Fire Fighting Forces Research Articles

Spatial Resilience to Wildfires through the Optimal Deployment of Firefighting Resources: Impact of Topography on Initial Attack Effectiveness

Strongly affected by the escalating impacts of climate change, wildfires have been increasing in frequency and severity around the world. The primary aim of this study was the development of specific territorial measures—estimating the optimal locations of firefighting resources—to enhance the spatial resilience to wildfires in the fire-prone region of Chalkidiki Prefecture in northern Greece. These measures focus on the resistance to wildfires and the adaptation of strategies to wildfire management, based on the estimation of burn probability, including the effect of anthropogenic factors on fire ignition. The proposed location schemes of firefighting resources such as vehicles consider both the susceptibility to fire and the influence of the topography on travel simulation, highlighting the impact of road slope on the initial firefighting attack. The spatial scheme, as well as the number of required firefighting forces is totally differentiated due to slope impact. When we ignore the topography effect, a minimum number of fire vehicles is required to achieve the maximization of coverage (99.2% of the entire study area) giving priority to the most susceptible regions (that is, employing 18 of 24 available fire vehicles). But when we adopt more realistic conditions that integrate the slope effect with travel time, the model finds an optimal solution that requires more resources (that is, employing all 24 available fire vehicles) to maximize the coverage of the most vulnerable regions within 27 min. This process achieves 80% of total coverage. The proposed methodology is characterized by a high degree of flexibility, and provides optimized solutions to decision makers, while considering key factors that greatly affect the effectiveness of the initial firefighting attack.

Analysis of the Plan to Receive Emergency Fire Response Teams for Large-Scale Disasters in Japan

In the event of large-scale disasters requiring state-level responses in Korea, the Fire Commissioner of the National Fire Agency (NFA) mobilizes the fire-fighting forces from the cities or provinces of the entire country. Korea does not have a suitable system to receive support in disaster-affected cities or provinces. There is, however, a system to support disaster-ravaged cities or provinces in accordance with the fire-fighting force mobilization system under the Framework Act on Fire Services. Unlike Korea, Japan mobilizes registered emergency fire response teams (EFRTs) to address large-scale disasters. In addition, fire departments of all prefectures and municipalities have established plans to receive EFRTs to prepare for large-scale disasters within their jurisdictions. This study analyzes the plan to receive EFRTs when large-scale disasters occur and EFRTs are mobilized in disaster sites in Japan. The receiving plan includes the following: procedure for requesting EFRT mobilization; establishment of a fire support coordination headquarters within the emergency operations headquarters of prefectures; establishment of command headquarters and command support headquarters in municipalities; establishment of air command headquarters in the fire air corps of prefectures; and appointment of the heads of command for support units and command support teams. Additionally, the plan addresses the establishment of advance points, hutment places, fueling stations, command systems, communication operation systems, task assignment systems, and unit movement and withdrawal procedures.

Emergencies in Ukraine: analytical and statistical study

Introduction. Knowledge of the causes and nature of emergencies allows for the early adoption of protective measures with reasonable behaviour to reduce all types of damage significantly. Preliminary information for business structures makes it possible to carry out preventive work, alert forces and means, explain to people the rules of conduct. All business structures and the population must be ready to act in extreme situations, participate in the elimination of natural disasters, accidents and catastrophes, to master the methods of providing first aid to victims. To address these issues, most developed countries in Europe and America have established unique medical systems, the main tasks of responding to emergencies and participating in eliminating health consequences. The purpose of the paper is to study the level of emergencies in Ukraine and develop preventive measures for business structures. Results. In 2020, 116 emergencies were registered in Ukraine, including 40.2% of man-made nature; natural nature – 54.7%; social nature – 5.1%. The human disease was also significantly affected by the COVID-19 coronavirus - 18,680 deaths in 2020. Compared to 2019, the total number of emergencies in 2020 decreased by 20.5%. The analysis showed that the most common sources of man-made emergencies are fires and explosions that occur at industrial facilities, so the authors proposed precautionary measures for business structures, which include measures to address the causes that could lead to the occurrence of fire (explosion), to limit (localize) the spread, to create conditions for the evacuation of people and property, timely detection of fire and notification of it, extinguishing the fire, maintaining the fire fighting forces in constant readiness. Conclusion. The study showed that the number of emergencies is small and can be observed in some species in 2020, but each emergency is a human life, so it is necessary to strive for their number to lead to 0. The proposed measures will allow businesses to anticipate emergencies more effectively.

