connecting them. Platforms and stairs are usually an open steel grille, to prevent the buildup of ice, snow, and leaves. Fences are usually provided at each level, but since fire escape is designed for emergency use only, this fence often does not need to meet the same standards as fencing in other contexts. The stairs from the lowest level of fire escape to the ground may be repaired, but more commonly swing on the hinges or glide along the track. Movable designs allow residents to safely reach the ground in case of fire but prevent people from accessing fire exits from the ground at a later time (such as robbery or vandalism).
Getting out of the inside of the building onto the fire escape may be provided by a fire exit, but in many cases the only way out is through the window. When there is a door, it is often equipped with a fire alarm to prevent other use of fire escape, and to prevent unauthorized entry. Since many firefighters were built before the advent of electronic fire alarms, firefighters in older buildings often had to be fitted with alarms for this purpose.
An alternative form of the rapid-out fire escape developed in the early 1900s was a long canvas tube hanging under a large funnel outside the tall building windows. A person who runs away from a fire will slide down to the inside of the tube, and can control the speed down by pushing out the tube wall with their hands and feet. This escape tube can be quickly deployed from windows and hanging to the street level, even though it's big and big to be kept inside the building.
The modern type of evacuation shift is the vertical spiral outlet, which is a common means of evacuation for buildings and other structures.
Video Fire escape
Histori
One of the first fire escapes of any kind was discovered in the 18th century in England. In 1784, Daniel Maseres, from England, discovered a machine called a fire escape, which, tied to a window, would allow a person to come down the street unscathed. Abraham Wivell created an enhanced design, including an outlet, after being the superintendent of the "Royal Society for Protection of Life from Fire". Henry Vieregg patented the first US fire brigade on the Grand Island, NE on November 8, 1898. US. Patent 614.043 , serial number 681.672, designed for traveling entrepreneurs.
When building codes became more common in countries around the turn of the 20th century, fire safety was an important concern for new construction. Building owners are increasingly required to provide adequate escape routes, and at that time, fires seem to be the best option available. Not only can it be included in new construction at low cost, but they can be easily added to existing construction. When building codes evolved and more safety issues were addressed in subsequent editions, all constructions above certain stories were required to have a second means of exit, and an external fire escape was allowed as a retrofit option for buildings that existed before the post-World War II period.
In the 1930s, closed tubular firefighting firefighters became widely accepted for schools, hospitals and other institutions replacing open iron staircases. The main advantage is that people will have no reason to use it other than for firefighters and patients can fall into the fire in their beds.
However, with urban sprawl and an increase in the number of constructions in the mid-twentieth century, in particular the increase in public housing in major cities in the United States and Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, certain problems with fire escape became apparent. In the poorer areas of cities like Chicago and New York, emergency stairs are usually used for everything except the intended purpose.
In the hot summer months, the inhabitants of the middle-rise apartment buildings will sleep outside on their fire escape stage. Such a situation triggered the plot premise of Cornell Woolrich's 1947 short story, "The Boy Cried Murder", of a fleeing boy, who one night witnessed a murder in a neighboring apartment; this story was filmed as the tension thriller The Window (1949). The practice of sleeping on the fire escape can also be seen in the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock movie Rear Window (also based on Woolrich's short story), as well as Weegee's photography of the Lower East Side). The blurred vision of the fire made them a constant motif in the noir movie, and the balcony scenes of Romeo and Juliet were diverted to the emergency stairs for West Side Story musicals.
Installation of window air conditioners in each apartment unit with windows that block fire, often attached to the local code or regulations by residents, requiring the unit to be attached to a window sash, also makes the fire escape almost useless in the summer; the number and weight of air conditioning units pushed up or above the emergency stairs in an emergency also creates additional hazards for firefighters and evacuation personnel.
Boston Herald American Photographers Stanley Forman won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for a Fire Escape Collapse photo that captured two girls plunged from the wrong fire escape during the Boston fire of 1975, and a controversial picture produced a security code fires more tightly in some jurisdictions.
Maps Fire escape
High fire high
When buildings are built higher and higher, new ideas for breaking away have gained popularity. Elevators, though traditionally not used as fire escapes, are now considered as possible evacuations for skyscrapers and skyscrapers. Other high-level alternative fire-stop solutions include parachutes, foldable external elevators, and slides.
Residential
The use of firefighting is determined by various local, state, and internationally agreed building codes, such as the standards provided by the International Code Board (ICC), International Building Code (IBC) or International Energy Conservation Code . Both IBC 2012 and IRC 2012 require emergency escape and rescue openings for residential buildings 4 floors or less, in sleeping and basement rooms with habitable spaces, for emergency exit facilities. Fire can be a window, and if it is above the first floor with an approved staircase, or a door leading to a terrace with a ground access or an emergency staircase. Federal regulations, such as the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), have requirements that follow the ICC code.
In the literature
The escape of fire is often regarded as one of the important symbols in the drama The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. His name is said to be "a touch of deliberate poetic truth, because all these great buildings are always burning with desperate despair and despair of humans." At certain points in the drama, fire escape even accentuates characteristic characters. Tom, the character most related to the fire escape, appeared on it more often than the others. In most of his performances on the run of fire, he moved from the apartment, a gesture that showed his yearning to plunge into the outside world, escaping trouble at home.
See also
- ANSI/ISEA 110-2003
References
External links
- An Escape, and Retreat: The Home in the Sky Binds the Environment by David W. Chen, New York Times , August 15, 2004.
- ICC Code
Source of the article : Wikipedia