Design of the Fire Command Vehicle Simulation Operating Software

With the development of computer technology and fire informatization, virtual reality technology is widely used in job training and simulation training of fire fighting forces. Based on the virtual reality technology, studying the function and operation process of the fire command vehicle, and simulating the actual operation of the fire command vehicle by computer, all these can meet the actual demand of the fire command vehicle to the greatest extent. Firstly, the fire command vehicle simulation operating software uses 3DS Max to build a three-dimensional model of the fire command vehicle in the paper. Then, it uses panoramic and interactive technology to design the internal and external panoramic models of the fire command vehicle. Also, the simulation operation of the fire command vehicle panel is realized. Finally, the common faults and solutions of the fire command vehicle are analyzed. The implementation of the software can help the operators learn about the structure of the fire command vehicle and the function of the operation panels in the fire command vehicle and grasp the operation process. It is helpful to deepen the operator’s familiarity with the fire command vehicle and improve the combat effectiveness of the fire force.

Design and Application of Toxic and Harmful Gas Monitoring System in Fire Fighting.

In recent years, fire accidents in petrochemical plant areas and dangerous goods storage ports in China have shown a trend of frequent occurrence. Toxic and harmful gases are diffused in the scenes of these accidents, which causes great difficulties for fire fighting and rescue operations of fire fighting forces, and consequently, casualties of firefighters often occur. In order to ensure the safety of firefighters in such places, this paper designs a monitoring system of toxic and harmful gases specially used in fire fighting and rescue sites of fire forces, and establishes the transmission network, monitoring terminal and data processing software of the monitoring system of toxic and harmful gases, establishing the danger model of the monitoring area of toxic and harmful gas-monitoring terminal, and the danger model of fire fighters’ working area, fusing the field toxic and harmful gas data, terminal positioning data, and field environmental data, designing the data structure of the input data set and the network structure of the RNN cyclic neural network model, and realizing the dynamic early warning of toxic and harmful gases on site.

June 2016 Safety and Health News Summer 2016

June 2016 Safety and Health News Summer 2016

建筑真火模拟训练设施模拟训练模块设计

为有效增强消防部队处置建筑火灾的能力。提高建筑真火模拟训练效果，本文通过理论计算，实地调研提出了一套建筑真火模拟训练设施模拟训练模块设计方案。该方案可以为消防员提供仿真程度高、功能齐全的训练环境，有效提高训练效果。 To effectively enhance the ability of fire fighting forces disposal of building fire and improve the effect of building a fire simulation training, this article through the theoretical calculation and field research put forward a set of building a fire simulation training facilities simulation training module design. The scheme can provide a high degree of simulation; the function is all ready for firefighters training environment and improves the training effect.

Проблемы обеспечения тушения пожаров на объектах энергетики оперативными подразделениями пожарной охраны

A contingency beginning at power facility can result into emergency mode of operation. Amount of fires at power facilities reduces, while direct damage increases. Overall material loss at power facilities mostly forms by large fires consequences. As well indirect damage caused by induced closedown of power facilities can also have social character expressed in large part of population vital abnormality. Fire consequences minimization at power facility should be gained by fire fighting timeliness. Along with fire fighting start time minimization continuity of fire fighting from starting fire fighting agent supply up to fire suppression is fundamental. It implies fire fighting forces and equipment concentration in good supply for fire isolation in size it gained by the time fire fighting initiates. The largest complexity in fire fighting at power facilities is smoke screening of burning and related areas. Limiting factor of fire fighter's residence time in conditions of dangerous fire factors is protective equipment protective power time. It's naturally that it must exceed fire fighting time. Figuring measures of fire fighters at power facilities continued supplying should be conducted as protective power time of protective equipment against dangerous fire factors is less then fire fighting time. Demonstrative fact is that use of respiratory protection equipment increases against the background of reducing number of fires at power facilities. Ensuring fire fighting at power facilities has feature of necessity for power facilities survival and resulting necessity for personnel work capability in case of fire. Therefore timeliness of power facilities fire fighting is possible to achieve by improvement of following directions: 1) providing visibility improvement and reducing exposure to smoke in fire condition of power facilities; 2) fire fighter's life support and operability assurance at power facilities; 3) developing protection methods and protective equipment from fire hazards for fire fighters at power facilities; 4) advancing fire fighter's operational and physical specifications in providing fire fighting at power facilities.

SIN: Multimedia-based teaching tool for computer-supported fire-fighter training

Fire-fighters work under extremely stressful conditions where even their own lives and the lives of potential victims can be at stake. It is clear that there is no room for error and that extensive training is crucial in this regard. In Slovenia the greater part of the fire-fighting force consists of volunteers, whose training must be of the same quality as that of their career colleagues. Fire-fighters receive the bulk of their basic training in-house at their fire departments and by assisting at actual fires. More advanced training is received at special training facilities where the training is divided into a series of relatively short courses consisting of both theoretical and practical parts. This training culminates in a practical exam aimed at demonstrating their acquired knowledge. This article presents a new multimedia-based teaching tool SIN that has been designed for computer-supported theoretical knowledge delivery during fire-fighter training, where the emergency operations are visualised within environments familiar to the trainees. In order to save time the entire scenario is based on photographic images of real places. This application has already been successfully tested and is currently in use by the fire-fighter school at the Administration of the Republic of Slovenia for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief.

The Application of WiMAX and Mesh Network Technology at Fire Communication

In order to solve the problem of communication on the site of disaster for fire fighting forces to implement their duties in the public domain, advanced WiMAX Mesh structure and characteristics are introduced, also Analysis the security solutions scheme of WiMAX and mesh networking technologies in the field of fire communication, satisfy the needs of data scheduling, fixed or mobile video surveillance, vehicle or personnel location ,emergency communications of mobile command vehicles and other business needs for site command.

Russia’s Perfect Firestorm: Climate Adaptation Lessons from the Summer of 2010

Record-high temperatures, drought, and ensuing wildfires devastated Central Russia in the summer of 2010. But even before the temperatures and smog peaked, many started wondering about a possible connection between the natural disaster and climate change. In this paper I view Russia’s response to the 2010 fires (prevention and suppression) through the lens of climate adaptation. Namely, I examine the damage from the fires, as well as how the causes of the fires connect to climate change. Additionally, I review Russia’s response to the forest fires and analyze the legal and policy framework that served as the foundation for the response. Finally, after summarizing the results of my inquiry, I examine the Russian government’s policy response to the 2010 fires with a particular focus on amendments to the Forestry Code and the new Federal Law, “On Volunteer Firefighting Force.”

Construction of explanatory fire-loss model for buildings

This study focuses on investigating the affecting factors and constructing an explanatory model for fire losses. The research was carried out using a series of questionnaires and official reports. A total of 918 cases of residential building fires in Taiwan from January 1998 to February 2002 are examined. The contents of the investigations include attributes of occupants and building fire safety, time and spatial attributes of fire occurrence, fire development and egress, fire brigade interventions and the resulting fire losses. Using factor analysis, correlation analysis, regression analysis and path analysis, significant factors that have been identified, including degree of fire severity, dispatched fire-fighting forces, control time, degree of difficulty of fire egress, partition structure, time of fire occurrence, accessibility and conditions of fire-fighting and situations of escape routes are conceptualized and examined. The relative weights of importance among these factors on fire losses are analyzed as well. Connecting the identified significant factors by time sequence of fire occurrence and development, an explanatory model is proposed to explain fire loss for residential building.

Research on Urban Fire Risk Comprehensive Evaluation and Its Applications in China

ABSTRACT With the urbanization of China, the fire risk in urban areas is increasing. Thus an evaluation of the fire risk is necessary. This article analyzes the main factors influencing the city fire risk in China. The index system of city fire risk evaluation is constructed by various techniques. The mathematical model is established under the comprehensive assessment theory of fuzzy mathematics. The response time of fire departments corresponding to different risk regions is determined on the basis of risk evaluation. In the end the fire station coverage is calculated according to the response time. The evaluation results not only provide basic information for decision-making such as performance-based design of fire stations and city planning of fire protection, but also offer a theoretical foundation for optimizing fire fighting forces in cities.

Study on Decision Support System for Extinguishing Priority Order in Earthquake Fire Based on Spreading Fire Analysis

Simultaneous occurrence of fires is one of the characteristics in an earthquake. Fire-fighting activities according to the extinguishing priority are important in order to minimize the damage, because the capacity of fire-fighting force is limited. In this study, the system to assign the order of extinguishing priority to the houses on fire is developed, in which the damage such as the number of collapsed houses, household units and burnt area is to be minimized. Based on the simulation of urban spreading fire using Petri-net, the order of extinguishing priority is determined by the comparison of effect by extinguishment of each house on fire. The movements of spreading fire and the effect by extinguishment, which change with time, can be expressed visually.

Spatial Optimization of Resources Deployment for Forest‐Fire Management

The main objective of forest‐fire management is to minimize the damage caused by forest fires. This may be achieved by deploying fire‐fighting forces in critical locations so as to detect fires as early as possible and quickly dispatch an initial attack force that can control them while they are small. Empirical studies have identified several factors that affect the development of a forest fire. In the present study, a methodology is employed to classify regions within a forest area according to these factors. The classification is based on information provided by a Geographic Information System (GIS). This information is then passed on to a spatial optimization model that determines the optimal location of fire‐fighting resources. A maximal covering model is employed that takes into account the classification of regions by varying coverage in regions of different class. The method has been applied to the area of Parnitha, near Athens.

Non-autonomous coloured Petri net-based methodology for the dispatching process of urban fire-fighting

This paper presents the main features of our approach to the study of the dispatching process of urban fire-fighting. A new non-autonomous coloured Petri net (NCPN) method is developed and a corresponding simulation experiment is also carried out towards the practical process. Based on an extensive analysis of the urban fire-fighting process, the basic concept of discrete event dynamic systems as well as Petri net theory is introduced. In this way, the NCPN method is extended and applied to set up systematic simulation model. It enables the modelling and simulation analysis for the dispatching process of the Shanghai 119 Command Center. Statistical analysis has also been completed involving the three aspects “object, resource and activity” for 13563 fires which took place in the Shanghai Municipality from 1992 to 1997. It furnishes the corresponding key parameters and key random variable models. Under a background of the practical dispatching process of fire-fighting in the Shanghai Municipality, the relevant simulation system is built up by means of software development. The simulation experiments are made to analyze systematically the simulation environment and the model behaviour of the dispatching process. Various sorts of residential fire objects have been tested, in which the Zhenru Fire Station is taken as the fire-fighting force and residential fire cases are randomly generated in the simulation experiment

Military-Civilian Collaboration for Disaster Medicine in Israel (Discussion Comment)

The only organization presently capable of responding immediately to a mass casualty situation in peacetime in Israel would be the Israeli Defense Forces. They have available the necessary means, organization, trained manpower and equipment. If a state of emergency would be proclaimed in the state of Israel in case of a major earthquake or similar disaster, in any part of the country, the chief military commander would be in charge. His army would take command over that area. All the other civilian institutions concerned with the care of casualties, including fire fighting forces, police and hospitals, would come under his command. With the military in charge, the response would be much shorter. The chief military commander would proclaim a state of emergency if he feels that it is warranted.